You've probably even noticed the fenced off property on the eastern side of the intersection.

Have you ever wondered what's behind that fence and treeline?

Longtime locals refer to the location as The Corner or Rodway's Corner.

It was once the home and former practice of well-known local doctor and widely-regarded botanist, Frederick Arthur Rodway.

Read more:

Between local historians, Alan Clark and Robyn Florance we have been able to put together some information on Dr Rodway and his residence, which was built in 1921.

And yes, Rodway Arcade in the Nowra CBD is named in his honour.

Born in Tasmania in 1880, Dr Rodway was educated at Hutchin's School, Hobart, and after graduating from Melbourne University in 1904, served his internship at Hobart General Hospital.

In 1906 he was appointed as medical officer on the goldfields of Western Australia and found vastly different conditions as he worked in a tent.

Regularly on the move, he went to New Zealand briefly but returned to Australia and bought a practice at Chatswood.

From there he went to Barraba where he stayed six years, being appointed to work in the Barraba and District Hospital in 1909.

In 1911 he and Dr Thomas McKell treated 134 patients at the hospital, while he also made house calls, either on foot or on his bicycle.

Dr Rodway left Barraba in 1913, and coming to Nowra, he took over the Moss Street practice of Dr Albert Bobart who was retiring because of ill-health.

It was an era when there were few doctors in the town. He practised at Nowra for 40 years, and with his wife Nea was active in many community activities.

He married Nea Josephine Rodway, the eldest daughter of Mr and Mrs James Hobson, of Ravenswood, North Sydney at St Stephens Church Chatswood on May 24,1905.

They had three daughters Winifred Ena, born February 25, 1906 in Hobart, Dorothy Gwenda Louise at Chatswood on September 28, 1911 and Josephine in Nowra on October 17, 1917.

Around the time of his arrival, Nowra formed an Ambulance Trust, and he strongly supported this body.

He was appointed as government medical officer, and in 1919 had to lead the fight against the pneumonic influenza epidemic, a traumatic time which claimed 17 local lives.

Later the same year, a move was made to establish a public hospital at Nowra, and after researching the costs, Dr Rodway recommended a cottage hospital. Despite the enthusiasm and fundraising of the local community, it did not come to fruition.

In 1921 the Rodways built a home at the corner of North Street and Bridge Road, (opposite the Bridge Hotel and later 'Batt's Folly') and it was used as the practice headquarters until his retirement in 1953.

This architecturally designed villa residence with surgery, designed by local Cyril Blacket in 1920, was erected at a cost of several thousand pounds and was completed by October 1921.

Blacket advertised for builders in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday, November 20, 1920.

While Dr Rodway had been known as a cyclist at Barraba, he became equally known at Nowra as the driver of a tiny Austin car, somehow fitting his 6-ft. 3-in. frame into it.

Apart from his professional work, Dr Rodway had a lifelong interest in nature, inherited from his father, Leonard Rodway (1853-1936), who had been the Government Botanist of Tasmania. The doctor's own daughter Gwenda (Davis) was professor of botany at the University of New England and noted for her work on the embryology of Australian plants.

Dr Rodway established his own herbarium that comprised 24,000 specimens, each neatly mounted, classified and indexed, reported to be the largest private herbarium in the state.

He collected extensively around the NSW South Coast (based at Nowra) and Western Australia.

The collection was donated to the National Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney in 1952, just months before his death.

After visiting England in 1926, he became a collector for the herbarium at Kew Gardens, London, and he also sent specimens to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

He regularly hiked around the Shoalhaven district with John Cole, Reuben King and Oswald Marriott, no doubt observing the plantlife along the way and these interests led to the naming of the Rodway Nature Reserve near Wattamolla.

However he is perhaps best known for his gesture when handed the key following the opening of the Shoalhaven District Memorial Hospital on May 19, 1951.

Before unlocking the door, Dr Rodway observed that "the chief use of a key is to keep out intruders".

"In this event, however, we will remain open to give medical and surgical relief to all who require it at any hour of day or night.

"This being the case, a key is superfluous," he added, as he threw it into the delighted crowd.

A reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald paid a visit to Mrs Rodway in February 1939 and an article titled New House Built to Look Old was published on Monday, February 20:

This is the account of that visit -

To build a new house having the old-world charm of an English country cottage and with all the modern conveniences required for a doctor's residence was what Nea Rodway had in mind when The Corner, at Nowra, was being designed.

She knew how difficult it was to find places for accumulated treasures of antiques and heirlooms of old silver, china and furniture which had been inherited by the doctor and herself, and they decided to build a house to suit their possessions.

A stout stone wall surrounding the verandah first suggests a well-presented appearance.

Behind this the house rises in unobtrusive brick, broken by bays and upper balconies of stained shingles and topped by mellow tiles and gables.

Native palms and trees cluster against these seasoned walls.

The front door bears an old-fashioned brass knocker inscribed with the date of the building of the house.

The door opens to the end of the staircase as it turns squarely with wooden rails for, as Mrs Rodway said to the architect "do not give me a boarding-house staircase".

This square turn juts across a wide double-opening from hall to dining-room and as there is a single opening into the lounge room and a hall going off at right-angles, the effect from the front door is one of intimate spaciousness.

The stair so placed lifts the eye higher and brings into sight an important picture rail so necessary for holding old china is this frieze shelf that Mrs Rodway had it emphasised and continued round the dining-room, above recesses at each side of the fireplace, and into a wide mantelpiece.

All these places hold rare old pottery.

There is a large willow pattern meat dish used by Governors at Camden Park and an every day dish being a "find" for sixpence at a farmhouse at Burrier.

A row of pewter tankards in the left of the wall recesses balances a row of old family ones on the right.

Polished glass dishes and pewter and copper preserving pans make a glowing display over the open fireplace.

The ceiling of this room enhances the old farmhouse appearance with four girders made from beams from the old Nowra Hotel.

Different levels within the house present a cosy feeling.

There are unexpected turns and approaches to landings and rooms, from narrow upper landings to some of the beams under the gables.

Even an attic room has been included and it serves as a delightful room for undergraduate friends of the house.

Sliding doors from the dining-room open surprisingly on a narrow lobby which leads to the doctor' room and office.

A few steps here and there reach the surgery and waiting rooms further from the residence, although being part of it.

The old-fashioned feeling takes possession as one ascends to the bedrooms by the main stair.

It is not surprising to find a room full of beetles mounted and to learn that it is the den of one of the daughters, or to find a wooden-railed cot made from cedar bannisters of the old hotel and used by granddaughter Margaret Consett when she visits her grandparents.

Although the house was built to hold furniture, the designers did not reckon on the arrival of an heirloom - a huge mahogany table from Tasmania.

It was too big to get into the house so the top had to be removed and the legs hauled by pulleys and ropes to the top balcony.

It is now flat against the wall making of a novel-wall hanging.

The claw feet and legs uphold work table in the sewing-room.

That sewing-room was rightly placed, in a sunny sanctuary over looking back lawn and orchard. There is a knitting machine on which Mrs Rodway made so many hundreds of socks in war-time and where she now knits woollies for the grandchildren.

Best of all the old treasures packed away in the old box behind the door.

There are dresses of muslin all befrilled and bustled with laces, bundles of embroideries; a parasol with a carved ivory handle and are brought out on rare occasions.

Mrs Rodway held an antique exhibition in aid of the Church of England and she and her daughters and friends dressed in the old frocks and descended the curving stairway.

Then the house with it old-world charm proved an appropriate setting.

Frederick Rodway died at Nowra on April 1, 1956.

Information from the Shoalhaven Historical Society.

Want to read more local history?