Richmond Villa – 116–122 Kent Street – Sydney

 

Richmond Villa -  Once at Macquarie Street 
Now At Kent Street - Old Sydney 

Tucked Behind Parliament House, Facing The Domain, Is The Prettiest Old House In The City - Richmond Villa. 

Governor Macquarie gave an acre of Macquarie Street land to his Irish Lieutenant Governor, Marice O’Connor;  who had married Governor Bligh‘s daughter. 

At Verious times the site carried the Lighthorse Barricks which became an institution with the title of the Sydney female school of industry, the Presbyterian prefabricated iron church of Saint Stephen, and a cluster of houses – Richmond Terrace

O’Connell did not build on the land, and passed into other Hands &  was subdivided.

 In 1849 three of the lots sold to the colonial architect Mortimer Lewis, who boldly made a breach in the domain wall that sealed the property off from the park and started work on his Gable sandstone Gothic villa.

Note that the site could’ve been chosen for a man with a sociable nature, for the domain had by then changed its character of official wilderness.

 This land, that Governor Philip dedicated to his government property, not to be alienated, it had for more than 50 years largely been a waste of scrub land, apart from the portion developed to be the botanical Gardens.

In the 1840s it was put in order.A road that became a carriage drive for Gentry was favourite for afternoon social & fashion parades. 

But Mortimer Lewis hardly stayed long enough to enjoy it all. He sold the house within a year of moving in. Various owners held it until it was acquired, with other eastern side Macquarie Street sites, by the state in 1879.

 It is since served as part of Parliament house now housing country party members.  It Is Such A Shame that A “Publicly” Owned classic Georgian Gothic Revival Masterpiece Is Only Accessible To The Political Elite.

members

Darlinghurst Courthouse - Oxford Street - Taylor Square

 

Darlinghurst Courthouse 

The New South Wales Enabling Act & 

The New South Wales Court Act 1787

& the CHARTER OF JUSTICE, 2nd April 1787

Were Both Enacted On The 7th February 1788,

 After Arthur Phillips Instructions From King George III 

Had Been Read Aloud And Enabled By John Collins, Judge Advocate Of The New Colony. 


On The 11th February 2 Convicts Were Convicted Of Stealing, One Was Sentanced To 150 Lashes With The Cat-O-Nine-Tails, & The Other To Be Marooned On Pinchgut Island (Now Called Fort Denison) In The Middle Of Sydney Harbour To Starve To Death. 

The first civil action is brought by convicts against the captain of the transport, whom they accused of stealing belongings they had given him for safe keeping. He was found guilty.

In September 1795, during Governor hunters term, there was another strange civil case. Two soldiers of the New South Wales for the suit for £500 damages for a £20 each.

The courts  shuffled from one place to another until Greenways building on King Street, the first Supreme Court, was ready.

The courts were shuffled from one place to another until greenways building on King Street, the first Supreme Court, was ready.

Meddling commissioner Bigge had forced Greenway to turn his original courthouse into St James church.

Satisfied with the makeshift he then had to create alongside the church to service port. The building, until 1828, handed civil and criminal cases until the new criminal court was built at Darlinghurst 14 years later.

Commission a big head for screen way to turn his original courthouse into St James church. Every little architect was deeply dissatisfied with the makeshift you don’t have to create alongside the church to service courts. The building, not opened until 1828, handled civil and criminal cases until the new criminal court was built at Darlinghurst 14 years later

The building was designed by multiple ideas, which was one wonderful well. But the time is regarded as a/inspiration to go to Newport house hard up against the back of Darlinghurst jail. This arrangement would obviate the lamentable exhibition of prisoners creating through the town to the courthouse for trials and risk their escape

Petty’s Hotel - York Street

 Petty’s Hotel 

The fire spirit of Dr John Dunmore Lang come out with a medical Scotsman we found the first Presbyterian church in Jemison Street in 2027, 20 Church Hill. Do you line newline. Locklin thoughtFor prefer a cheap convict labour migrants from Beggars him.

On site 36 becomes a pity, attending to my special place in town, particularly patronised family came back to Langford castigated.

On site 36 becomes petty, attending to my special place in town, particularly patronised family came back to Langford castigated.

Distinguished from overseas for sumptuously looked after. His final lodging. The 21-year-old princess Lily Decon day of the Royal house are friends died there in 1866. He was on a tour of Asia and the Pacific when he visited Sydney and Port a fatal chill. Body was preserved for shipping back to France. Before a requiem mass was held in Saint marries the coffee and stayed in petty surmounted by silver box holding the Princess band heart.

Bennelong Point - Circular Quay East - Australia's First Stock

Bennelong Point - Circular Quay East 

In 1788  Bennelong Point  Was A Tiny Island separated From The Mainland By A Narrow Tidal Channel - Since Filled In By Drifting Sands. Known By The Aborogines As Juba Ghalee. 

It Was Called Bennelong By Poineers Due To The Go Between Bennelong Untol Dec 1792 When Governor Phillip Returned To England With Bennelong. 

It Then Went Under Another Native Name Of  Yemmer - Awan - Yea. 

After His Companion Died In England, Bennelong Returned To Sydney 

 It Over His Countrymen. 

The Sydney Gazette Of 9th January 1813  Reporting His Death On The 3rd Said 

"Of This Veteran Champion Of The Native Tribe Little Favourable Can Be Said. His Voyage To, And Benevolant Treatment In Great Britain Produced No Change Whatever In His Manners & Inclinations, which Were Naturally Barbarous & Ferocious" 

The Outcrop which Now Bears The Name. Bennelong Point Was Called Cattle Point By the Earlly Settlers, Because The First Livestock. Were Landed There. 

Captain Watkin Tench's Journal Records That The Live Animals Taken On Board were "Two Bulls, Three Cows, Three Horses, Forty four sheep, & 32 Hogs, & A Very Lrge Quantity Of Poultry Of Every Kind"

In His Journal Lietenant Philip King Recorded "The Landing Of Stock on The 28th January, On The Eastern Point On The Cove. We Landed Only 4 Mares & 2 Stallions, 4 Cows, 1 Bull & 1 Bull Calf, Ewes, Poultry & 3 Goats With Hogs."

Governor Phillip Wrote "February Was Ushered In By A Violent Storm; Lightning Struck & Shivered A Tree  Under Which A Shed Had Been Erected For Some Sheep, & Five Of These Arrivals Were Destroyed."

A Stock Muster On 1 May 1788 Revealed the only 2 Bulls & 5 cows were left. On 5 June Sergeant James Scott noted that for cows & 1 pool with 1 Bull calf was drove Australia way from the governors farm. They remained straight until 21 December 1795, when scores of wild cattle were found in the cow pastures, a grassy paradise in the valley of the Nepean River 40 miles south west of Sydney

10 Things You Didn't Know About Waverly.... New South Wales

 

10 Things You May Not Have Known About.... Waverley

1. The First Free Jewish Settler Built His House In Waverley . Barnett Levey Arrived In Sydney In 1821 From London's East End & Was Known As The Father Of The AUstralian Theatre After He Founded Australia's First Permanant Theatre.... Which Was... The Theatre Royal In George Street

 

2. Waverley Gets Its Name From Barnett Levey's Home. Levey Never Lived There, But Named It Waverley House In Honour Of The Book "Waverley" by Scottish Author Sir Walter Scott, Published in 1814 & Often Regarded As The First Historical Novel. 

 

 

3.  The War Memorial Hospital Is Made Up Of A Number Of Victorian Buildings. The Edina, Banksia & Witchagil Buildings Were Built By NSW Politician Ebenezer Vickery in 1884

 

4. Vickery Was One Of The First Politicians To SUpport Divorce. The Waverley Resident Usually Kept His Speeches To Mining But He Stood In Support Of Sir Alfred Stephen's Radical Divorce Bill in 1887

 

5. Australia's First Female Olympic Gold Medalist Is Buried In Waverley Cemetery. Fanny Durack's Grave Was Covered In Weeds and Unmarked Until 1990 When Fundraisers Pulled Together To Buy A Plaque And An Onyx Headstone

 

6. a number Of Catholic Friar's Used To Call Waverley Home.  The Victoria St Friary Was Demolished in 1985 After Sustaining Extensive Damage in 1851

 

7. Waverley Colege Was One Of The First Schools To Add AFL To It's Weekend Sport Program. Year 7 & 8 Students At The School Played Their First Season Of School AUssie Rules in 2013

 

8. Waverley College Opened With 20 Students In 1903. The School Stopped Taking Boarders in 1979 and Counts Tv Personality Scott Cam, Garden Guru Costa Georgiadis & Singer Johnny O'Keefe Among It's Old Boys.

 

9. The Crown Princess Of Albania, Susan Cullen Ward, Came From Waverley. The Australian Born Princess Moved From Waverley Whyen She Married Crown Prince Leka in 1975, But THe Pair Did NBot Live In ALbania As The Country Had Been Named A Communist Republic

 

10. Italian Is The Top Language Spoken In Waverley According To The 2011 Cencus. The Median Income Is $818....  18.2% of Families Are One Parent Families, & 55% of All Residents Live In Apartments. 

 

 

 

 

Australia Day  - 2021 

Australia Day is observed on 26 January and marks the date of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet at Warrane (Sydney Cove). The day has a complex history for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and is also known as Invasion Day and Survival Day. This post records Australia Day in 2021.

Monday 18th Jan 2021 

It was 233 Years Today When Arthur Phillip & The First Fleet Finally Sailed Into Botany Bay, So Named After The Discoveries Of Flora & Fauna Sir Joseph Banks Had Discovered On The 1770 Voyage Of Captain Cook On The HMAS Endeavour After Recording The Eclipse Of Saturn In Tahiti. 
By All Records And Accounts Botany Bay Was The New “Eden” As Sir Joseph Banks Had Been Portraying For The 20 Odd Years To The Royal Society In London, As Well As Being In The Ear Of King George III. 
But As Captain Arthur Phillip Sailed In On The HMAS Sirius, The Lead Ship Of The Fleet, What He Found Was Vastly Different To What Had Been Described After The Perilous 8 Month Journey From Portsmouth In May 1787. 
Botany Bay Itself Turned Out To Be Too Shallow For a The Ships To Even Be Able To Come Close To Shore... The Wind That Had Got Them Into The Bay Itself Suddenly Died, And The Fleet Of Ships Were Left Unable To Sail Out Again Until A Southerly Or Coastal Wind Picked Up Again. 
When Arthur Phillip Sailed Ashore, He Found that The Land Was Very Sandy & Swampy All Around, As Well As The Fact There Didn’t Seem To Be Any Fresh Water Supply To Refill. 
He Also Noticed That There Ant Mounds Everywhere & These Black Ants That Had A Sharp Bite Attacked Him, And His Marines Once They Were Ashore.
He Had Been Promised By Sir Joseph Banks And The Royal Society Back In London That There Would Be Plenty Of Wild Game. 
Sir Joseph Banks Had Been Successful Bringing Back Kangaroos 🦘 For The Pleasure Of King George II
 There Was Also Very Little Wildlife So He Questioned If There Would Even Be Enough Food To Feed a The 1700 convicts And 

 

Most people rushing past Regent Street toward Central never look twice at the sandstone pavilion on the corner of Sydney Yard. That is Mortuary Station — James Barnet’s Victorian Free Gothic / Venetian Gothic funeral terminus, opened in 1869 as the city end of the specialised necropolis railway to Haslem’s Creek (today’s Rookwood). Hearse vans and mourning carriages left from here; families rode with the coffins to a matching receiving house inside the cemetery. Angels, cherubs and gargoyles by sculptors including Thomas Ducket and Henry Apperly give it a church-like solemnity — but it was never a place of worship. It was a railway station for the dead.

As motor hearses and better roads took over, the Regent Street funeral-terminus role ended in 1938; residual cemetery trains from Central wound down by the late 1940s. The Rookwood twin building was dismantled in the 1950s and rebuilt in Canberra as All Saints’ Church, Ainslie. Barnet’s Chippendale pavilion later did parcels and depot work, had a brief 1980s restaurant life, and has since been restored and heritage-listed. It is the only surviving purpose-built Victorian railway funerary station in Australia — usually closed except for special openings such as Sydney Open.

Photographs here document Barnet’s Mortuary Station and its Regent Street / Central setting.

Mortuary Station -  Central - Chippendale 

Chippendale station, sandwiched between Sydney’s Central Station and Railway Square, originally opened as Mortuary Station on June 29, 1869, and was used to transport the dead and their grieving relatives to their final resting place, Rookwood Cemetery. 

Adorned with angels, cherubs and gargoyles, the Venetian 13th century Gothic-style building was designed by James Barnet as a central stop to pick up the dead and their living families. Those families had to pay for their return tickets on the grave-y train, but the dead — I imagine due to their inability to access their wallet — generously rode free.

Apparently, the train timetable saw two trains leaving a day — one in the morning and one in the afternoon. On board, there were two types of hearse carriages used to transport the dead. The largest could hold up to 30 coffins, while the other could fit 10 at most. Mourners were held in a separate area of the train, and all disembarked at an almost identical station at the other end, aptly named Cemetery Station.

The station and train line were in use until 1947, when the last railway timetable was recorded. It read, “Sydney 2.17pm to Strathfield 2.33pm to Rookwood #1, 2.50pm." By that time, roads were in better shape and cars were a much more popular mode of transport. As such, most funeral processions travelled by car and the need for Mortuary Station was no more. It’s Rockwood sister, Cemetery Station, was dismantled in the '50s and actually rebuilt stone for stone in Canberra to become the All Saints Church. But good ol’ Morty still stands, and if its walls could talk, they’d have a lot to say about its colourful life since those dark early days.

In the 1950s, it became a depot to dispatch animals, namely horses, then moved into a new role as a parcel depot, before taking on its most ambitious role as a pancake restaurant in the '80s. That’s right, from 1986-89, two men by the name of Peter Shield and John McNally had the sweet idea of taking the original railway carriages and turning them into dining areas to eat breakfast. I don’t know about you, but nothing makes me hungrier than thinking about dead people. Know what I mean? Pass the syrup, please.

the restaurant flopped, and by 1989 it was a ghost town once more. Over the last 25 odd years, it’s been refurbished, heritage listed, vandalised and used as a wedding location. Because that’s the other thing thinking about the dead makes me want to do: marry the one I love

JANUARY 2022

The Redfern Mortuary Station, also known as the Mortuary Railway Station, is a historic railway station in Sydney, Australia. It served as a terminal station specifically designed for transporting the deceased and mourners to and from Rookwood Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in the Southern Hemisphere. Here's an overview of the history of the Redfern Mortuary Station:

Origins and Purpose:

• The Redfern Mortuary Station was opened in 1869. It was built to cater to the growing need for a dignified and efficient means of transporting the deceased from Sydney to the more remote Rookwood Cemetery.
• At the time, the state of urban cemeteries was becoming increasingly crowded and unsanitary, leading to the establishment of larger cemeteries outside the city.

Architectural Design:

• The station was designed by colonial architect James Barnet, known for his role in designing many of Sydney's notable buildings.
• The architectural style of the station was Gothic Revival, characterized by pointed arches, ornamental details, and other features reminiscent of medieval architecture.

Functionality:

• The Redfern Mortuary Station featured covered platforms for the arrival and departure of funeral trains. It also included waiting rooms for mourners and facilities for the transfer of coffins.
• The design aimed to provide a dignified and solemn atmosphere for the transportation of the deceased and their families.

Funeral Services:

• The station was primarily used for funeral services and transporting the deceased to Rookwood Cemetery. Special funeral trains would carry coffins and mourners to the cemetery for burial.
• The station's proximity to the main line ensured easy access to the cemetery, which was located a few kilometers away.

Decline and Closure:

• With changes in funeral practices and urban development, the use of the Redfern Mortuary Station declined over the years.
• The station officially closed to funeral services in 1938, as motor hearses became more common and modern transportation methods were preferred.

Preservation and Heritage Status:

• The Redfern Mortuary Station was recognized for its historical and architectural significance. It was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register, ensuring its preservation for future generations.
• The station's distinctive Gothic architecture and its association with Victorian-era funeral practices make it a unique and historically important site.

Modern Use:

• While the Redfern Mortuary Station no longer serves its original purpose, efforts have been made to repurpose and restore the station for various uses.
• The station occasionally hosts cultural events, exhibitions, and tours, allowing visitors to explore its architectural beauty and learn about its history.

The Redfern Mortuary Station stands as a reminder of a bygone era and provides insight into the customs and practices of the past. Its architectural significance, along with its association with Sydney's funeral history, adds to its cultural and historical value in the city's landscape.

Sydney and Bubonic Plague in 1901 – Rats

Sydney’s major bubonic plague outbreak began in 1900 and continued to shape public health concerns into 1901. The disease was associated with rats and fleas, while overcrowded housing and poor sanitation increased fears of infection in inner-city neighbourhoods.

 

Sydney & The Bubonic Plague Of 1901

The Rear of 32 Oxford Street, in 1901 When Sydney Was In The Height Of The Bubonic Plague