The boat shed at the bottom of Hilly Street, looking towards Green Point, taken from the top of Montgomery’s Palace Hotel c1920s. The Mortlake-Putney Punt now crosses the Parramatta River from this spot. Nearby is a small beach, known as Fairmile Cove, where naval boats were assembled during World War II.
In the middle distance is Green Point, previously called Bachelor’s Point, which was refurbished in 2019 and renamed Wangal Reserve, in recognition of the traditional owners whose lands stretched along the southern shore of the Parramatta River (Burramattagal) from Blackwattle Bay to Silverwater.
At the northern end of the reserve was a community dance hall, a popular venue on a Saturday night. In the distance can be seen the Dutch-style gatehouse marking the entrance to “Rivendell”, formerly Thomas Walker Hospital, completed in 1893 by Dame Eadith Walker in memory of her father.
In the opposite direction, taken from the same vantage point is Tennyson Road, formerly Wharf Road and once part of Burwood Road that snaked its way across country to link with the current Burwood Road. At the top of the hill the AGL works can be made out with one of its gasholders visible on the left.
Cows can be seen grazing near the tramway about halfway up the hill. The village of Mortake is scattered about with houses and a few stores well-spaced out. Many of the workers at the gas works came to work on the tram that ran between Enfield and Mortlake via Burwood.
Frank Jones’ downfall came when he accidentally set alight to a shed at Concord Quarry and was badly injured. While he was being rescued police found two revolvers nearby. These had been used in several holdups and they led to his identification. Two years before the quarry explosion, Jones had been sentenced for holding up…
These words, emblazoned on banners and blackboards, are found in the French school at Villers-Bretonneux, a small village lying among green fields just south of the river Some. This Anzac Day marks the centenary of a battle so bravely fought that one British officer called the victory at Villers-Bretonneux “perhaps the greatest individual feat” of…
On our open days we are often asked what is the meaning of the latin on the Walker crest – “Per Varios Casus”. An approximate translation would be “Through diverse (or various) opportunities”, which would appear to be an indication of how his wealth was acquired. It’s not known if this was an old crest or whether it came…
Industrialisation in Europe and North America in the late nineteenth century engendered a wave of populist nationalism across the world. People who had once regarded themselves as having an affinity with a particular region, now thought in terms of their national identity. The idea in popular culture of a set of values that was unique…
Tooth Pick Holder Toothpicks. Whether you use them to pick up an appetizer, test the doneness of a cake, or clean your teeth, these handy little devices are used worldwide But in 1869 a wooden toothpick-making machine was invented and Charles Forster, a marketing genius, acquired rights to the patent. Once machine-made toothpicks became widely…
The “first” Sydney Harbour tunnel built about a century ago has been largely forgotten. The tunnel, dug under Sydney’s harbour at its narrowest point between Greenwich in the north and Birchgrove in the inner west, was a technical feat involving the sort of hard physical labour almost impossible to contemplate today. It was built for…
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