Showing posts with label Surry Hills. Show all posts

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, October 26, 2022

“The Shakespeare” Hotel - Devonshire Street - Surry Hills

“The Shakespeare” Hotel - 1879 - Devonshire Street - Surry Hills

Rising out of the backstreets of Surry Hills like a pirate ship run ashore, the Shakespeare is a Sydney treasure.

Built in 1879 there's a kegful of charm here, be it the blue tiles cascading down the bar or the Victorian-style rooms above, every nook and cranny has a story worth telling.

Famed for journalists, skaters, actors and all the bohemians Surry Hills could conjure,

it's the kind of place where you can bring your dog,

have a Reschs on the street and a schnitty at the bar — everything a pub ought to be.

Historical Sydney Hotels

Friday, March 4, 2022

Crown Street - Woolloomooloo - Darlinghurst - Surry Hills

Crown Street is a roughly 2.3–2.4 km north–south thoroughfare through Woolloomooloo, East Sydney, Darlinghurst and Surry Hills — from near Sir John Young Crescent south to Cleveland Street. It sits on the sandstone plateau that Dictionary of Sydney writers treat as a spine of Surry Hills topography, between the Woolloomooloo valley and the old Sandhills toward Central, and became one of the main early north–south roads as the Riley and neighbouring estates were subdivided through the mid-nineteenth century.

Along the Surry Hills stretch it’s still a mixed retail and terrace corridor (Crown Street Public School, Surry Hills Library / Community Centre, corner pubs). Two landmarks bookend the story without owning the whole street: the Crown Street Reservoir block (completed 1859, bounded with Reservoir, Riley and Campbell Streets) and the former Crown Street Women’s Hospital at Crown and Albion — founded by Dr James Graham in Hay Street in 1893, moved to Crown Street in 1897, closed 31 March 1983 when maternity services shifted westward (including to Westmead). An electric tram once ran from Oxford Street to Cleveland Street until the late 1950s; traffic one-way patterns south of Campbell Street changed after the Eastern Distributor opened in 1999.

Treat this as a continuous inner-east spine rather than a single building note suburb segment and landmarks where they’re visible.

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