History

The Bible Garden was originally land belonging to Aboriginal people. It is not easy to identify the language that the local people spoke. Aboriginal people used a different language depending on where they lived. The country was divided into small areas of land, by the different language groups, tribes, or nations. Today, the subject of language is debated because many different maps can be found, and no map can be the true one.

The Aboriginal people who frequented the area around Pittwater and West Head lived a rich life in this beautiful area. The coast provided an abundant food supply.  Men and women were highly skilled at fishing from the shore and from canoes. Fish was the staple diet, including shellfish (oysters), whelks and mussels.  Other food sources included birds, reptiles, marsupials, roots, fruits, berries, and nuts.

Some traces of Aboriginal heritage remain in the area, including middens, axe-grinding grooves, cave art sites and rock engravings.

Captain James Cook recorded in his log passing Broken Bay in 1770. In May 1788 Governor Phillip sailed The Sirius, a vessel of the First Fleet, north along the coast from Port Jackson, past Palm Beach and into Broken Bay, seeking suitable land for cultivation to feed the one thousand souls who had travelled across the world with him in their tiny ships.

They encountered Aboriginal people, some in canoes, who appeared interested and approached the strangers. The water colour below depicts the two peoples apparently communicating.

Little did the Aboriginal people know that within a couple of decades some of the land would no longer be considered theirs. In 1816 400 acres (160 ha.), which included the Palm Beach peninsula and Whale Beach was granted by the Crown to the surgeon James Napper provided he cleared and cultivated 45 acres (10.5 ha.) within five years.

The Napper grant remained virtually intact, except for the government resuming Barrenjoey and the sand dunes, until 1900 when several businessmen bought the remainder of the estate, subdivided the land, and put it to auction. Only one block sold although another auction twelve years later, when roads to the area had improved, brought better results.

Gerald Hercules Robinson was born in Dundee, Natal, South Africa in 1893 and spent much of his early life in orphanages with his sister Eileen as their mother had died shortly after he was born and their father left to fight in the Boer War.

The children’s father eventually returned, remarried and took his family to England. Sadly Gerald did not get on with his stepmother and, in 1908 when he was only 15 years old, one of his aunts gave him 25 pounds to emigrate to Australia.

A resourceful young man his first job was jackerooing on various properties around NSW, and then enlisted in the AIF as a private to fight in England and France. He had a distinguished war record and was awarded the Military Medal for Bravery at Ypres in 1917.

Returning to Australia Mr Robinson started a business with some war buddies and married Violet Harrison in 1922. They had five children, four sons and a daughter.

Gerald Robinson was always a devout Christian and very active in St David’s Church of England, Palm Beach and the Healing Ministry at St Andrews Cathedral, Sydney.

World War II found him back in the army for several years but in 1943 he was able to resume his business activities in Sydney.

Mr Robinson purchased the Bible Garden block in 1957, with no particular purpose in mind, but soon decided that ‘this glorious view of creation was too lovely for a house’. He then heard about a Bible garden in the grounds of Bangor Cathedral in North Wales established by Professor Tatum Whitehead. After visiting Bangor Cathedral in 1963 he was inspired to create one on his land at Palm Beach.

Already in his seventies, Mr Robinson commenced work establishing the garden devoted to plants in the Bible’s Old and New Testaments and did most of the initial work of terracing the steep land and creating garden beds himself.

The Palm Beach Bible Garden was designed and planned in a similar fashion to the Welsh Bible garden, with plantings laid out in biblical chronological order, commencing with plants at the top of the slope mentioned in the book of Genesis and ending with a plant at the lowest point of the site representing immortality, Helichyrisum oriental.

Of the 148 plants mentioned in the Old and New Testaments, it is believed 143 were planted by Gerald Robinson in the Bible Garden. Plants were given numbered markers and keyed to a 15-page brochure he compiled.

Over the centuries there have been many different interpretations as to what the exact plants are which are mentioned in the Bible. Many people believed that the fruit which the serpent tempted Eve with was an apple but research has now shown it to be an apricot. What’s known as the Rose of Sharon is in fact Hibiscus Syriacus. This has led to some confusion and much debate between biblical scholars and others.

Beatrice Robinson, known as Bea, studied theology at Sydney University and was ordained a deaconess in 1965. She had strong views regarding the ordination of woman as priests and declared, in 1989, ‘it was a much needed reform, appropriate at this time’ and ‘If the church wanted to accept me as a priest I would accept immediately’.

At the time of her father’s death Bea lived in the cottage, Tree Tops, built for her by her father underneath the elevated section of the concrete driveway to the north of the Bible Garden. She divided her time between the garden and her duties as a deaconess at St David’s.

Following Beatrice’s death her four brothers became trustees. During the following years members of the Robinson family and friends maintained the garden supported by donations which paid for lawn mowing. Barbara Robinson, wife of Gerald Lacey Robinson, served as curator 1994-2004.

In 1999, after much deliberation, the trustees agreed to sell the site unless a viable alternative was put forward by any of Gerald’s direct descendants. In 2000 the trustees received a land tax assessment but upon appeal it was withdrawn, however, they considered that the possibility of future land tax liability and the burden of maintaining the elevated driveway and cottage posed intolerable problems for the continuation of the dual Bible Garden and residential uses of 6 Mitchell Road.

Finally in 2004 Council entered into a Heads of Agreement with the trustees and the subdivision application was lodged with Pittwater Council in November 2000 and approved in April 2005.

Meanwhile supporters of the Bible Garden had obtained incorporation of ‘Friends of the Bible Garden Memorial’ under the Associations Incorporation Act 1984. Membership grew and by the end of 2004 there were 127 memberships of the Friends, representing about 169 people (due to family memberships).

An active Friends group was critical to saving the Bible Garden as gardening and maintenance would be provided by the Friends, easing the financial burden of Council as landowner.

A number of concepts were debated with the Friends and Council and in 2010 Paul Scrivener, landscape architect, was awarded the contract to design and oversee the restoration works. By that time few, if any, of the original small Biblical plants had survived although some major trees had.

Planted by Gerald Robinson in the 1960s, and still standing proud in the garden, are two stone pines (pinus pinea), two carob trees, an oak (quercis ilex), a weeping willow (salix babylonia), a crab apple (malus sp.) and some vigorous grapevines.

Saturday 29th September 2012, the renovated Bible Garden was officially opened by Professor Marie Bashir, Governor of N.S.W. Present were a number of local dignitaries, plus members of the  Friends of the Bible Inc. and other visitors.

Whether it be a wedding, naming ceremony, bible groups,  local artists, all are welcome to contemplate the sheer beauty of nature. Income from bookings and donations go towards the upkeep and plants of the Bible Garden.