Completed in 1865, Waverley was one of the first mansions to be built in the south eastern corner. It was designed by the architect James MacGeorge in the neo-Gothic influence of pattern-book design style that became so popular in the 19th Century. The house was built for William Sanders who arrived in the colony in 1838 and for a time lived in a tent. He became partner in the Miller Anderson store in Hindley Street. In 1873 the house was bought by Thomas Richard Bowman, whose brother Edmund built Martindale Hall at Mintaro, near Clare.

With its slate roof and handsome brick chimneys, and with a billiard room added in 1890, the two-storeyed stone house was one of the handsome colonial homes still gracing Adelaide’s south-east corner. With an eye to expanding St Andrew’s Hospital, in 1964 the Hospital Board bought Waverley and its surrounding land at public auction for £105 000. By 1972 Waverley was serving merely as a place for non-resident staff to change their clothes –perhaps it should be demolished, a Hospital committee thought! Two years later Waverley had been refurbished and was being used for a nurses’ training school. City planners then made Waverley a ‘registered place’, with restrictions on its development. There were still thoughts of the Hospital demolishing Waverley, but it was ruled that the house had to be maintained in good order.

The National Trust negotiated to lease Waverley, but negotiations broke down in 1989, the year in which the old coach house was transformed into the Hospital chapel. In 1994 a group of vascular surgeons set up their practice in the building, now finally refurbished. Waverley at last seemed to have a settled purpose, even if the more recent corruption of its title to Waverley House might trouble those familiar with Scottish history.

http://www.cityofadelaide.com.au/adccbrandwr/_assets/main/lib60091/walktrailhistorical.pdf

Not For Ouselves, R. M. Gibbs (St Andrew’s Hospital Inc, 1994)