Collie, New South Wales – An Inn on the Marthaguy, Wayilwan Country and the Ashgrove Property

A short note before we start: this page talks about the Aboriginal people of the Collie district. No Aboriginal person is named or pictured here, but Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers may still come across names or images of people who have died if they follow the sources.

The Collie Hotel in November 2008, the heart of the village and its best-known building. Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

If you've ever driven the Oxley Highway between Gilgandra and Warren, you've gone straight past Collie, and you may not even have noticed. There's no rail line, no main street of shops, just a turn-off at Coonamble Street, a pub, a hall, a couple of churches and a scatter of houses on wide gravel streets. But this little spot on the black soil plains has been a stopping place for travellers since the 1860s, and it's got a bigger story than its size lets on. I went looking, and here's what I found, along with a look at Ashgrove, the property just south of the village.

Where Collie Is

First, let's get the location right, because there's more than one Collie (the Western Australian coal town is the famous one, and it turns up in searches all the time). Collie, New South Wales, is a village and parish in central NSW, in Warren Shire and on the Oxley Highway, which Wikipedia puts at 522 kilometres north-west of Sydney. Wikipedia gives its position as about 31 degrees 40 minutes south, 148 degrees 18 minutes east.

Warren Shire's 2018 village plan sets out the driving distances: about 36 km to Gilgandra along the Oxley Highway, 49 km to Warren, 54 km to Trangie along the Collie–Trangie Road, 70 km to Nevertire and about 80 km to both Dubbo and Narromine. The same plan says Collie sits in the south-eastern part of Warren Shire, on the northern side of the highway, and that Marthaguy Creek runs to the north of the village. The NSW government's 2017 Collie topographic map shows the same picture, with Marthaguy Creek, Boothaguy Creek, the Collie Soldiers Memorial Hall and Collie Station all marked. So yes, it really is the Collie between Gilgandra and Trangie on the Marthaguy.

Warren Shire, shaded on this map of NSW. Collie sits in the south-east corner of the shire. Greenguytroy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wayilwan Country

Long before any squatter or innkeeper, this was Aboriginal country. Warren Shire's visitor guide calls the shire "a meeting place for the nations of the traditional custodians of this land, the Wayilwan people". The shire's 2023 economic development strategy goes into a bit more detail. It says the shire sits where two Aboriginal nations meet: the Wongaibon to the south-east, through Narromine, Trangie and on to Nyngan, and the Weilwan, also written Wayilwan or Ngemba Weilwan, to the north and north-west. It puts the Weilwan Nation within Warren, Gulargambone, Gilgandra, parts of Coonamble and Quambone, and out into the Macquarie Marshes. The same document says about 20 per cent of the shire's people identify as Aboriginal.

For Collie itself, the 2018 village plan is careful. It says the area is likely to be significant for Aboriginal people, "particularly along Marthaguy Creek and the fertile floodplains", but admits the plan didn't review that history or the key sites in detail. The visitor guide also mentions that Aboriginal families lived at the Beemunnel Reserve near Warren from 1920 to 1982, and that Beemunnel was gazetted as an Aboriginal Place in 2016. Today Warraan Widji Arts in Warren, the guide says, is working to reawaken the Wayilwan language through art, dance, music and song.

The Oxley Highway crossing Marthaguy Creek in Beemunnei Parish, east of Warren on the road to Collie, October 2020. The Commons file name spells it "Manthaguy". D A R C 12345, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Flat country between Marthaguy Creek and the Oxley Highway, on the Warren side of Collie, 2020. D A R C 12345, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

How Collie Got Its Name

I couldn't find a firm answer on this one. Wikipedia says only that the name "could have derived from an Aboriginal word meaning 'water'". That's a "could have", not a "did", and I haven't found an older source that backs it up, so treat it as a possibility rather than a fact. What is clear is that the pub came first under a different name: the village plan calls the original 1862 hotel the "Marthagai Inn", taking its name from the creek.

Explorers and Squatters

The Warren Shire visitor guide sets out the early timeline for the district. John Oxley and his party came through in 1818, Charles Sturt in 1828, and Thomas Mitchell in 1846. In between, during the 1830s, the first settlers moved in. The shire's economic strategy puts it plainly: Europeans moved into the area in the 1830s, "taking up land or 'squatting' in the surrounding district". Warren itself was gazetted as a town in June 1861.

I wasn't able to pin down the names of the first squatting runs right around Collie from a source I could actually open. The NSW Department of Lands drew a parish map of Marthaguy, County of Gregory, Land District of Warren (the fifth edition is dated 1958 and held by the National Library), and the 2017 topographic map is still covered in old portion and deposited plan numbers. Those are where the story of who held which block would be told. One more thing worth knowing is that Collie sits right on the edge of two counties. The Commons photos taken along the highway between Collie and Gilgandra are all labelled County of Ewenmar, with parishes like Beemunnei, Urobulla, Berida and Bundobering, while the Marthaguy parish map is labelled County of Gregory.

The Oxley Highway in Urobulla Parish, County of Ewenmar, on the road to Collie, 2020. D A R C 12345, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Inn on the Marthaguy

Every bush village needs a reason to exist, and Collie's was the pub. Warren Shire's village plan says the original hotel was the 1862 Marthagai Inn, later called the Collie Hotel. It stood further up Coonamble Street than the hotel does today, burnt down in 1987, and the new hotel opened on 7 October 1989.

The visitor guide says that in 1872 Collie was the halfway stop for the Cobb & Co mail run between Gilgandra and Quambone. You can just picture the coach pulling up at the inn on the creek, the horses changed and the mailbags swapped, before setting off again across the plains.

By 1881 the place was worth a picture in the papers. An engraving called The Township of Collie, Marthaguy Creek, New South Wales appeared in the Australian Town and Country Journal, and a hand-coloured copy of it has turned up with an antique print dealer, dated about 1881.

The Village Is Proclaimed

Warren Shire's village plan says Collie was proclaimed a village in 1893, and it got that date from the information board in the village. The visitor guide says the same: "Proclaimed a village in 1893." The village plan admits that's about all the board tells you, and suggests a fuller history should be put together using the Warren Historical and Family History Society, the 2011 Warren Shire Thematic History and R. M. Brennan's two books, Across the Black Soil Plains and Keep the Billy Boiling. Those are the books to find if you want to dig deeper.

The village plan describes the town grid as a handful of east–west streets crossed by three north–south ones, with names that read like a roll call of the district: Coonamble, Bundemar, Curban, Wonbobbie, Wambianna, Inglega, Calga and Bourbah. Collie once had more than 300 people, the plan says, and served as the service centre for the surrounding farms.

A house at Collie, November 2008. Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Local Government: From Marthaguy Shire to Warren Shire

Collie spent half a century in a shire named after its own creek. Marthaguy Shire was proclaimed on 7 March 1906, one of 134 shires created under the Local Government (Shires) Act 1905. Its office was in Warren, and its towns and villages included Collie and Nevertire. On 1 January 1957 Marthaguy Shire joined the Municipality of Warren to form Warren Shire, which is still Collie's council today.

The School

Collie had its own public school for many years. The NSW State Archives (then State Records NSW) put one of its files on the school onto Wikimedia Commons, a document dated 1927 and labelled "part of the teachers evidence to show he could not return to Collie in time to open school". I'd love to know the full story behind that one. It sounds like a teacher caught out by a flood or a missed coach, but the file title is all I can vouch for.

A 1927 page from a Collie Public School file: "part of the teachers evidence to show he could not return to Collie in time to open school". State Records NSW, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The school has since closed. The 2018 village plan says Collie Public School "is closed and now in private ownership", so the nearest schools are now at Warren or Gilgandra. The old school site sits on Wonbobbie Street, and Collie Memorial Park is tucked away on a corner of it. The plan notes that when the school was running, the park would have been a natural meeting place for the village.

The Churches

For a village this size, Collie has done well for churches. The village plan lists a Catholic church at the corner of Coonamble and Wambianna Streets, built in 1953, and recommends protecting it as a historic item. It also lists a former Anglican church, dated 1920, which has been sensitively converted into a house. The 2011 Community Based Heritage Study of Warren Shire recommended protecting both churches, on Bourbah Road and Coonamble Street.

A church at Collie, photographed in November 2008. Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

One warning if you go searching: the Anglican church history you'll find online about a church built for Mrs Nora Noyes, with jarrah pews and a 1915 opening, belongs to All Saints at Collie in Western Australia, not our Collie. It's an easy mix-up.

The Hall, the CWA and the Memorial

The Collie Soldiers Memorial Hall is marked on the 2017 topographic map. The village plan calls it simply the community hall, says it's linked to the memorial along Bundemar Street, and notes that a small sign near the hotel points the way. The Country Women's Association has its own hall in Collie for meetings too, and the plan describes it as in great condition. The visitor guide says 2024 marked 100 years of the CWA in Collie, so the branch dates back to 1924.

The plan also lists tennis courts, a playground, a Rural Fire Service shed on Wambianna Street and the Collie General Cemetery among the village's places.

No Railway

Unlike plenty of western villages, Collie never had a train. The village plan says: "There is no existing or known historic rail line in or near Collie. The nearest rail lines are at Warren and Gilgandra." According to the visitor guide, the line from Dubbo reached Nevertire in 1882 and Warren in 1898. Collie stayed a road town and still is, with the Oxley Highway and the Collie–Trangie Road carrying its traffic.

The Oxley Highway in Berida Parish, between Collie and Gilgandra, 2020. D A R C 12345, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The highway running east from Collie towards Gilgandra, 2020. D A R C 12345, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Farming on the Black Soil Plains

Farming is what Collie is all about. The shire's economic strategy says the Warren Shire economy is mainly agricultural, producing sheep, wool, cattle, grain and cotton, with irrigation drawn from the Macquarie River. Round Collie it's mostly dryland mixed farming. Ashgrove, which you'll read about below, is one of the properties in this country.

A canola crop in the Warren district, September 2015. Sheba_Also, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A round-bale cotton picker working on a farm at Warren, 2012. Ronjhino, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Paddocks between Collie and Gilgandra, 2020. D A R C 12345, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Ashgrove

Now to Ashgrove, the property just out of Collie. I'll be honest: there's less on the public record about it than I'd hoped. Here's what I could confirm.

Where it is

ExplorOz, the outback travel and mapping site, lists Ashgrove as a station or homestead at 464 Ashgrove Road, Collie NSW 2827. It gives the position as 31°44'24.83" S, 148°18'20.83" E, at an altitude of about 232 metres. Compare that with Wikipedia's position for Collie village and Ashgrove comes out roughly 8 kilometres almost due south of the village. ExplorOz says its nearest weather station is Trangie, about 43 km to the south-west.

Ashgrove and Old Ashgrove on the map

The NSW government's 2017 Collie 1:50,000 topographic map shows two names here: "Ashgrove" and, a little apart from it, "Old Ashgrove", both near Boothaguy Creek, which flows down towards Marthaguy Creek. When a map marks an "Old" homestead next to the current one, it usually means the house moved at some stage, with a newer homestead built and the original site kept on the map. The map doesn't say when that happened.

The road

Ashgrove has given its name to Ashgrove Road, the road the homestead's address is on. That's a good sign of how long the property has been a landmark in the district.

What I couldn't find yet

The National Library's Trove newspaper site was down while I was researching this, so I couldn't read the old papers on who first took up Ashgrove, its families, sales or clearing sales. Searching the web for "Ashgrove" mostly turns up the Brisbane suburb and an Irish estate of the same name, which have nothing to do with this place. Local books such as R. M. Brennan's histories, and the Warren Historical and Family History Society, are the most likely places to find the Ashgrove families, and I'll add more here when I can confirm it.

Open country in Beemunnei Parish on the road to Collie, 2020. This is the kind of black soil plain Ashgrove sits on (this photo is not of Ashgrove itself). D A R C 12345, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Collie Today

At the 2016 census, Collie and the surrounding district had 194 people, 80 private dwellings, 56 families and a median age of 39. The village plan points out that the census area takes in a big stretch of farmland as well as the village. The hotel, the RFS and the hall are about the only services left, so for shopping people head to Warren, Gilgandra or Dubbo.

The place still knows how to put on a show, though. The visitor guide talks up the Collie Rodeo, which it calls "a must on your go to list", says the hall hosts a chamber music festival, and calls the village's community spirit "the jewel in its crown". The 2018 plan put forward ideas for the village: better signs on the highway, a history board, street trees, shade over the park and an upgraded entrance at Coonamble Street.

Warren post office and communications tower, 2009. Warren is Collie's shire town, 49 km to the west. Cgoodwin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The windmill at Gilgandra, the "Windmill Town", 36 km east of Collie along the Oxley Highway, 2008. Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• Before 1818 – Wayilwan (Weilwan) country, with Wongaibon country to the south-east (Warren Shire).
• 1818 – John Oxley's party explores the region.
• 1828 – Charles Sturt's party explores the region.
• 1830s – The first settlers take up land, squatting in the district.
• 1846 – Thomas Mitchell's party explores the region.
• June 1861 – Warren is gazetted as a town.
• 1862 – The Marthagai (Marthaguy) Inn opens, later the Collie Hotel.
• 1872 – Collie is the halfway stop on the Cobb & Co mail run between Gilgandra and Quambone.
• c.1881 – The Township of Collie, Marthaguy Creek engraving is published in the Australian Town and Country Journal.
• 1882 – The railway reaches Nevertire. Collie never gets one.
• 1893 – Collie is proclaimed a village.
• 1898 – The railway reaches Warren.
• 7 March 1906 – Marthaguy Shire is proclaimed, with Collie in it.
• 1920 – The date given for the Anglican church, now a house.
• 1924 – The Collie CWA begins (it marked 100 years in 2024).
• 1927 – A Collie Public School file records a teacher unable to get back in time to open the school.
• 1953 – The Catholic church is built.
• 1 January 1957 – Marthaguy Shire and Warren Municipality merge to form Warren Shire.
• 1987 – The old hotel burns down.
• 7 October 1989 – The new Collie Hotel opens.
• 2016 – The census counts 194 people in Collie and district.
• 2017 – The NSW topographic map shows Ashgrove and Old Ashgrove.
• May 2018 – Warren Shire adopts the Collie village plan.
• 2024 – The CWA in Collie celebrates 100 years.

Where the Sources Disagree

• When Collie was proclaimed. Warren Shire's village plan, quoting the village information board, and the shire's visitor guide both say 1893. A web page saying the "town of Collie was proclaimed on the 13 December 1897" belongs to the Anglican parish of Collie in Western Australia, so it's a different town altogether.
• The hotel's name and dates. The village plan writes the original as the "1862 Marthagai Inn/1988 Collie Hotel", but in the same breath says it burnt down in 1987 and the new one opened on 7 October 1989. Most likely "1988" is a slip and the building was simply known as the Collie Hotel by then, but I can't confirm that. Also note the spelling "Marthagai", where the creek and the shire are spelt "Marthaguy", and some Commons photos have "Manthaguy".
• The name. Wikipedia says only that Collie "could have" come from an Aboriginal word meaning water. I found no other source either way.
• How far from Sydney. Wikipedia says 522 km, which is a road distance. ExplorOz puts Ashgrove about 359 km from Sydney, which is a straight-line distance. Both can be right.
• Which county. Commons photographers label the highway parishes near Collie as County of Ewenmar, while the National Library's Marthaguy parish map is County of Gregory. Collie sits near where the two meet.

My Earlier Posts

• History of Dubbo, New South Wales

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Collie, New South Wales" (text and coordinates). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collie,_New_South_Wales
• Wikipedia, "Marthaguy Shire". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marthaguy_Shire
• Warren Shire Council, Village Enhancement Plans – Warren Shire: Collie, final, May 2018. https://www.warren.nsw.gov.au/development/3.%20Village%20Plan%20Collie%20FINAL%20May%202018.pdf
• Warren Shire Council, Warren • Nevertire • Collie visitor guide. https://www.warren.nsw.gov.au/discover/WSC_Visitor%20Guide_WEB.pdf
• Warren Shire Council, Economic Development Strategy & Action Plan, adopted 2023. https://www.warren.nsw.gov.au/__media_downloads/Policies/Warren%20Economic%20Development%20Strategy%20and%20Action%20Plan%20v8_ADOPTED%202023.pdf
• NSW Spatial Services, Collie 8534-N 1:50,000 topographic map, 2017 edition. https://portal.spatial.nsw.gov.au/download/geopdf/50k/8534-N+COLLIE.pdf
• ExplorOz, "Ashgrove – NSW". https://www.exploroz.com/places/16266/nsw+ashgrove
• Antique Print Map Room, "The Township of Collie, Marthaguy Creek, New South Wales" (c.1881). https://antiqueprintmaproom.com/product/the-township-of-collie-marthaguy-creek-new-south-unknown-37675/
• National Library of Australia, Parish of Marthaguy, County of Gregory, Department of Lands, 5th ed., 1958. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-770570636
• Anglican Parish of Collie (WA), "The Building" (checked to rule it out). https://www.allsaintschurchcollie.org/the-building
• Wikimedia Commons: image pages linked under each picture.

The Sunbeam Hotel – Corner Riley & Albion Streets – Surry Hills – The 1945 Shooting

The Sunbeam Hotel stood on the corner of Riley Street and Albion Street in Surry Hills, right at the top of the old Frog Hollow. It was a Tooth & Co. pub with a hard reputation, and on Tuesday 10 April 1945, just after six o'clock closing, two local men were shot dead in its public bar. Arthur Graham and Cecil Miller died on the bar-room floor within seconds. The man with the gun was Francis Alexander Walls, a 46-year-old Army cook in uniform, who had a Japanese pistol his son had brought home from New Guinea. He was charged with double murder, but a jury convicted him only of manslaughter, and Mr Justice Herron sent him to gaol for four years. The pub closed in the 1950s and was pulled down, and the corner it overlooked is now Frog Hollow Reserve.

If you've ever cut across Frog Hollow Reserve with the dog, you'd never guess a pub stood on that corner, let alone one the soldier in this story called "a low dive". So I went digging in the old newspapers to see what really happened at the Sunbeam that night in 1945, and what sort of place it was.

Kids playing in Hills Reserve, the cleared ground of old Frog Hollow, in 1949. This is the hollow the Sunbeam looked down on from the corner of Riley and Albion Streets. Ted Hood, State Library of New South Wales, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Where the Sunbeam Stood

The Sunbeam was on the corner of Riley and Albion Streets, Surry Hills. The Sydney Morning Herald of 11 April 1945 put it exactly that way: "the Sunbeam Hotel, at the corner of Riley and Albion Streets, Surry Hills". The City of Sydney Archives has a Town Clerk's file from 1929–30 headed "Frog Hollow resumption. Demolition of party wall. 'Sunbeam' Hotel, 317 Riley Street. Tooth & Co.", so its street address was 317 Riley Street. A council deed packet dated 6 March 1930 covers the same party wall. Some reports called it the Sunbeam in Riley Street and one picture caption put it in Albion Street, but it's the same pub on the same corner.

It had a door facing Albion Street, with steps down to the footpath. That's the door the soldier ran out of in 1945.

Frog Hollow next door

The Sunbeam's big neighbour was Frog Hollow. According to the City of Sydney's history of Frog Hollow Reserve, the hollow was a pocket of land bounded by Anne, Albion, Riley and Little Riley Streets, sitting about nine metres below the surrounding streets. You could only get into it from three directions, down steep flights of stone steps. Between 1895 and 1904 it was known as "one of the most depraved areas of Sydney", and the police said it had bred some of the most "desperate and dangerous criminals" they'd come across. One of them was Samuel "Jewey" Freeman, the leader of the Riley Street Gang.

The council finally moved in with slum clearance. The first houses to go, at 295 to 315 Riley Street, were demolished in 1925. Going by the street numbers, that row ran right up to the Sunbeam at number 317. The council's 1929–30 file about demolishing the hotel's party wall suggests the pub was left standing on the corner while its neighbours came down. Part of the cleared land became a council depot and part became a park called Hills Reserve, named after Pat Hills, the alderman who later became Lord Mayor. Today it's Frog Hollow Reserve, at 303 to 307 Riley Street on the corner of Albion Street.

I wrote about the hollow itself years ago in my Frog Hollow – Albion St & Riley St – Surry Hills post.

A Tooth & Co. Pub with a Hard Name

I couldn't find a full run of licensees for the Sunbeam in the papers I could get at, so I'll stick to what I can back up.

• Built: Elliot Lindsay, writing for Neighbourhood Media in 2024, says the hotel was built in 1865. I haven't seen that date in a primary source, so treat it as his.
• Owner: It was a Tooth & Co. house. In July 1930, the City of Sydney's legal opinion books recorded a matter headed "Sunbeam Hotel. Albion & Riley Sts. Tooth & Co. Ltd. Evan's Place. Easement of light and air." The Noel Butlin Archives Centre at the ANU holds Tooth & Co.'s yellow card for the "Sunbeam Hotel, Riley Street, Surry Hills" (about the 1920s to the 1950s), as well as the brewery's property office file on the hotel from 1930 to 1957.
• Licensee in 1945: Eric Stapleton. His wife, Mrs Louise Stapleton, and her sister, Mrs Vera Porter, worked the bar.

Pub historian Mick Roberts, writing on his Time Gents site in 2023, called the Sunbeam the suburb's "most infamous of 'blood houses'", and wrote that its history "is littered with violent incidents". His article includes a photograph of the hotel taken in September 1948 by Ivan Ive, held by the State Library of NSW. It's a great picture, but it isn't free to reuse, so I've linked his article in the sources rather than putting it here.

The corner store at Riley and Fitzroy Streets, further up Riley Street, during the Depression "bread wars" of August 1934. This is the Riley Street the Sunbeam's regulars knew. Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Six O'Clock and No More Beer

To understand what happened, you need to know how drinking worked in Sydney in 1945. Six o'clock closing had come in during the First World War, and pubs in New South Wales stopped serving at 6 pm until 1955. Plenty of men knocked off work at five and had an hour to get as much beer into themselves as they could. That was the "six o'clock swill". On top of that, beer was short in the last years of the war, and when a pub's beer was gone, it was gone. Four days after the shooting, a man on the Sunbeam's front steps told two would-be customers there was "no beer in the hotel" at all.

A barmaid at work at six o'clock at Petty's Hotel, Sydney, in 1941. This was the six o'clock rush at its worst, and it's the moment the trouble started at the Sunbeam. Max Dupain, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tuesday 10 April 1945

The afternoon

Francis Alexander Walls was a private in the Australian Military Forces (A.M.F.) and worked as an Army cook. Most papers gave his age as 46, although the Canberra Times said 40. He'd been in the Army about five years. According to Mrs Stapleton at the inquest, he came into the bar at about 3 pm and was drinking with a civilian. That civilian was his son, who was also named Francis Alexander Walls and had since been discharged from the Army. The Age also said the soldier had been in the hotel since about three o'clock. In the statement read to the jury at his trial, though, Walls said he'd been drinking all afternoon and only went to the Sunbeam shortly before 6 pm.

Walls told Detective-Sergeant Oswald Millgate why he had a loaded pistol on him: "I had to deliver some tobacco to a cove there. I knew it was a low dive of a place, a cosmopolitan sort of a place. They get funny down there sometimes, and draw knives, so I took the pistol with me." (Truth, 1 July 1945)

Also in the bar that afternoon were two Surry Hills locals:

• Arthur John Graham, 31, a City Council cleaner from Griffin Street, Surry Hills. He was married.
• Cecil Miller, an ironworker from Bennett Place, Surry Hills. The Herald said he was 35 and married, with three sons aged two, four and six and an adopted daughter of 18. The Age, the Canberra Times and the Northern Star gave his age as 45.

Six o'clock

At 6 pm the main bar door was shut. According to the Herald, all but seven men left when they were asked, and one of the seven was in an Australian soldier's uniform. Mrs Stapleton told the Herald that night:

"The soldier had been drinking for some time, and at 6 p.m. I told him that the beer was off and that he had better leave. He asked: 'Aren't you going to serve me?' and when I replied 'No' he became abusive. He said, 'I've got something here that will fix the lot of you,' at the same time pointing to his pocket. He then said something insulting to me." (Sydney Morning Herald, 11 April 1945)

She said Graham and Miller got up off the form along the wall and told him to "break it down" and not to repeat what he'd said. A fight broke out and the soldier was knocked to the floor. At the inquest her account was a bit different. She said the soldier asked for two middies, and when she wouldn't answer him he abused her, and then "Bill Flanagan and Cecil Miller spoke to the soldier and told him to break it down". In that version, the soldier swung at Miller and missed, Miller hit back, and the soldier ended up on the floor.

William Flanagan, a sheet-metal worker from Riley Street, told the coroner he'd asked the soldier not to talk that way in front of women. He said Miller told him, "Be your age and go. There's no more beer."

The shots

The licensee, Eric Stapleton, was down in the cellar. What happened next took only a few seconds. From the floor, the soldier pulled out the pistol and two shots were fired. One bullet went into Graham's right temple and the other hit Miller in the body (the inquest heard it was his chest). The Herald said both men "slumped to the bar floor and died in a few seconds". It put the time at five minutes past six.

Not everyone heard it the same way. Flanagan told the coroner: "There was bang, bang, bang, bang. I thought there were about 14 shots." Every other account, and the evidence about the two dead men, comes back to two shots. The taxi driver George Brian Courtney, who said he was also known as Brian Hunt, said he saw a flash, heard a report, and saw the soldier turn his head. "I thought I might be the next one to get it, so I jumped over the bar. I heard another shot fired as I was going over."

Out the Albion Street door

In the confusion the soldier got to his feet and ran out the door facing Albion Street, leaving his hat on the floor. The Age said he left his kit bag behind too. As he went down the steps, two of the men in the bar tried to grab him, and one threw a beer glass that smashed against the brickwork of the doorway.

Within minutes the hotel was full of detectives. The Herald named Detective-Superintendents Wickham and James, Detective-Inspector G. Smith, Detective-Sergeants Milgate, Lynch, Gordon and Aldridge, and Detective Kelly. They put out a description of a man aged 40 to 43, 5 ft 7 in, thin to medium build, with a dark to olive complexion and an Australian soldier's uniform.

The Daily Mirror of 11 April ran photographs of "the spot in the bar where the fatal shots were fired", along with Mrs Louise Stapleton and Mrs Vera Porter. You can see the page through the Trove link in the sources.

A Japanese Nambu Type 14 service pistol made in 1943, with its holster. The 1945 papers only call Walls' gun a Japanese automatic or service pistol. This is just an example of the type soldiers brought home from New Guinea, not the gun itself. Chris.w.braun, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Arrest

He didn't get far. The Canberra Times reported that at 2 am the police arrested "Francis Alexander Walls, 40, A.M.F., at a house in Riley Street". At the inquest, Detective-Sergeant Millgate said he saw Walls at his home in Darley Street, Surry Hills, and that the soldier told him:

"I'm glad you've come. I couldn't sleep. I'm pleased to get it over." (Truth, 1 July 1945)

According to Millgate, Walls said one of the men had knocked him down and he'd tried to defend himself, saying "Give us a go; don't kick me." He said one of the men said "I'll kick you to death", and that he fired but didn't aim at anyone.

On Wednesday morning, 11 April, Walls appeared in uniform at the Central Police Court before Mr Farrington, S.M. He was charged with murdering Cecil Miller and Arthur Graham and with having an unlicensed Japanese automatic pistol. Sergeant Moulden, the police prosecutor, asked for a remand to 19 April. Bail was refused.

Four Days Later, More Trouble

If anybody thought the Sunbeam would settle down after that, they were wrong. On Saturday 14 April, two men came up to an employee who was sitting on the hotel steps minding the place while the licensee was out. The hotel doors were open but no drinks were being served. According to the Daily Mirror, they wanted beer. According to the Sun, it was a bottle of wine. When he told them they couldn't get any, one of them grabbed him, pulled a revolver and poked it into his stomach. He broke free, ran inside and slammed the door. Detective-Sergeant Windsor and Detective Perry later charged two men with assault.

The Sun put it under the heading "Sunbeam Hotel in limelight again". The same article reported three more shootings in New South Wales that day, one of them a bank teller hit when his own gun fell, which gives you an idea of how many guns were around at the end of the war.

Children in an inner-city lane in 1949, from Ted Hood's series on the slums of Surry Hills, Woolloomooloo and Redfern. Ted Hood, State Library of New South Wales, no known copyright restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The Inquest

The inquest was held at the City Coroner's Court before the Acting-Coroner, Mr Austin. Walls was defended by Mr Dovey, K.C., and Mr J. Bruxner, instructed by Niland and Bohane.

Truth's report of the first sitting, published on 27 May 1945, had some telling evidence:

• The Government Medical Officer, Dr Stratford Sheldon, said blood tests showed Miller had been "slightly under the influence" and Graham "affected to a much greater degree".
• Detective-Constable B. Toms said both Miller and Graham were known to the police.
• Asked whether Graham was "pretty full and pretty cranky", Courtney said "Yes". He said Miller seemed sober to him.
• Mrs Stapleton said Graham had had a quarrel during the afternoon, but not with the soldier, and that it had blown over. When Mr Dovey asked whether anyone kicked the soldier on the floor, she said, "No, no one kicked him."

Truth printed her name as "Mrs. Mary Stapleton" in that report, but every other report, including Truth's own later one, calls her Louise.

The inquest was adjourned to 6 June, and Walls was remanded again without bail. When it finished, Truth reported on 1 July that the Acting-Coroner had found Walls murdered both men and committed him for trial. Mr Dovey argued that at most a jury would convict him of manslaughter, but bail was refused again. At one point Mr Dovey complained that Mrs Stapleton and Mrs Porter seemed to treat the proceedings as entertainment and were giggling, and both women were ordered out of the court.

The son's evidence

Walls' son, the younger Francis Alexander Walls, told the coroner he'd been in the Sunbeam with his father. In his telling, after a few words at the bar a man in the corner said "Cut it out", and then "they rushed over to my father and started punching and pushing him". He said one of them knocked his father down with a left hook, and that Miller and Graham stood over him "in a half crouched position. I saw movement as though they were kicking him." Then the first shot went off and one man fell. The other man went at his father with his arm up, the second shot went off, and he fell too.

About the gun, he said: "I brought it down from New Guinea and gave it to my father, with some ammunition, as a souvenir." And outside the hotel, he said, his father told him, "I had to do it, otherwise they would have kicked me to death."

Millgate agreed that several of the men in the hotel at the time were known to the police, and said Walls himself had an unblemished record.

Darlinghurst Court House, where the Central Criminal Court sat. Walls was tried here in September 1945. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Trial

Walls went on trial at the Central Criminal Court on Monday 3 September 1945. He pleaded not guilty to murdering Arthur Graham, and the Crown said he fired two shots from a Japanese pistol, one of which killed Graham instantly. The reports I found are all about the Graham charge. I didn't find what became of the separate charge over Cecil Miller's death, so I'll leave that open.

Walls' statement was read to the jury, and the Herald summed it up the next day. He said he was knocked down and "kicked four times in the face and head". He thought he was going to be killed and said "Give me a chance", and someone answered, "You'll get no chance, we'll kick you to death." He drew the pistol, someone grabbed him, and "the next instant he heard the pistol explode". He said, "I did not aim at anyone," and that what he did was in self-defence.

On Tuesday 4 September the jury acquitted him of murder and found him guilty of the manslaughter of Arthur John Graham. He was remanded for sentence.

Four years

Mr Justice Herron passed sentence the following week. Truth reported it on 16 September 1945 under the heading "Guns Menace To Society":

"I am determined to put down the carrying of loaded firearms ... whether they be souvenirs of this war or not." (Truth, 16 September 1945)

He gave Walls four years' gaol. The judge told him, "I don't regard you as belonging to the criminal class," and said the police shared that view. He praised Walls' five years in the Army and his family's service, and said that without those things he'd have felt "impelled to have made the sentence much heavier". He also said Graham had a criminal record and that "he and his friends might have made a serious assault upon you". But in his view, "the worst factor of the case was that you took a loaded pistol into a crowded hotel." He said that if Walls behaved himself in gaol he'd be willing to recommend an early release, on condition that Walls left Sydney and kept away from drink.

The Maitland Mercury of 15 September also reported four years. Elliot Lindsay's 2024 article says Walls got seven years on 12 September 1945, but both 1945 newspaper reports I found say four years, so I've gone with those.

Surry Hills at the End of the War

The Sunbeam shooting wasn't a gang killing. It was a pub brawl at closing time with a souvenir gun in the mix. But it happened at a violent time in Surry Hills. In a 2022 piece for Murders Most Foul, Elliot Lindsay describes a gangland war across Sydney, with more than a dozen deaths that peaked between December 1944 and May 1945, much of it in Surry Hills and Darlinghurst. He lists the Sunbeam shooting among the violence of those months. According to Lindsay, the old razor-gang figures of the 1920s were mostly dead or in prison by 1939, and a new crowd had moved in on the wartime money from sly grog and vice.

The Americans were a big part of that. Lindsay writes that African-American servicemen were steered towards Surry Hills and Darlinghurst, and that Durham Hall at 207 Albion Street became the Booker T. Washington Club for Black servicemen in 1943. That's the same Albion Street as the Sunbeam. My post on Durham Hall – 207 Albion Street has more about the house itself.

Then there were the guns. Men coming home from New Guinea brought souvenirs, and some of them were loaded. That's why Justice Herron went out of his way to talk about "souvenirs of this war" when he sentenced Walls.

Durham Hall at 207 Albion Street, further along Albion Street from the Sunbeam. During the war it housed the Booker T. Washington Club for African-American servicemen. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Sunbeam After 1945

The pub kept its reputation. In 1950 a detective told the Central Court that the gunman William "Joey" Hollebone "had been battered and bashed in the Sunbeam Hotel, Surry Hills, about a week earlier by a number of men". That was in late April 1950, and the same men had smashed down his front door with an axe looking for him (Truth, 4 June 1950). His lawyer said he got a pistol to protect himself after the bashing. He was caught throwing it over a fence in a Surry Hills street at about 1.30 am on 30 April, and he got 12 months' gaol for carrying it without a licence.

The Sunbeam didn't last much longer. Mick Roberts says it closed in 1954, and Elliot Lindsay says it closed in 1953 and was demolished by 1957. The Tooth & Co. property file on the hotel at the Noel Butlin Archives runs to 1957, which fits with the end. I can't pin down the exact closing year from the papers I've seen, so it was either 1953 or 1954 depending on whose account you follow.

Today there's no pub on that corner. Frog Hollow Reserve has lawn, trees and an off-leash area, and the old stone steps still lead down into it.

O'Hears Steps, one of the old stone stairways down into Frog Hollow, photographed in 2011. Steps like these were how people got in and out of the hollow, and the Sunbeam stood right at the top. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 1865: The Sunbeam Hotel is built, according to Elliot Lindsay.
• 1895–1904: Frog Hollow, below the hotel, is known as "one of the most depraved areas of Sydney".
• 1925: Slum clearance starts in Frog Hollow, and 295–315 Riley Street, right next to the Sunbeam, is demolished.
• 1929–30: The council deals with demolishing the party wall of the "Sunbeam" Hotel, 317 Riley Street, during the Frog Hollow resumption.
• 9 July 1930: City of Sydney legal opinion on "Sunbeam Hotel. Albion & Riley Sts. Tooth & Co. Ltd. Evan's Place. Easement of light and air."
• 1943: Durham Hall, 207 Albion Street, becomes the Booker T. Washington Club, according to Lindsay.
• Tuesday 10 April 1945, about 3 pm: A soldier and his son are drinking in the Sunbeam, according to Mrs Stapleton.
• 10 April 1945, 6 pm: The bar door closes and the beer is "off". An argument and fight follow.
• 10 April 1945, 6.05 pm: Arthur Graham (31) and Cecil Miller are shot dead in the public bar.
• 11 April 1945, 2 am: Francis Alexander Walls is arrested.
• 11 April 1945: Walls is charged at the Central Police Court with two murders and possessing an unlicensed Japanese pistol, and bail is refused.
• Saturday 14 April 1945: An employee is held up at gunpoint on the Sunbeam's steps.
• May 1945: The inquest opens before the Acting-Coroner, Mr Austin, and is adjourned to 6 June.
• Late June 1945: The coroner finds Walls murdered both men and commits him for trial.
• Monday 3 September 1945: The trial opens at the Central Criminal Court, and Walls pleads not guilty to murdering Graham.
• Tuesday 4 September 1945: Walls is acquitted of murder and convicted of manslaughter.
• September 1945: Mr Justice Herron sentences Walls to four years' gaol. The papers say four years, Lindsay says seven years on 12 September.
• Late April 1950: Joey Hollebone is bashed in the Sunbeam.
• 1953 or 1954: The Sunbeam closes. Lindsay gives 1953 and Roberts gives 1954.
• By 1957: The hotel is demolished, according to Lindsay.

Frog Hollow Reserve at dusk in 2020, with people out walking their dogs. It's a lot quieter now than it was when the Sunbeam was open. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Who Was Who

• Francis Alexander Walls, 46, A.M.F. private and Army cook.
• Francis Alexander Walls (junior), his son, discharged soldier, who brought the pistol home from New Guinea.
• Arthur John Graham, 31, City Council cleaner, of Griffin Street, Surry Hills.
• Cecil Miller, 35 (some papers say 45), ironworker, of Bennett Place, Surry Hills.
• Eric Stapleton, licensee, who was in the cellar at the time.
• Mrs Louise Stapleton, the licensee's wife, and Mrs Vera Porter, her sister, both serving in the bar.
• William Flanagan, sheet-metal worker, of Riley Street, a witness.
• George Brian Courtney (Brian Hunt), taxi driver, of Balfour Street, Greenwich, a witness.
• Det-Sgt Oswald Millgate and Det-Const B. Toms, police.
• Mr Farrington, S.M., at the Central Police Court; Mr Austin, Acting-Coroner; Mr Justice Herron, the trial judge.
• Mr Dovey, K.C. and Mr J. Bruxner, for Walls.

Where the Old Reports Don't Agree

• Miller's age: 35 in the Herald, the Sun and Truth, but 45 in the Age, the Canberra Times and the Northern Star.
• Walls' age: 46 in most reports, but 40 in the Canberra Times.
• Where he was arrested: "a house in Riley Street" (Canberra Times), or his home in Darley Street, Surry Hills (Det-Sgt Millgate at the inquest).
• When he got to the pub: about 3 pm according to Mrs Stapleton and the Age, or shortly before 6 pm according to Walls' own statement.
• Was he kicked? Walls and his son said yes. Mrs Stapleton said "no one kicked him".
• How many shots: two in nearly every account, or "about 14" according to Flanagan.
• The hold-up on 14 April: the men wanted beer (Daily Mirror) or a bottle of wine (Sun).
• The sentence: four years in Truth and the Maitland Mercury, seven years in Elliot Lindsay's 2024 article.
• When it closed: 1953 (Lindsay) or 1954 (Roberts).

My Earlier Posts

• Frog Hollow – Albion St & Riley St – Surry Hills
• Durham Hall – 207 Albion Street – Surry Hills – NSW
• Carlingford Terrace – 179–193 Albion Street – Surry Hills – NSW
• St Michael's Anglican Church – Cnr Albion St & Flinders St – Surry Hills
• Crown Street Women's Hospital – Darlinghurst – Surry Hills
• Reservoir Street – Surry Hills
• "The Shakespeare" Hotel – Devonshire Street – Surry Hills
• Francis Charles Kennedy and the Sophia Street Murder – Surry Hills, 1922
• The Battle of Blood Alley – Eaton Avenue – Kings Cross – 7 May 1929
• The Shooting of Annie Wilson – 195 Bourke Street, Woolloomooloo – 1893
• Darlinghurst Gaol & Darlinghurst Court – Forbes Street & Taylor Square
• Hangings at Darlinghurst Gaol – The Executions and Famous Prisoners
• Crown Street – Woolloomooloo – Darlinghurst – Surry Hills
• Riley Street – Woolloomooloo

Sources

Newspapers (via Trove, National Library of Australia)

• Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 11 April 1945, p.1, "Two Men Shot Dead In Hotel": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27931995
• Daily Mirror (Sydney), Wednesday 11 April 1945, p.3, "Two Die In Bar Tragedy" (photographs of the bar, Mrs Louise Stapleton and Mrs Vera Porter): https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/272474641
• The Age (Melbourne), Wednesday 11 April 1945, p.3, "Two Shot In Hotel": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206869941
• Canberra Times, Wednesday 11 April 1945, p.3, "Dual Murder In Hotel": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2623118
• Newcastle Sun, Wednesday 11 April 1945, p.3, "Double Murder Charge": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/156641013
• Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), Wednesday 11 April 1945, p.4, "Two Men Shot Dead In Hotel Bar": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/56422497
• Warwick Daily News, Wednesday 11 April 1945, p.1, "Hotel Shooting": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/187006813
• The Mercury (Hobart), Wednesday 11 April 1945, p.16, "Two Men Shot Dead": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26056171
• Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday 12 April 1945, p.4, "Soldier Charged With Murder": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27932278
• Maryborough Chronicle, Thursday 12 April 1945, p.1, "Arrest in Sydney Hotel Murder Case": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/155497092
• Daily Mirror (Sydney), Saturday 14 April 1945, p.2, "Standover Gunmen In Sunbeam Hotel": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/272471060
• The Sun (Sydney), Sunday 15 April 1945, p.3, "Sunbeam Hotel in limelight again": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/231704240
• Truth (Sydney), Sunday 27 May 1945, p.35, "Coroner Told Of Double Shooting In Hotel": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/169360255
• Daily Mirror (Sydney), Wednesday 6 June 1945, p.2, "Murder Charge Remand": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/272464501
• Truth (Sydney), Sunday 1 July 1945, p.35, "Two Died In Hotel Shooting: Soldier For Trial": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/169357121
• Northern Star (Lismore), Tuesday 4 September 1945, p.5, "Murder Charge Against Soldier": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/99182009
• Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 5 September 1945, p.5, "Deaths In Hotel Argument": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27925665
• Maitland Mercury, Saturday 15 September 1945, p.4, "Gaol For Manslaughter": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/281239584
• Truth (Sydney), Sunday 16 September 1945, p.16, "Guns Menace To Society": https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/169361784
• Truth (Sydney), Sunday 4 June 1950, p.9, "Didn't Take Advice of Police" (Joey Hollebone bashed in the Sunbeam): https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/167911362

Other sources

• Elliot Lindsay, "The Sunbeam Hotel Tragedy – Death After the Six O'Clock Swill", Neighbourhood Media, 10 December 2024: https://www.neighbourhoodmedia.com.au/post/death-after-the-six-o-clock-swill-the-sunbeam-hotel-tragedy
• Elliot Lindsay, "Booze, Vice & Racial Segregation: When the Americans came to Sydney during WW2", Murders Most Foul, 22 March 2022: https://murdersmostfoul.com/americans-sydney-ww2/
• Mick Roberts, "Surry Hills' notorious bloodhouse, the Sunbeam Hotel", Time Gents, 1 August 2023 (includes Ivan Ive's September 1948 photograph of the hotel, State Library of NSW): https://timegents.com/2023/08/01/surry-hills-notorious-bloodhouse-the-sunbeam-hotel/
• City of Sydney, "History of Frog Hollow Reserve" (2013): https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/histories-local-parks-playgrounds/history-frog-hollow-reserve
• City of Sydney Archives, "Sunbeam Hotel. Albion & Riley Sts. Tooth & Co. Ltd. Evan's Place. Easement of light and air.", 9 July 1930, Legal Opinions Books, A-00515518: https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/955133
• City of Sydney Archives, "Frog Hollow resumption. Demolition of party wall. 'Sunbeam' Hotel, 317 Riley Street. Tooth & Co. [Plans]", Town Clerk's Department correspondence file, 1929–1930, A-00117893: https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/737069
• City of Sydney Archives, "Sunbeam Hotel, 317 Riley St. Party wall. Tooth & Co Ltd.", Deed Packets, 6 March 1930, A-00448187: https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/984809
• Noel Butlin Archives Centre (ANU), Tooth and Company yellow card, "Sunbeam Hotel, Riley Street, Surry Hills", N60-YC-679: https://archivescollection.anu.edu.au/index.php/sunbeam-hotel-riley-street-surry-hills-2
• Noel Butlin Archives Centre (ANU), "Sunbeam Hotel, Surry Hills, Property Office City Hotel files", 1930–1957, N60-7398: https://archivescollection.anu.edu.au/index.php/sunbeam-hotel-surry-hills-property-office-city-hotel-files
• Wikipedia, "William 'Joey' Hollebone": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_%27Joey%27_Hollebone

Pictures

• Children playing in Hills Reserve, Frog Hollow, Surry Hills, in 1949, with old weatherboard houses and a sandstone wall behind. Ted Hood, State Library of New South Wales, no known copyright restrictions: Wikimedia Commons
• A barmaid pulling beers in a crowded Sydney hotel bar at 6 pm in 1941. Max Dupain, public domain: Wikimedia Commons
• A woman in an apron standing in the doorway of a corner grocery covered in hand-painted price signs, Riley and Fitzroy Streets, 1934. Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales, public domain: Wikimedia Commons
• A group of barefoot children in a narrow inner-Sydney lane lined with brick walls and paling fences, 1949. Ted Hood, State Library of New South Wales, no known copyright restrictions: Wikimedia Commons
• A Japanese Nambu Type 14 pistol made in 1943, shown with its leather holster. Chris.w.braun, CC BY-SA 3.0: Wikimedia Commons
• Durham Hall, a two-storey colonial house behind a garden at 207 Albion Street, Surry Hills. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 3.0: Wikimedia Commons
• Royal coat of arms on the sandstone pediment of Darlinghurst Court House at sunset. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0: Wikimedia Commons
• Old sandstone steps with an iron handrail leading down into Frog Hollow Reserve, Surry Hills. Sardaka, CC BY 3.0: Wikimedia Commons
• People walking dogs at dusk on the lawn of Frog Hollow Reserve, Surry Hills, under autumn trees. Sardaka, CC BY-SA 4.0: Wikimedia Commons

Lord Dudley Hotel – Jersey Road – Paddington

The Lord Dudley on Jersey Road is one of those eastern-suburbs pubs everyone dates from a round number on the awning. Soften the live “since 1895” line: the site has been a hotel since the Underwood Estate Hotel of 1878, and Tooth & Co were in the ownership story by the mid-1890s — but the ivy-clad Federation pile you drink in now was designed by Halligan & Wilton after the old building was pulled down in 1908, with the new house finished in early 1909.

Paddington and Woollahra both claim the corner in conversation; heritage listings file it with the Paddington pub group. What matters on the ground is the Edwardian / Queen Anne Revival brickwork, the fireplaces, and a century of neighbourhood trade after the Underwood Estate subdivision turned quarry and tannery country into terrace streets. The Bourdain daytime-schooner line is fine as colour; it is not a foundation date.

On paste, fix Woollahra spelling in any retained headings, keep the food-and-fireplaces welcome, and don’t let a 1895 licence milestone pretend to be the build year of the present walls.

 

The Lord Dudley Hotel - 1895 - Woollahra - New South Wales 

Enjoying a pint outside the Lord Dudley in Woollahra, the late, great Anthony Bourdain fell in love with a uniquely Aussie tradition. "Daytime drinking is really underrated," Bourdain observed. 

And we agree, few things are better than a pint of ale on a sunny Sydney afternoon and there are few places better than this eastern suburbs classic. 

The present building dates from 1908–09, this Tudor-like pub with creeping-vine exterior has been a drinker's paradise (a foodie's too, with scotch eggs, 

Guinness pies and lamb-fry). And if the sun ain't shining then park yourself by the ornate wooden bar, the dartboard or the open fireplace.

Historical Pubs And Hotels - Sydney

 

The Lord Wolseley Hotel - 1881- Ultimo - Pyrmont - Sydney - NSW

Squeeze onto the corner of Bulwara Road and Quarry Street and you understand why Ultimo locals call the Lord Wolseley the narrowest pub in NSW. It is a tiny Victorian hotel that somehow survived the warehouses, the tech campuses and every “renewal” wave that flattened softer neighbours. Spell the name properly: Wolseley — after Field Marshal Garnet Wolseley — not the live-title typo Wolsley.”

Convict-turned-builder Thomas Leahy put the house up in 1878; the hotel was licensed from 1881. Across the road, Quarry Green was once a fairground where sandstone blocks from the nearby quarries were lifted for sport and tightrope walkers drew a crowd — Shirley Fitzgerald’s The Lord Wolseley Hotel: A Social History of a Very Small Pub (2016) is the book that rescued all of that from Tooths brewery paperwork and local memory.

The social history is better than any lifestyle blurb. Billy Hughes is remembered addressing a crowd from the upstairs balcony into Bulwara Road. Bridget Tuite ran the place longer than most and left a paper trail of complaint letters to Tooth & Co — gold for historians, headache for brewery clerks. Ladies’ parlour evenings that quietly sheltered the local gay community long before the language caught up; drunken cats; a licensee’s husband who went to Randwick races and never came home. Tiny pub, thick file.

Historical Sydney Hotels

The Carlisle Castle Hotel - Newtown - Sydney - New South Wales

Tucked off King Street at 17–19 Albermarle Street, on the corner of Probert Street, the Carlisle Castle is the Newtown pub people mean when they say “the one with the marble bar.” Built in 1876, it has spent a century and a half being a back-street local rather than a King Street billboard — which is probably why the fabric survived.

The bar everyone photographs is not 1876 work. In the early 1920s, Reschs imported Italian marble for a major refit and left Newtown with one of the most recognisable pub counters in Sydney. A gold lion on the roof is part of the same brewery-era swagger. It gets called Australia’s best-looking bar; what it is, is a Reschs marble bar that locals have been begging successive owners not to rip out.

Hassett family freehold stretched across three generations for roughly six decades before a mid-2020s sale to Universal Hotels; the Bat & Ball team (Redfern) have since taken on a restoration-minded reboot. In short: 1876 corner hotel, 1920s Reschs marble, 17–19 Albermarle Street address, still standing.

 

The Bald Rock Hotel - 1876 - Rozelle - Sydney - NSW

Bald Rock sounds like a bush nickname, and it was — an old pocket of the Balmain municipality named for bare rock and thin scrub before the suburb we now call Rozelle swallowed it. The hotel at 15–17 Mansfield Street opened in 1876, and it still claims the title of oldest continuously licensed hotel on the Balmain / Rozelle peninsula — a fair claim in a streetscape that has lost plenty of other locals.

Before White Bay was filled and industrialised, this corner sat closer to the water and to the Bald Rock ferry, which ran passengers across to Erskine Street in the city. Three storeys of Sydney sandstone still face the street: built in Victorian Filigree, later stripped of its upper balcony, so what you read today is closer to Victorian Free Classical. The ground floor keeps its stone; the hung awning is a later, plainer shade over the footpath.

Treat the colourful yarns carefully. Pub marketing loves secret tunnels, bootleg liquor and “horses drinking beer.” Fun as folklore — do not state as fact unless you can pin a Tooth & Co file or a contemporary newspaper to it. What you can say safely is sandstone, 1876, ferry suburb, Inner West heritage listing, and a bar that has outlasted most of its neighbours.

Historical Sydney  Hotels

The Nags Head Hotel - Glebe - Sydney - New South Wales

On the corner of St Johns Road and Lodge Street — Forest Lodge if you are precise, Glebe if you are giving a cabbie directions — the Nag’s Head is the suburb’s first pub under a later name. Dictionary of Sydney dates the opening to about 1865 as the Old Forest Lodge Hotel, with publican-butcher John George Tucker behind the bar (and the meat trade).

In 1885 it became the Town Hall Hotel, a plain nod to Ambrose Thornley’s Glebe Town Hall a few doors away (opened 1880). That name stuck through the Tooth & Co decades until 1973, when the house was rebadged Nag’s Head. Later years added the balcony locals now treat as original and pushed the footprint into the neighbouring terrace that once sold pizza — useful colour, not 1860s fabric.

English pub names travel, and this one arrived by rebrand, not by a documented local horse legend. What matters is the name ladder — Old Forest Lodge → Town Hall → Nag’s Head and the fact that Forest Lodge’s first public house is still pouring on the same corner.

The East Sydney Hotel - Cathedral Street - Woolloomooloo - East Sydney

 

The East Sydney Hotel - 1856 - Cathedral Street - Woolloomooloo - East Sydney

If you walk up Cathedral Street from the bay, the East Sydney Hotel sits on the Crown Street corner like it has always belonged there — which, for Woolloomooloo, is about as long as a working pub can manage. The house dates itself to 1856, and locals still sell it as Sydney’s last proper “country pub: wooden bar, copper-nailed boards underfoot, racing memorabilia on the walls, and blessedly — no pokies.

Call the suburb what it is. This is Woolloomooloo, not a vague “East Sydney” lifestyle brand. The hotel sits inside the wider East Sydney / Woolloomooloo heritage story: corner pubs that fed dock workers, boarding-house lodgers and anyone walking between the Domain and the bay. The fabric you see now is a Victorian / Federation-era corner hotel that has been patched, painted and loved rather than scraped clean for brunch Instagram.

What makes it worth a history stop is how little it pretends. Upstairs rooms still let travellers sleep over the bar; downstairs the front room still feels like a room people drink in, not a concept. Keep the copper nails and the wooden bar in the story if you like — theyre part of the lived fabric — but lead with the year, the address (111–113 Cathedral Street) and the suburb that actually owns it.

Historical Sydney Hotels

“The Shakespeare” Hotel - Devonshire Street - Surry Hills

The Shakespeare — “the Shakey” if you grew up anywhere near Central is the blue-tiled corner on Devonshire Street that still looks like a Victorian pub that never got the memo about open-plan fit-outs. Built in 1879, it sits at 198–200 Devonshire Street on the Steel Street corner (also facing Steel Lane), a short climb from Central and now a few metres from the Surry Hills light-rail stop that nearly killed its trade during construction.

What you notice first is the downstairs bar: Reschs-era blue tiling, a proper counter, and the habit of spilling schooners onto the footpath when the weather behaves. Upstairs, Victorian-style rooms and a later banqueting / second-bar level (revamped in living memory) keep the building working as hotel as well as pub. Dog-friendly footpath drinking is present-tense colour — fine in a sentence, not a heritage claim.

For nearly fifty years the Hargreave family held the place — Margaret Hargreave buying in stages from the mid-1970s before a 2024 freehold sale (reported around $17 million) to publican Laurence Collins. The point for this blog is continuity: same corner, same name, same job since the late 1870s, while Surry Hills flipped from working terrace suburb to brunch capital around it.

 

“The London” - Hotel - Pub - Balmain - Sydney 

The London is the sandstone corner at 234 Darling Street (cnr Jane Street) that greets you as you climb from Balmain East ferry toward the village. The stone shop-building went up about 1857–59 — stonemason John Hardman is the name usually attached — and hotel use followed from about 1869–70. Earlier names in the local trail include Golden Eagle, Circular Saw, then London Tavern / London Hotel.

That sequence matters because “convict-era pub” is too strong. This is Victorian stone on Darling Street, not a 1788 waterfront grog shop. When the tram line pushed through toward Darling Street Wharf in 1903, road realignment dropped the street level at the front — which is why the verandah and entries feel a step out of time with the modern footpath.

Later ownership is part of the living story: South Australia’s Coopers brewing family held it before the Stevens family (1989–2021). Yarns about Germaine Greer or Clive James holding court are pub folklore unless you can source them — leave them out, or label them clearly as local lore. The buildings job is simpler: sandstone corner hotel, continuous trade since about 1870, still one of Balmain’s landmarks.

Historical Sydney Hotels

 

The Marble Bar is a historic former bar and dining room in the Hilton Hotel on Pitt Street, Sydney. Opened in 1893, it is known for its ornate marble interior and its place in the history of Sydney’s hospitality.

The Marble Bar - Pitt Street - Sydney - Historical Significance

Believe it Or Not The Marble Bar Was Once Above Ground….
Now It Is Well Below Ground. 
Just This Example Alone Clearly Shows How Much Of What Sydney Is Today As In The Footpaths, Streets And Buildings…. 
It’s  All Been Dramatically Built Up From The Original Ground 
The Marble Bar is a rare story of development done well. And the sad thing is it has been done well. It’s such a shame that this standard has not been applied to all the other Significant and Historical Sites around Sydney 
 Built in 1893 by man-about-town George Adams, it would eventually be dismantled and reassembled underground when the Hilton arrived in 1973. Crafted from the finest marble in Africa and Belgium, it cost a fortune but it gave Sydney something it lacked — an establishment to rival the finest saloons of Paris and London. Liza Minnelli once battled through a schooner here but I'd opt for a cocktail. A martini or a sazerac for the finest room in Sydney.

Historical Sydney Hotels

The Marble Bar in Sydney, Australia, is a historic and renowned establishment that has been an integral part of the city's social and cultural scene for over a century. It is located within the Hilton Sydney hotel and is known for its opulent décor, unique architectural features, and vibrant history.

Origins and Construction:

• The Marble Bar was originally constructed in 1893 as part of the former Government Savings Bank building, which is now the Hilton Sydney hotel.
• The bar was designed by the architect John Clouston, and its name is derived from the opulent marble used in its construction.

Unique Decor and Features:

• The Marble Bar is characterized by its ornate and lavish interior, which includes intricately designed marble pillars, stained glass windows, and decorative plasterwork.
• The bar features an array of unique architectural styles, including Victorian, Gothic, and Art Nouveau elements, reflecting the eclectic design trends of the late 19th century.

Transported from London:

• The bar's mahogany fixtures, including the arches and columns, were initially created for London's Criterion Hotel and transported to Sydney.
• The Marble Bar's design was intended to showcase the wealth and prosperity of Sydney at the time.

Prohibition and Adaptation:

• In the early 20th century, the temperance movement led to the introduction of prohibition in New South Wales, which restricted the sale of alcohol.
• The Marble Bar responded to this by adapting its offerings and focusing on food and non-alcoholic drinks.

Preservation and Restoration:

• Despite changing trends and societal shifts, the Marble Bar's unique design and historical significance were preserved over the years.
• Efforts have been made to restore and maintain the bar's original features, ensuring that its opulent atmosphere endures.

Cultural Significance:

• The Marble Bar has been a gathering place for locals, visitors, and prominent figures throughout its history.
• Its historic charm and luxurious ambiance have made it a favored location for social events, celebrations, and gatherings.

Modern Day:

• The Marble Bar remains a beloved institution in Sydney. It continues to serve as a vibrant bar and live music venue within the Hilton Sydney hotel.
• The bar's historical significance and unique architecture make it a sought-after destination for those looking to experience a piece of Sydney's past.

The Marble Bar's history, opulent design, and ongoing popularity have made it a cherished part of Sydney's cultural heritage. Its ability to adapt to changing times while retaining its historical charm has contributed to its enduring appeal as a cultural and social hub.