Monday, December 5, 2022

St Michael’s Anglican Church – Cnr Albion St & Flinders St – Surry Hills – New South Wales

If you come up Albion Street toward Flinders and the sandstone church on the corner looks like it’s been sitting there forever — that’s St Michael’s. Edmund Blacket designed the Gothic Revival chapel; the foundation stone went down on 29 September 1854. The congregation had already been meeting around Surry Hills for years — Albion Brewery, a school-house, even Darlinghurst Courthouse — before they got a proper church of their own. Don’t mix it up with St Michael’s at Vaucluse: same dedication, different suburb, different Blacket job.

The silhouette you see from the footpath is more than 1854. A belfry and the big Albion Street dormers arrived in 1888, six years after Blacket died. When Flinders Street was widened, John Burcham Clamp rebuilt the chancel, added vestries, and designed the adjoining Edwardian brick rectory — all 1917. The parish hall (1904) completes the group, which is heritage-listed as church, hall, rectory, grounds and fence.

In 2015 the congregation merged with the Vine Church plant; since 2017 the parish commonly uses the name Vine Church. That’s the living parish name — the architectural identity of the sandstone on the corner is still St Michael’s.

St Michael's Anglican Church - Cnr Albion St & Flinders St - Surry Hills - New South Wales

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Flinders Street - Taylor Square To Moore Park - Darlinghurst - New South Wales

Flinders Street runs south-east from Taylor Square toward Moore Park / Anzac Parade, forming the Darlinghurst–Surry Hills edge of the old South Head Road junction. Taylor Square itself was created in 1907–08 when widening of Oxford Street demolished corner hotels and the fruit mart at Bourke / Flinders / Oxford; the new civic space was named for Lord Mayor Allen Taylor, champion of early-twentieth-century street widenings. Mortimer Lewis’s Greek Revival Darlinghurst Courthouse (early 1840s) still anchors the sandstone civic presence on the square, with the former gaol complex behind.

Along Flinders Street, large estates such as Melrose (corner Flinders and Albion; demolished 1902) once faced the ridge villas and churches; later terraces, pubs including the Flinders Hotel (South Dowling corner), and tram-era commercial fabric filled the corridor. Further Flinders Street widening (c.1917–19) and, much later, the Eastern Distributor (opened 1999) again remade traffic and erased some corner buildings. The street remains a parade and transport hinge between Oxford Street and the parklands.

Images here walk Flinders Street from Taylor Square toward Moore Park — caption estates, hotels and square views carefully.

“Melrose” - This Magnificent Estate Was On The Cornr Of Flinders Street And Albion Street, & Sat Directly across From St Johns.

It Was Demolished In 1902

The Back Lane Of “Melrose” On Flinders Street

Taylor Square

Wow. Looks like One big roundabout. Really hard I couldn’t make a tonne of them and some of the traffic could go under to the east and some of them could’ve gone down backstreet but that’s neither here nor there now I guess it would’ve wrecked Busbys all of it still runs along Oxford Street to Hyde Park

The Flinders Hotel.

Corner of Flinders Street and South Dowling Street. Now there is nothing there it’s all been demolished that when they were making the Eastern distributor