garden walls forming a series of informal grassed and cultivated terraces where ornamental trees and shrubs were placed. Linking these terraces were a series of paths and steps. Urns, a fountain, grotto and gazebo (thought to have come from the demolished "Royal Palace" across the road) were added. By the 1940s the landscape around the college was well established with a mixture of exotic and native species. The exotic plantings to the south and the open pasture like qualities to the north were designed to ensure that the building dominated the site and its surrounds. The original prospectus for the college highlighted the Sisters' progressive educational philosophy, curriculum, the therapeutic benefits of the location and the grandeur of the college. The college included an infant school and kindergarten, a middle school and the college which provided University classes to prepare students for entry to Arts, Science, Medicine, and Law or Teaching Training. The college prospered as an educational establishment through all the economic, political and social permutations of two World Wars. In 1923 the college sold a series of subdivided blocks including its tennis courts, which were purchased by Katoomba Council. Also sold at this time was the cottage "The Rocks" which had been relocated to the north east corner of the property. In 1926 Mount St Mary's celebrated its silver jubilee and in commemoration a grotto was built in the front garden of the convent, housing a Carrara marble statue of Our Lady of Lourdes. The eight-foot cross on the roof of the tower was illuminated in 1938, and was widely visible. When Australia and the Allies declared war on Japan on 9 December 1941, there were fears for those living and working in close proximity to Sydney Harbour. St Vincent's Convent, which was near warships in the harbour, transferred the novices, postulants and the boarders temporarily to Katoomba. In 1957, when devastating bushfires gutted much of the township of Leura, the college temporarily housed some of the Sisters and juniors from the Little Company of Mary, Leura, and other members of the Mountains community left homeless by the fires. Apart from the perceived dangers of city living, the War years drew parents' attention to the safety of the Mountains and led to an increase in enrolments at the college. Works commenced in 1946 on a four-storey extension to the original building to accommodate the increased demand. In 1965