An Old Cemetary
Early Sydney Clearing Wexford Street
- The Round Tower House- Interesting Retrospect
The principal house in Wexford Street, Sydney, is Now Being Demolished. Its stones are so firmly cemented & so strong resisting that it's taken three times as long to pull it down as a mere modern house of many times the size would've required
The Old Round Tower House has been a sort of shrine during the past few weeks to which many a pilgramage has been made to see if the old walls still stand, being the last house left standing in departed Wexford street
For forty Eight years the same little Irish widow kept the front door wide open, day & night, for her lodgers, who rented rooms from her, & who could each safely lock themselves in their own apartments, leaving the stone passages & stair cases to protect themselves.
There have been some sad tears shed by old ladies who have lived ten, sixteen & in one case twenty years under the same roof. To Them the Tower House has been Home Sweet Home, as much, or more, than the rich man's mansion is to him; the fact that every substantially walled room had its open fireplace, & even a fine cedar door could be secured, being a great attraction to the room dweller.
Of late years many old age pensioners had a comfortable & independant home there, & as one old lady said - It has almost killed me to have to move out of a house in which i know every stone.
Many people expressed wonder at such a finely built house containing almost a dozen rooms in the main building, being in a street where the rest of the houses were of a very inferior order, but there is every proof that this really was the first residence erected in the locality, nearly a hundred years ago. It is said by a Mr Duncan Campbell, whose family retained possession until it came within the resumed area.
The spiral stone staircase leading into a sort of round tower at the rear of the building, was a piece of masonary that in early days was said to be very much admired, & at the present time, though the stones are worn in hollows from the many feet that have trod upon them. Masons loook upon the workmanship that was bestowed upon them as remarkably fine for its day. Labor could have had little value when so much was this expended, & freestone could hen be had anywhere for the quarrying.
There are old timers who assert that they remember the upper part of Wexford Street as a market garden, extending to Macquarie Street South - now called Commonwealth Street, & even haveing a frontage into George Street. Campbells property including the Tower House, came next , & in all probability, extended as far as what is now Campbell Street.
In the early fifties, however, its days of glory had passed, & it became a temporary lodging house, a Mr William Carr keeping in 32 & for 50 years. It has held a little colony of the room dwelling class, which has in this country of ups & downs, included several names of members of notable Australian families.
Sydney, the city of romance & tragedy, has aways had its nooks & corners into which those who wished to do so might vanish from the ordinary social ife, as completely as though they had melted into thin air.
Market Lane, afterwards Little Market Street, had only three houses in it when the landlady Of the Tower first went into posession - We had nothing but paddocks around - she said, - until Mr Ben James, the builder, put up cottages, rows of them, & it was through him the name was changed to Wexford Street. the first man to allow a Chinaman into a house was a Mr Quick, not but what the Chinamen were a hard working, quiet lot of people, & a great improvement upon some of the lowest white people around. Where the old part of Belmore Markets now is, was, in the old days, the public pound, a great square in front & beyond being where the hay carts from Windsor, the Parrramatta district, & other parts, drew up for their unloading.
Mr Mark Bennett has mnay recollections of the district. He remembers it previously to the advent of Belmore Markets, which , he says, were, in 1868, established to relieve the market gardeners who could not find a comfortable stand at the George Street Markets.
- Very early in the morning - he says - the carts would draw up in George Street, & the booths would be spread out, the earliest comers having the best of it. Then there was so much harassing of the traders that the new markets were hailed a great advance. The name Belmore was given in honour of the Governor, though some peole assert it was because his head gardener sold produce out of the Governors Garden in competition. The Earl of Belmore may have known of it - or he may not.
The coming down of a balloon in the open square where the new part of Paddys Market now stands is included in Mr Barnetts recollections. - I remember one afternoon the balloon making a descent &, unfortunately, alighting just in the square. When the gas was escaping, some stupid fellow struck a match, & there was a great flare & explosion. Many preesent lost their hair & their whiskers, but, fortunately, there was no one killed.
Everyone in Sydney has heard of Durands Alley, or Lane, which was in the locality, a narrow right of way , with a turn at right angle, & opening into several streets. It was the Field Lane (The worst part of old London) of Sydney & at one time might almost be said to defy the poice. no one mane dare attempt to enter, & thieves made it their chief stronghold. The types of old women & Men, who might be seen, day & night, squatting on the door dteps, smoking (women as well as men) blackened clay pipes, having quite died out of the city's low life. In castlereagh Street, where is now the Commonwealth Choclate Factory, was a sort of close with houses, or rather cottages, facing one another, and in the fifties people crowded ingto small spaces in Sydney, as close as in the poorest parts of the old cities.
There was little ot no Municipal oversight, & people herded together as if there was not room & space around. in an outhouse in one of the alleys lived Billy The Bow, & his wife, He was an unfortunate man, who had lost both his legs, & he had made himself a sort of wooden basin, in which he sat, & in which he could move along, principally into George Street. Here people gave him coins out of compassion.
Mr Barnett speaks of Dr Willam Bland, who used to come & visit the poor. He had an absolute angelic face - he remarked - Kid Benevolant, & unforgettable.
Those who have passed by the entrance to the lane that run by the side of the People's Palace, the old Natatorium in Pitt Street may anyday for the past 50 years have noticed the projection of a piece of iron, which is in reality the mouth of an old cannon of the description one would think of those that the Heroic Nelson had on board the Victory.
The true story of how this piece of artillery got into its present position even the oldest inhabitant is loth to tell, but there are many old timers who have reguarly taken pilgimages to the spot to see if it still holds it place of Dis-honor.
Mr Potter, Superintendant of Detecitves, aserts that he's seen it in the same position for 50 years, but how it was placed there he does not know, except perhaps that it may've been on the principle of the lady in one of Charles Dickens stories, who put the kettle lid on one of the curtain holders in the drawing room just because it shouldn't be there.
It has often been asked where were the brick kilns from where Brickfield Hill got its name.
The location of these has been given as in a space between Albion Street & Gipps Street, & an old timer asserts he has seen the old kilns & the ponds of water round, where, in early time, boys used to go for Bozies. These were really deep waterhole, more like wells, & were extremely dangerous.
There was - Says Mr Barnett, a deep creek, that in the early days formed a bed where it is now Hay Street & the water from the harbour, choked up with refuse of allkinds, used to surge up into George Street. Most houses had cellars, & these were, in very wet weather, full of slims of water, & even ground floors being flooded.
An old resident of Wexford Street says she remembers two great floods there, but, she added, in early days we just put up with inconveniences & never thought of complaining, as people do now, to our landlords or the authorities.
The poor style of house that was built in the neighbouhood was said to be because a sort of early land boom had caused many Speculators to buy property and build small places suitable to the classes of person who had to live in the city & for the small tenements quite high rents were charged. The story of the condition of the people in these lcoalitlies, under well to do landlords, is still fresh in people's minds, from the revelations at plague time. cellars with absolutelyt no light from above, were utilised as living rooms, & the thorough investigations, which resulted in the demolition of the Wexford Street area, brought to light a terrible condition of things, the passing out of which no one could regret.
The Blind Alley was a notorious gambling saloon, kept by two worn out pugilists - says someone who knew the district well.
- it was a small, two storey building in Eugine Street, looking in the day time, like a produce store, but at night, even Sunday, it was the worst gambling den in the city. If one went in causally, there would be a certain number of men engaged innocently enough at draughts, cards etc. These were kept in evidence in case the school were raided. All hands repaired presently to a large ring in the centre of the hall, & the true business was entered upon. The proprietors took commission from whoever won, so they cared little, but it would not have been safe for anyone to try to get away with a large sum of winnings.
Goulburn, Wexford & Campbell Streets have been so long associated with Fan-tan, pak-a-pu Lottery, & other worse vices, that there is little regret at the whole nature of the locality being about to changed.
At the same time one comes across numbers of people who have found it convenient to live there for nearly a lifetme, & also many who knew the pace when it was almost bordering on a rural part of Sydney's outskirts.
A Mr Gregory Board had a large estate in the neighbourhood, which was subdivided & sold; terraces, shops, and small cottages being built on the ground. Aaron Matthews, the blind man, whom old timers will remember selling papers in the streets, lived in Wexford Street , and the little, rosy cheeks Scotch lady, who vended pins, needles and laces. - It is so Convenient both for buying & selling - was her remark.
An old resident rememebers the time there were no ovens in any of the little houses. - We all sent our dinners , esecially of a Sunday, to the bakehouse, & as there had been a good many disutes over the wrong dish being handed over to the customer, the baker got a sort of skewer with a tag to it, which he stuck the meat, & he gave us each a round counter which we had to produce to get our dinner back. Each was numbered, so that there could be
Each was numbered so that there could be no more mistakes. People used to say trhat the man at the Bakehouse got rich by never having to buy a dinner for himself. It was a potato out of this dish, and a slice of meat out of that. It wasn't looked upon as stealing, only taking Perks, as they called it.
Where Anthony Horderns presnet large emporium stands in George Street, there is said to have been, in early times, a guard room, and when the buildings were commenced, upon the vacant apace was an old cedar tree, which showed that at sometinme there must have been a garden there In Pitt Street one may still see, within a sontes throw of the grreat buioldings an old gabled house that looks as if it had once been a Gentlemans residence., It was people assert the family home of the Bond Family of which the wel known Architect was a member.
Mr Barnett says that at the corner of elizabeth And Liverpool Streets, where Mr Marl Foy's new buildings are being erected, was once a fine house standing in its own ground, lived in at one time by Mr Emmanuel M L for Goulburn.
Leby, the Lawyer had a house in Elizabetrh Street, one of those standing still with verandah and small front garden, reached by steps cuts in the natural stone.
Goulburn Street, called after the early colonial Secretary, Mr Frederick Goulburn, had some very good proivate houses in it early in the fifties, when it was looked upon as belonging more to the suburbs than in the cityt.
Among old hotels in thje locality was the noe passed out Welcome Inn, and the st Patricks Inn, in Goulburn Street, Opposite Anthony hordrerns.
Wherre the Macquarie Hotel now is was a large pond where trhe boys used to bathe within the memoey of the old timers. Some people say rhe Macquarie Street South public School was on the site where there was once a lock up
No comments:
Post a Comment