arches and pilasters, to which the architect has added idiosyncratic detailing including Romanesque dentils in the arches, French Renaissance eaves and chimney corbels, and Aesthetic Movement column capitals under the entry arch. The tower has banded patterns of slate. The entry steps are in black slate. The floors of the veranda and entry are elaborately patterned in tessellated tiles. The interiors are decorated with fine joinery, likely cedar, in the grandly scaled skirtings, doors, windows and the main stair case that has helix-shaped balustrade and newel posts that reference the columns under the entry arch. The joinery is simpler within the service wings and tower. All the cornices are moulded plaster profiles. Decorative cast plaster is featured in the consoles, decorative panels and colonnettes under the arches, and also in the ceiling roses. The ceilings are commonly lath and plaster, but the drawing rooms have a shallow pattern that may be pressed metal. The marble mantelpieces are commonly white, with a dark grey in the dining room, typical of those constructed in Australia using imported stone, coloured tiles and cast iron grates. Stables and gardens The stables are extensively altered within, but retain their external form seen from the east and north. The gardens retains some typical Victorian period landscape devices. The oval-shaped driveway and garden bed on the east side of the house (not included in the curtilage) give a formal sense of arrival. This shape is repeated in the eastern lawn with its original steps, arranged on an axis from the front door. The massive scale of araucarias is used as landmark planting, featuring Norfolk Island pines. The camphor laurel south-east of the house is likely to have been planted by the Hordern Family. The Victorians' love of exotic plant collections is demonstrated by cold climate trees such as blue deodar cedar, and deciduous trees such as oak (Quercus petraea), elm (Ulmus glabra), which contrast with warm climate plants such as Strelitzia nicolai. The palm groves are typically Victorian as a collection of many species arranged like a tropical forest, but they were likely planted in the Federation period. Key species include jelly palm (Butia capitata), Canary Island palm (Phoenix canariensis), cabbage palm (Livistona australis), Chinese fan palm (Livistona chinensis), kentia and curly palms (Howea forsteriana and Howea belmoreana), Bangalow palm (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana), windmill palm (Tracycarpus fortunei), and California fan palm (Washingtonia filifera). Condition As at 10 September