The Union Club – Bligh Street

Bligh Street once had two Wardell clubhouses within a short walk of each other and Sydneysiders still mix them up. This post is about the Union Club at 2 Bligh Street, not the surviving New South Wales Club faade at 31 Bligh.

The Union Club was founded in 1857 by professional and pastoral gentlemen who first met in leased rooms at Wynyard Square; James Macarthur was an early president. From 1859 the club occupied Robert Campbell’s former Bligh Street mansion (period writers cheerfully called it a “cottage,” though it was a substantial house), later leasing adjoining warehouse ground and buying the Campbell site in 1873.

After years of alterations, the old Campbell house gave way to a purpose-built Classical Revival clubhouse designed by William Wilkinson Wardell and completed in 1884: three storeys, balustraded parapet, pediment, colonnaded portico; Benjamin Backhouse later added further colonnade work. It was one of colonial Sydney’s leading gentlemen’s clubs, hard against the commercial and legal precinct around Bligh, Bent and O’Connell Streets. The Wardell clubhouse was demolished in 1955 when the club sold part of the site and rebuilt on what remained. If you are standing at 31 Bligh admiring sandstone, you are looking at the other Wardell club — State Heritage listed, front portion still standing.

Union Club clubhouse at 2 Bligh Street, designed by William Wilkinson Wardell and demolished in 1955 — not the New South Wales Club building at 31 Bligh Street.

Wesley Chapel – Built 1847 – Bourke Street – Surry Hills

Walk Bourke Street between the city and the southern suburbs and you still pass a sandstone Classic Revival chapel that looks older than almost everything around it. The façade still carries the inscription “Wesleyan Chapel – 1847.” Dictionary of Sydney credits architect John Bibb; the chapel was built in 1846–47 for Lancelot Ireland on part of his estate and later given to the Wesleyan (Methodist) Church.

For well over a century Methodists worshipped here on what became a busy inner-suburban thoroughfare. The congregation closed in 1979. The historic chapel was then folded into Wesley Mission’s Edgar Eager Lodge — a facility for people experiencing homelessness — with a residential tower added at the rear about 1980. The sandstone front stayed: a rare early religious landmark still reading as a chapel in a street that has otherwise gone high-rise and mixed-use.

Keep the geography straight: this stretch of Bourke Street is Surry Hills in City of Sydney archival captions and in the post title. Heritage NSW’s primary address for the same building lists Darlinghurst (348a Bourke Street) — a border-suburb quirk, not a different chapel.

Former Wesleyan Chapel (1847), Bourke Street, Surry Hills — sandstone Classic Revival façade, later part of Wesley Mission’s Edgar Eager Lodge.

The Rocks at Night – August 2017

This night-time view of The Rocks captures one of Sydney’s oldest precincts after dark. The district grew around the western shore of Sydney Cove and retains historic buildings and lanes from its colonial and maritime past.

Fort Macquarie – Eastern Point of Sydney Cove / Western Point of Farm Cove – Bennelong Point

Fort Macquarie - Bennelong Point - Eastern Side Sydney Cove - Western Side Of Farm Cove

             

It would be hard to even believe that there was once a full operating Fort, like you’d see in medieval England. Very Soon After Lachlan Macquarie Was Appointed And Constituted As The New Governor In Chief Of The Colony Of New South Wales He Became Quite Aware Of The Threat Of Invasion.
 Early to his time and to greet you South Wales can quite clear that Sydney was a penguin colony is giving no naval forces within about 5000 Miles.
 It was on the night of August 7 around is either 1813 or 1814 and American fleet sailed into Sydney unnoticed by anyone in the colony until the next morning.
If you clean quite clear that Sydney was available target for the French or the Dutch to attack on all the Americans at one stage I was at fleet arrived in Sydney harbour and are there everybody in the colony realise the time they could’ve been burnt down and destroyed overnight the reasons for having a fort and the battle placements around the harbour became more important.
 Therefore Governor Macquarie made one of the most important things in his time is governor to make sure that replacements were placed in strategic parts around Sydney in the first point of call was Bennelong point.
By that stage Bennelong had died over alcohol abuse and the lonely washed up man got accepted by the aboriginals not accepted by the colony.
Barangaroo had also died giving birth previously and so there was no link then I’ve been on point being anyone’s property apart from the colonies.
Going to McQuarrie decided to build a sandstone for it on the little bay outcrop of rock that test it out in low tide from Bendalong point are the sandstone quarry it from the top he on way.

 
Governor Macquarie decided to build a sandstone foot on the little bay outcrop of rocks it’s a straight out in Lowtide from Bendalong point are the sandstone quarry at from the top in way.

 On the other side of the semi circular key is as it was cold in those days are Caedmon‘s cottage girls proximately 1815 for John Cadman who was about Stuart at that stage.
You have to imagine that the actual semi circular key was 150 m further back before 1845 when Governor darling are filled filled in through convert work and all the fence XS sandstone and rubble used from the government buildings.
 Next point of call for governor McQuarrie was to set a site on the other side on another point new doors point call Port Phillip which had been set aside back in the 1790s by Governor Philip for that purpose
 The land was set for Fort Philip on the northern side of the key which happened to be the most perfect semi circular key for shipping anywhere in the modern world.

 Between 26 January 1788 on 6 February 1788 to 12 the ships were unloaded at Bendalong point which was called cattle point to that stage where they unloaded the forecast and six sheep as well as blacksmith animals and other equipment the governor of the Philip had made sure that they had on the ships when I first got here to be able to set up our small colony and I keep going without any supplies for 3 to 5 years







 It was in the third you I’m going to the 50th at the convicts and the Marines as Wellers the party started to give up hope that Sydney was going to be a place that they could inhabit.
Ground around Sydney was very rocky and very sandy and not suitable for cropping the first farm was built for created in what is now the government botanical Gardens are and that took nearly a year to get up and running in the first crop was destroyed by marsupial mice.
Also in that they could’ve been rats from the ship ships that when they first start in to Sydney harbour. The rap population grew rapidly as there were no way







It was on the Site Of Where The Sydney opera House Is Located At Bennelong Point. 


To think they pulled down such a grand building built By Governor Macquarie in 1816 to Build a Tram Shed, and then later The Opera House. 

Although governor Macquarie was a military man, there is little evidence to suggest that he made any contribution towards the defence of Sydney other than upgrading the fort on Dawes Point and building Fort Macquarie on Bennelong Point which replaced a small fort established by First Fleeter William Dawes in 1788
Francis Greenwaydesigned The Fort which came into use in January 1821, just before Macquarie departed. Fort Macquarie was a large, impressive structure built of stone hewn frmo an outcrop of rock near the construction site known as the Tarpien Precinct. In 1902, it was replaced by the Fort Macqaurie Tram Depot. 

The Original Building Was Designed By Francis Greenway, But As For Being A Fort....... Apparently it was terrible 

The Site Was Used As A Tram Depot For Many Years Before The Thpught ofThe Opera  House Came To Mind 

Fort Macquarie, Bennelong Point, Sydney (1820-21): Though Governor Macquarie was a military man, there is little evidence to suggest he made any major contribution towards the defence of Sydney other than upgrading the fort on Dawes Point and building Fort Macquarie on Bennelong Point which replaced a small fort established by First Fleeter William Dawes in 1788. Francis Greenway, Macquarie's buddy in arms when it came to the erection of public buildings in Sydney, designed the fort which came into use in January 1821, just a short while before Macquarie's departure from NSW. Fort Macquarie was a large, impressive structure built of stone hewn from an outcrop of rock near the construction site now known as the Tarpeian Precinct. By the turn of the 20th century, Fort Macquarie had outlived its usefulness. In 1902, it was replaced by the Fort Macquarie Tram Depot, a terminus and workshops for the Belmore to Circular Quay electric tram service. The site is today occupied by the Sydney Opera House





Man O'War Steps, Farm Cove Crescent5, Sydney (1810-20): The steps are the only known remains of harbour works from the Macquarie era still in existence in Sydney Harbour. They are in what appears to be their original configuration, and still in daily use. The Man O'War Steps recall a bygone era when Navy ships anchored in Farm Cove, and the soldiers came ashore to Fort Macquarie, Sydney's main military base which once stood where the Opera House is today. The Man O'War Steps were the embarking and disembarking point for this function for over a century. The original construction dating from 1810-20 became part of Fort Macquarie (Governor Macquarie laid the foundation stone of the fort on 17 December, 1817) and has been improved and/or replaced over subsequent years. The majority of the existing structure appears to have been put in place as part of Farm Cove seawall constructed in the 1860s. 










The TARPEAN WAY 

The site of one of Sydney's oldest sandstone quarries, it provided the building materials for some of Sydney's early stone buildings, particuly those built by the Government for its own use, that were constructed around the turn of the 19th century. Unfortunately, of these, only the Man O'War Steps survive today. The biggest of these buildings was Fort Macquarie, which was the first building to occupy the site of the Sydney Opera House. The seawalls of Farm Cove (built between 1848 - 1878) and the eastern shore of Circular Quay (completed in 1847) were also built in part out of the rock excavated from this quarry. The hole left by quarrying became known as the Tarpeian Way, after the resemblance of the escarpment to the Tarpeian Rock, a steep cliff of the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Roman Forum in Ancient Rome. In the time of the Caesars, criminals were hurled to their deaths from it. 
Cut off from the rest of the Domain by the Cahill Expressway, the Tarpeian Precinct is a narrow strip of open parkland in the vicinity of the quarry site running along the eastern side of Macquarie Street above the old quarry face. This relatively small elevated green space dotted with large trees has views to parts of Circular Quay, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Government House is immediately to the south-east of this area.