Oxford Street - Darlinghurst - Sydney - New South Wales - 1788 Onwards

Oxford Street still rides a Gadigal ridgeline path (muru) that long linked the harbour country around Sydney Cove with the southern headland. In 1803 a track to the South Head signal station was cleared under surgeon John Harris; Governor Macquarie upgraded it in 1811 for wheeled traffic as South Head Road. The Old South Head Road became the approach to villa estates on Woolloomooloo Hill / Darlinghurst and to Paddington; New South Head Road (from 1831) later took much of the harbour-side carriage traffic.

The busy commercial stretch between Hyde Park and Paddington was renamed Oxford Street in the mid-1870s (gazettal commonly cited 1875), after London shopping-street fame. Trams, department stores and Federation rebuilding after early-twentieth-century widening (Lord Mayor Allen Taylor scheme; Taylor Square formed 1907–08) remade the northern side. Later public culture along the Darlinghurst golden mile added another layer. Beyond Bondi Junction the older name Old South Head Road still runs toward Watsons Bay.

Photographs here document the Oxford Street / Old South Head Road spine from the city toward the eastern suburbs.

Oxford Street At The Liverpool Street Junction Circa 1901