There
were originally two Bondi mermaids who sat on the Big Rock at Ben Buckler.
The Big Rock is a 235-tonne boulder at Ben Buckler, on the northern headland
of Bondi Beach, which was believed to have been thrown up by heavy seas on
15 July 1912. Because the mermaids used to sit there this rock is also often
referred to as Mermaid Rock. Only
the remains of one of the mermaids is still in existence. She is on
permanent display in a special perspex case on the 1st floor,
Waverley Library, 32-48 Denison Street, Bondi Junction. The
mermaid statues were modelled on two local women:
Sculptor
Lyall Randolph created the mermaids from bronze-coloured fibreglass that he
filled with cement. He first tried to sell the idea of the mermaids to
Waverley Council, but the Council refused to pay for them. So
Lyall erected them on the Big Rock at his own expense.
He claimed that because they were placed a certain distance offshore
the space they occupied was not under the jurisdiction of Waverley Council,
but the Department of Lands. He claimed that the Department had approved his
statues. The mermaids were
installed on 3 April 1960. One
month after they appeared university students chiselled mermaid Jan from the
Big Rock and removed her as part of a Commemoration Day prank!
She was later recovered under mysterious circumstances at the
Engineering School, Sydney University. Repaired, she was restored to the Big
Rock to rejoin her fellow mermaid Lynette. The cost of repair met by public
subscription – the public loved the mermaids so much that they paid for
Jan to be put back together again. Heavy
seas claimed Lynette in 1974; swept off the Big Rock in a storm she
disappeared forever. Jan lost
an arm and her tail in the same storm. For two years Jan sat alone on her
rocky throne until Waverley Council removed what was left of her in 1976,
storing her in a Council Depot where she was forgotten for many years. Re-found
in the late 1980s she was moved to Waverley Library, where, in 1999, the
Friends of Waverley Library paid for her remains to be preserved by Sydney
Artefacts Conservation.
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