This three-bedroom brick and weatherboard house was built around 1889 by the Wallarah Coal-mining Company to house its mine employees.
Nana Freer and family were the first remembered occupants of this brick miner’s cottage built in 1889.
Ted and Alice Smith (formerly a Darcy) moved from Mine Camp into number 5 with their family of 4 girls and 2 boys. Youngest daughter Shirley was born in the house so the family must have been living in the house before 1940.Smith was the name given to Ted by the Company. He was Maltese and the surname was Sicluna. Children married and left home (youngest brother Teddy was killed in a car accident in Middle Camp in 1954).
The Coal Company ‘Coal & Allied’ subdivided some of its land in 1964 and determined that this house and land be purchased by Mrs D Hardes for 350 pounds. The width at the front of the land was over 66 feet and at the rear 72 feet and 7 inches. The length of the property was 165 feet and 3/8 inches.
Dorothy the second youngest of the Smith family married Mr Hardes in1965 and he moved into the house. A daughter Maree was born a year later. This house had three bedrooms and was able to accommodate parents, child and sister. Mr Hardes died in1976.
Dr Geoffrey Whyte and Suzanne Whyte purchased for $156.000 No 5 Clarke St from Dorothy Hardes in1998. After renovation and a rear extension the Whyte family moved in in1998.
The Lake Macquarie City Council had wanted the rear extension to step down the land, however, a few months after purchase; Geoffrey was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Realising that he would need to be in a wheelchair in the future, it was negotiated that the extension could be on the same level as the old section. This gave enough room for a room underneath. So that this could not be a two-storey addition the downstairs section was cantilevered.
Between number 5 Clarke Street and number 7 Clarke Street a courthouse was squeezed in 1906.The Swansea courthouse had been dismantled and re-erected in Catherine Hill Bay. During the Great Depression of the 20s and30s the presence of the courthouse might account for the large number of shacks or ‘batches’ that were to be found in Moonee and Catherine Hill Bay. The dole was collected from the courthouse. The courthouse was closed in 1936