Tewksbury House

A photograph of Tewksbury House, a historic Sydney residence. The photograph focuses on the property's ornate wrought-iron entrance gates and masonry fence. These surviving details help document Sydney's residential architecture and the way historic homes were presented from the street.

Crown Street Reservoir

The grassed rectangle behind the fence on Crown Street isn’t a leftover park — it’s the lid of Crown Street Reservoir (Sydney Water WS 0034), the covered brick tank that’s been feeding the inner city since 1859. The official name is the one to use; “Surry Hills water reservoir” is just the old post title. The block is bounded by Crown, Reservoir, Riley and Campbell. City Engineer Edward Bell (with Will Wadsworth) designed it; Donohoe and Vaughan were among the contractors; work ran 1857–59. Water was pumped up from the Botany Swamps scheme, and later also toward Paddington Reservoir (1864).

Under the turf: imported waterproof bricks, hardwood columns, a fire-proof jack-arch roof. It is the oldest water-supply reservoir still in continuous operation in Australia of its type — Yan Yean in Victoria is slightly earlier (1857) but an earth dam, not a covered brick service reservoir. After Botany it took the Upper Nepean scheme from the late 1880s, and today Warragamba water still comes through. The site is on the NSW State Heritage Register; later pumping-station and workshop fabric sits with it. Sydney Water still owns and runs it — gates and street frontages are as close as the public gets.

Cleveland House – Part 3

Cleveland House is a historic building in Surry Hills, Sydney. It dates from the early nineteenth century and is associated with the suburb’s colonial development. The images in this post help document the house and its changing surroundings.

Here Are Some

of the Pictures Cleveland

house Over The Years 

Darling Harbour Creek

Darling Harbour Creek

A water course which passed through a tiny settlement of brickmakers late in 1788 began in the vicinity of the intersection of Riley and Foveaux Streets and flowed along the line of Sophia Street, then north in front of the Albion Brewery (Centennial Plaza is built on the brewery site) and through what today is Belmore Park. The section of Hay Street to the east of George Street, which was added after the creek was turned into an underground drain, follows the path taken by the creek to the marshes which encircled the head of the Cockle Bay (Darling Harbour) where the Entertainment Centre is today.

In the 1880s, Quay Street extended north as Lackey Street to the Darling Harbour railway goods yard built around a semicircular wharf at the head of Cockle Bay. A tributary of the main creek began as a spring near present day Hills Reserve in Surry Hills. Little Albion Street follows the path of the creek which cascaded down the hillside on the western side of Crown Street in what became known as Frog Hollow. This small valley was a notorious hideout for criminals in Victorian Sydney. UBD Map 3 Ref K 15

Wests Creek, Rushcutters Bay

Wests Creek, Rushcutters Bay

This creek which still enters Rushcutters Bay but via a concrete drainage channel today once flowed through what was known by the exotic name of the Valley of La Crozia. Located within the 40-acre (16.2 hectare) grant of William Thomas, the steep, picturesque valley has also been known as West's Bush and Barnum Glen. West's Creek, which has also appeared on maps over the years as La Crozia Creek and Rushcutters Creek, rose near present day Chisholm and Sims Streets, Darlinghurst and flowed through a series of races, pools and falls. The lower section, which flowed through the 70-acre grant of Thomas West which was located south east of Bayswater Road, joined another creek which today flows through Trumper Park and enters Rushcutters Bay via a concrete channel.

The Valley of La Crozia attracted weekend picnickers from all parts of Sydney in the early years of the 19th century. Though the upper section of the creek has long since dried up, its path is still recalled in the top end of Barcom Avenue, the whole of Boundary Street (above), Paddington and the eastern section of McLachlan Avenue which follow what became its dried up bed in the 1860s. The valley and a number of Chinese market gardens below the creek on the flats were subdivided and sold under the name of Barcom Glen, a corruption of the latter name Barnum Glen, in the 1880s. UBD Map 4 Ref L 14 

Black Wattle Swamp Creek

Black Wattle Swamp Creek

A bridge took Parramatta Street (now Broadway) over Black Wattle Swamp Creek (later called Blackwattle Creek), an important watercourse in Sydney's colonial days. Black Wattle Swamp Creek rose in a swamp where Prince Alfred Park is today and passed the old brewery on Broadway - it was the brewery's water supply and the reason for the plant being located there. The creek then followed the line of Blackfriars Street, entering Blackwattle Bay in a large swamp where the Sydney City Council Depot in William Henry Street now stands.

A tributary of Black Wattle Swamp Creek had its source beyond Erskineville Railway Station near the corner of Ashmore Street and Binning Lane. The railway corridor south was in fact built alongside the creek. The northern boundary of the Eveleigh Railway Workshops followed the creek. Boundary Lane, Boundary Street and Smithers Street follow the line of the creek.

Palmers Creek - East Sydney

Palmer's Creek, East Sydney
Though there are no records to indicate the existence of a creek by that name, it is not only likely but almost certain that the creek which once existed to the east of what is now The Domain on the western extremity of the city of Sydney was called Palmers Creek. The reason for this presumption is that it flowed into Palmers Cove, now Woolloomooloo Bay.

It was common practice among early colonial governors to give a creek the same name as the bay it flowed into. The name honours John Palmer, purser of HMS Sirius, one of a number of first fleeters who were buried in and have a marked grave in St. Johns Cemetery, Parramatta. Palmer, the colony's first Commissary, was granted the land through which the creek flowed. It has also been called Yurong Creek, perhaps its Aboriginal name and the reason why the street which followed its the western bank was called Yurong Street.

The creek rose in the vicinity of the intersection of present day Forbes and Bourke Streets. From this point it flowed north westerly down the hillside crossing Crown Street near Liverpool Lane. It then continued north towards the corner of Boomerang Place and William Street where it then followed the line of present day Sir John Young Crescent to enter Palmers Cove at its head.

In addition to the un-named squiggly line on contemporary maps, the existence of the creek is recalled in Stream Street (above), a curved laneway in East Sydney between Yurong and Stanley Lanes. Its shape and name are evidence that it follows the course of a small section of the creek as it passed through the area. The western section of Busby Lane also follows the line of the creek. A short tributary of the creek which rose in the vicinity of the site of Sydney Grammar School in College Street flowed along what now is the eastern edge of the fragrance garden of Phillip Park, entering the main creek at the northern corner of Busby Lane.
UBD Map 3 Ref K 15

Wuganmagulyav Creek - Farm Cove

Wuganmagulya Creek

After The Tank Stream, the creek which flowed into Farm Cove (Wuganmagulya) was the most important waterway to the early colonists of Sydney as it provided the water for the colony's farm located within the grounds of what is today the Royal Botanical Gardens. The root vegetables grown there thrived, but such was not the case with cereal crops about which Gov. Phillip, in his report of 28th September, 1788, said, "very little of the English wheat had vegetated and a very considerable quantity of the barley and many seeds had rotten in the ground ... all the barley and wheat likewise destroyed by the weevil."

The first fleeters weren't the first humans to utilise the land surrounding the small creek, however. The Aborigines appear to have used it as a meeting place for the various groups up and down Port Jackson long before the arrival of the white man, as they held a corroborree there during the first years of the colony. Corroborees were only held at set meeting places.

Farm Cove Creek is today the only watercourse in the inner city area which not only still flows but follows its original course as it wends its way through the Botanical Gardens.