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Millers Point Streets & Lanes
Millers Point was at the heart of development of colonial and post-colonial settlement in Sydney and New South Wales. The natural rocky terrain, despite much alteration, remains the dominant physical element in this significant urban cultural landscape in which land and water, nature and culture are intimately connected historically, socially, visually and functionally.
Much (but not all) of the colonial-era development was removed in the mass resumptions and demolitions following the bubonic plague outbreak of 1900, but remains substantially represented in the local place names, some of the remaining merchants villas and terraces, its low-rise, village-like character, and its vistas and glimpses of the harbour over its rooftops.
At its Millers Point end, Argyle Place runs parallel to Argyle Street and contains a row of classic 19th century terraces. Fronted a village green, at the head of which stands the Garrison church, it is as close to a British village as one could get.
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Argyle Lane is one of the new streets created during the area's development in 1916. It was named in 1923, presumably because of its proximity to Argyle Street. At 2.4 metres from kerb to kerb, Argyle Lane and Lance Lane are the narrowest streets in Sydney (they are identical in width). High Lane, which runs parallel to Argyle and Lance Lanes, is just 8 cm wider but is on a higher elevation in its middle section. Argyle Lane and Lance Lane appear to be dual carriageways of the same street but they are not.
One of the new streets created during the area's development in 1916. It was named in 1923 in honour of Charles Lance, the second Chairman of the Sydney Harbour Trust between 1912 and 1924. Argyle Lane and the L-shaped Lance Lane are Sydney's narrowest streets.
Recalls the wealthy merchant Robert Towns (1794-1873), operated a whaling and shipping business from this street. Towns (right) was the founder of the Queensland city of Townsville. Was part of Moore's Road (see Dalgety Road) until the 1870s as it led to the storehouse of merchant Captain Joseph Moore, built in 1840 to conduct his import and export business. Moore and his son established an agency for the P&O shipping line. Its mail steamer, the SS Chusan, berthed at Moore's Wharf in 1852, commencing a service that began a tradition of carriage of the Royal Mail by P&O which continued for over a century. Towns built a warehouse of his own over the road from Moore's in the 1870s.
Earlier known as Wharf Road when it was a track leading down to Long's Wharf, then Moore's Road. Capt. Joseph Moore arrived in Sydney in 1812 and established a whaling business near Long's Wharf. When, in 1837, he took over Long's Wharf, it was renamed Moores Wharf, and the road became known as Moore's Road, It was renamed Dalgety Road in 1905 when the Dalgety pastoral company established wharves and stores nearby.
Devonshire Place
Downshire Street was known as Davis Street until 1905. being named after local landowner Billy Davis. The origin of its present name is not known. Its name most probably recalls a business or trader at this locality.
The most well known of Sydney's early windmills belonged to John Leighton. His mill gave rise to the locality's name (Jack the Miller's Point) and Windmill Street. Leighton arrived in Sydney as a convict in 1804. He bought several acres of land at Millers Point in 1814 and erected his mill there soon after. By the 1820s there were three mills operating on the point, all of which are believed to have been operated by Leighton. The first, erected in 1814, was located near Bettington Street on the high ground near the corner of Rodens Lane on or near the site of the Palisade Hotel.
The second mill was built to the west of Merriman Street on land granted to Joseph Underwood in 1817 for the purpose of erecting a windmill. Located in the southern corner of Clyne Reserve, it was demolished prior to 1842 to make way for a residence to be built on the site. Another mill was built to its south near Merriman Street on land that was reclaimed and removed to make way for the Millers Point wharves.
This otherwise insignificant accessway in Millers Point had its five minutes of fame on Australia Day (26th January) 1900, when the sewerage system of the home of one Arthur Payne of No. 10 Ferry Lane was isolated as the source of the Bubonic Plague sweeping through The Rocks. Payne, who worked as a driver on the Walsh Bay wharves, his family and neighbours were rushed to the Quarantine Station and most of the timber buildings in the vicinity were burned to the ground.
The North Shore ferry from Walsh Bay to Blues Point began operating in 1848 and it was around that time that this narrow laneway came into existence. Serving as the main thoroughfare from The Rocks and Millers Point to the ferry wharf at Walsh Bay, Ferry Lane was surfaced with cobblestones brought as ballast on ships out from England. The lane was soon lined with tiny cottages, some wooden, some stone, built almost on top of each other up the hillside.
Ferry Lane was all but abandoned during the Bubonic Plague, its wooden houses burnt down and stone cottages left as burnt out shells as residents were evacuated and the area fumigated. The Walsh Bay end of the lane disappeared completely in 1908 when the foreshore was extensively excavated to make room for Hickson Road, the new wharves and the associated buildings it would service. Ferry Lane now stopped at Davis Street which in 1905 had its name changed to Downshire Street.
In 1914, the remaining houses in the middle section of Ferry Lane were demolished including Payne's tiny cottage at No. 10 and its neighbour, No. 8. The site was cleared and flattened to the level of Downshire Street and a grassed area created. It became known as The Paddock and the local children have played here ever since, even to the present day.
When a block of units was erected to the east of Ferry Lane a few years ago, the lower end of the lane was re-modelled and a feature made of the foundation stones of Numbers 8 and 10 Ferry Lane (below) which were found intact under a pile of rubble during the restoration work.
Before the advent of motor transport, the majority of people walked from place to place so it is not surprising that there are some 14 sets of finely crafted stone stairs in and around the inner Sydney area which give access up and over the high ridges which surround Sydney Cove. High Steps, Windmill Steps and Hickson Steps all link Hickson Road at various points around the perimeter of the Millers Point peninsula to the top of the ridge that separates Sydney Cove from Darling Harbour. High Steps are so named because they connect High Street at the top of the cliff to Hickson Road at the foot of the cliff.
Most High Streets in towns across Australia are so named because they are the main streets of those places. Such is not the case with Millers Point's High Street, which is little more than a back street with 72 two-storey flats jammed in from end to end on one side of the street and a cliff wall on the other. It was named because it is high above Hickson Road and the flat, excavated waterfront area, created in the early years of the 20th century to provide more wharfage.
High Street's row of flats were built between 1910 and 1917 by the Maritime Services Board and were home to the men who worked on the wharves and their families. In the 1980s the Department of Housing took over, a move which ruptured the community and left residents feeling vulnerable. The area's early 20th century character, preserved by being public housing, plus the harbour views, peaceful now the container wharves on Hickson Road are gone, now make streets like High Street prime real estate.
Behind High Street's terrace houses is a deserted laneway (Argyle Lane) with maidenhair ferns growing from the walls. Backing onto the lane are the miniscule back yards of the houses, each with its back gate, numerous downpipes, and an ingeniously designed timber staircase leading up to a tiny rooftop sundeck. At the end of High street there is a sliver of park. The park has two big fig trees and a sign describing how 'whole streets' disappeared when the cliff between High Street and Hickson road was cut. There are plenty of ghost streets in this part of Sydney, erased in both the redevelopment of the wharves and with the building of the Harbour Bridge.
Once a U-shaped crescent, it was reduced to a short stub of a street when Millers Point and Walsh Bay were redeveloped in the early years of the 20th century. It was cut down for containers terminals in the 1960s, leaving a few houses which now stand along with Munn Street Reserve. The name honours Scotsman, Matthew Munn, who in 1857 established pastoralist activities in the Merimbula area on the New South Wales south coast with William Manning and Thomas Mort. The latter ran his trading business from premises nearby at Millers Point.
Rodens Lane is believed to be named after Benjamin Roden (1794-1850) who owned land on the western side of Moore's Lane. Rodens Lane would have led to the back of Roden's property, hence its name. Born in Market Drayton in Shropshire, England, Roden arrived in Sydney in July 1827 as a discharged solder of the 39th Foot Dorsetshire Regiment and gained employment as a police officer.
The name honours Parramatta-born Sydney City Council Alderman James Merriman (1816-1883), a well known Rocks identity and Mayor of Sydney in 1873, who owned a number of coastal ships and a pub in the area. Merriman served his indentures as a cooper, practised his trade and sailed in a whaler for four years. On returning to Sydney about 1850 he became licensee of the Whaler's Arms at Millers Point and later the Grafton Hotel and the Gladstone Hotel. Quietly energetic, sensible and persevering, Merriman was credited with giving Sydney mercantile life stability. Merriman Street was fornerly known as Crown Road.
Dibbs Street is named after one of New South Wales's fortgotten Premiers, George Richard Dibbs KCMG, who was Premier of New South Wales on three occasions, 1885, 1889 and 1891. He was a robust Australian-born patriot, whose robustness upset many people; equally his "boots and all" approach, when times were tough and firm leadership and decisions were needed, regardless of the niceties, gained wide but grudging admiration. Dibbs Lane, which ran north beyond the end of Bettington Street, disappeared when the foreshore was excavated to create Hickson Road and the Harbour Trust's Millars Point wharves.
One of the few surviving reminders of the large gas works which used to exist at Darling Harbour of which parts of an office and store are all that now remain. Merchants and professional people fostered the foundation and development of the public subscription company. Gas lighting in the streets was inaugurated on 24 May, 1841, Queen Victoria's birthday.
Recalls James Brindley Bettington, a colonial era merchant, pastoralist and wharf owner on Millers Point. Arriving in Sydney in 1827, he began business as a shipping agent almost immediately, became a magistrate and joined the Agricultural and Horticultural Society. By 1832 Bettington's wharf was a busy centre, chiefly for colonial whalers and timber vessels, but as competition increased he decided to concentrate on pastoral development, in which activity he was joined by his brothers William, John Henshall and Joseph Horton. John Jenkins Peacock bought Bettington’s Wharf and Stores in 1837.
In 1837 the land at the corner of Merriman Street and Millers Road (Bettington Street) was described as the 'cottage and lands of Mr Marks the miller'. This was later owned by Charles Smith, a merchant and then by Hugh Fairclough, a master mariner who sold it in 1875 to James Parle, a builder. In Sands Directory 1877 there were houses in course of erection at the south end of the east side of Crown Road (Nos. 44-48 Merriman Street). Nos. 56-58 Bettington Street, a combined shop and residence at the corner of Crown Road was also part of this group, presumably built by James Parle. All of the buildings were completed by 1880 when Nos. 56-58 was a grocer's shop.
66-68 Bettington Street
66-68 Bettington Street is the last remaining of a row of two-storey late Victorian terraces with single storey rear wings. They originally had a cantilevered timber verandah to first floor level with cast iron balustrade. This building was extensively reconstructed post 1986 with the addition of a parapet and the installation of a new cantilevered balcony to match those of Nos. 44-48 Merriman Street.
Palisade Hotel
Palisade Hotel
37-37 Bettington Street, Millers Point. Perched on Millers Point, at the gateway to Barangaroo Headland Park is the Palisade Hotel, known as the Jewel of the Point . The Palisade was built in 1912 on a sandstone bluff that overlooks the wharves of Walsh Bay. Like many other hotels in the area, it replaced an earlier hotel of the same name. This pub was popular with labourers working on the Sydney Harbour Bridge from 1923 to 1932. Built of brick with sandstone trim, the hotel was designed by Henry D. Walsh, chief engineer Sydney Harbour Trust, who designed the Walsh Bay wharves and associated roadwork.
Lower Fort Street
The road which led from the lookout on Observatory Hill to the Dawes Point fortifications was known as Fort Street. It passed through Bunker's Hill, a small area centred around what was then called Cumberland Street (later Princes Street, which disappeared when the Harbour Bridge was built). It became one of the high class areas of Sydney, its large houses boasting harbour views in all directions. Since being divided by a quarry in the 1820s, Fort Street has been known as Upper and Lower Fort Street. Upper Fort Street has actually never existed, as Watson Road now provides access to Observatory Hill.
The fort to which it refers was probably the one on Dawes Point, which the street led to, however Fort Phillip was stood at the top end of the street on Observatory Hill from 1804, so it could have been named after either of both forts.
Lower Fort Street
Dawesleigh
37 Lower Fort Street (1836): A two storey Georgian town house with basement and attic, one of the original residences in this early suburban area. It was once in a row of similar homes boasting sweeping harbour views. 39-41 Lower Fort Street next door, also a Georgian townhouse, was designed by John Verge. This is a private residence and is not open for public inspection.
33 Lower Fort Street
Linsley Terrace
(1833-34) 25-35 Lower Fort Street: This group of two storey, 4-bedroom, early nineteenth century terrace houses is the oldest extant terrace in Millers Point, having been built during the early 1830s by a local publican for rent and as his own residence. The site and buildings were associated from the early 1820s with some of the earliest wharfage (early 1820s) at Millers Point owned by early merchants William Brown, T G Pittman and John Lamb. Nos 25 and 27 were originally a single house for the former convict George Morris, for whom the group (first known as Morris Place) was constructed. Morris departed for London in 1836, and his house was shortly afterwards subdivided into two separate dwellings.
In 1868, following the death of Morris's widow, the group was sold to John Linsley. It became known as Linsley Terrace in 1873, probably about the time that the original single storey verandahs were replaced by the present two storey structures, with corresponding alterations to doors and windows. The properties were resumed by the Sydney Harbour Trust in 1900, and have been in Government ownership until recently.
Clyde Bank
Clyde Bank
(1824?) 43 Lower Fort Street: High Colonial in style featuring Greek Classical Doric verandah columns. This house is typical of the mansions built in the upper class section of The Rocks, where the wealthy merchants of Sydney lived. It is believed to have been designed by Francis Greenway, and was built for Colonial Secretary, Robert Crawford. It was then sold to Capt. Joseph Moore, whose store still stands on the northern tip of Millers Point. In 1845, it was bought by pastoralist, merchant, politician and philanthropist, Robert Campbell, the second son of the merchant whose storehouses on Sydney Cove are today the home of a number of restaurants. Clyde Bank has been known by many names - St Elmo, Holbeck and Bligh House, its present name being given after it was restored and converted into office space in 1995.
59 Lower Fort Street
57-61 Lower Fort Street
(1855-57) A row of three Grand Victorian Regency villas with 3 storeys facing Lower Fort Street. They were modelled on the classic London townhouse and set over four levels. Number 59 was built between 1855 and 1857 by wealthy Irish jewellery traders John and Henry Flavelle.
75-77 Lower Fort Street
75 - 77 Lower Fort Street
This shop and residence is an early 1920s infill development building which served as a general store for the surrounding community. It is part of the Millers Point Conservation Area, an intact residential and maritime precinct which contains residential buildings and civic spaces dating from the 1830s to 1930s. The building is a face brick and render trim two storey shop with a residence above it. The upper storey features three double hung, nine panel sash windows with transom lights above.
Hero of Waterloo Hotel
Hero of Waterloo Hotel
(1844) 81 Lower Fort Street: One of 14 hotels scattered throughout the Millers Point section of The Rocks, it was a favourite drinking place of the military garrison stationed nearby. Built from sandstone excavated from the Argyle Cut, it was originally called the Young Princess. Legend has it that the hotel was used by sea captains to recruit crew members - unsuspecting patrons who had drunk themselves into a stupor are said to have been pushed through a trap door and carried away through underground tunnels to waiting ships in nearby Walsh Bay.
Originally part of Fort Street, its name was changed in 1899 as a result of popular usage as it runs alongside Holy Trinity Church, also known as the Garrison Church. Traces of Caraher's Stairs (named after an owner developer), which linked Fort Street with Princes Street, are visible next to No 4 Trinity Avenue.
32-4 Trinity Avenue (cnr Lower Fort Street)
(1926): Four x 3 storey blocks, interconnected by external stairs between pairs of buildings. They feature elements of Arts & Crafts architecture - brick patterning on the facade, roughcast as contrast to one of the four brick facade and slate eaves to the 1st floor windows of another of the blocks. Balconies are internal, parapets have Dutch gable influences.
Trinity Avenue Playground
This tiny pocket of land was originally the backyards of houses in Windmill Row, renamed Prince Street by Governor Macquarie in 1810. Part of this land was owned by Andrew Byrne, who arrived as a convict in 1800 and by 1822 had large land holdings including properties in Princes and Fort Streets.
By the 1920s the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge had begun and Princes Street disappeared under the bridge approaches. Some houses on Princes Street (above) were demolished and the land was granted to the Department of Railways. After the houses were removed, the local women asked to be allowed to continue hanging their washing on the site, as their yards were too small and shady, but council refused this request. Instead it was leased by the Sydney County Council for a playground.
Whatson Road
Whatson Road provides access to Observatory Hill from Argyle Street. The name recalls Robert Watson (1756-1819), who was appointed Sydney's harbour pilot and harbourmaster by Gov. Macquarie in 1811 and superintendent of the Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head in 1816. Robert Watson sent the first signals from Watsons Bay South Head Signal Station to the signal station on Obervatory Hill, to advise on the arrival and departure of ships through Sydney Heads.
Parbury Lane
Named after Charles Parbury, a merchant who operated his business from premises on Walsh Bay. He purchased the business interests of Robert Towns in 1873 from the wife of Towns upon the latter's death. Parbury's son Frederick was co-owner of the merchant business Lamb & Parbury which traded in Fort Street. Bubb's Victory Foundry, which stood on the corner of Fort Street, was Sydney's first iron foundry and created the first iron letterboxes in Australia.
Parbury's wharf at the foot of Parbury Lane, c1873.
Like other streets and lanes parallel to it, the cobble-stoned Parbury Lane once went all the way down the hill to the shores of Walsh Bay. The lower half of the street disappeared in 1909, when the shoreline of Walsh Bay was excavated and the present high wall lining the cliff face on Pottinger Street was built.
Pottinger Street looking north from Windmill Street down to the Pier 6/7 upper level bridge
Pottinger Street originally ran steeply down to a ferry wharf, but it was realigned and elevated at the turn of last century to provide access to all the upper levels of the new wharves on Walsh Bay. It was reshaped again in 1923, with an exit road added that went off to the right after the Pier 4/5 turn-out, then dropped down to meet Hickson Road opposite Pier 2/3. That part of Pottinger Street that continued into Pier 2/3 was closed in the 1970s and replaced with grass (below).
The land on the eastern side of Pottinger Street was cleared for redevelopment in the early 1980s but remained derelict for the best part of a decade. It is hard to imagine it but the view to the Harbour Bridge from the wasteland made the bridge appear to be surrounded by jungle.
The origin of Pottinger Street's name is not known, it either recalls a business or trader at this locality, or Pottinger Street in Central Hong Kong. The latter was named in 1858 after Henry Pottinger, the first Governor of Hong Kong, serving from 1843 to 1844.
Pottinger Street from a unit at No.1 Pottinger Street
In February 2000, during excavation for the development of the Parbury Apartments the ground floor remains of a stone cottage were uncovered. The cottages' two main owners were ex-convicts Hugh Noble (born 1794) and Thomas Street (born 1790). Noble purchased the site around 1820 and built the cottage soon after. He sold the property to Street in 1831. Street added the kitchen and basement to the cottage in 1835. The cottage was abandoned and partly demolished by the late 1860's. It was finally built over by a service ramp for the adjacent Bond Stores in the 1870's.
Today you can see the remains of a verandah and four basement rooms. Two rooms would have had harbour views. The site has been declared to be of State Significance, meaning that it is important to our understanding of the history of NSW.
Hickson Road passing through the Millers Point cutting
Hickson Road is one of the youngest streets in The Rocks/Millers Point area, having been created in the early years of the 20th century. After the bubonic plague broke out on the Sydney waterfront, a civil engineer named Robert Hickson was appointed chairman of an advisory board on harbour-foreshore resumption in 1900. In 1901 he became first president of the Sydney Harbour Trust and began a programme of improvements which among other things provided a vast wharfage, diverted sewers discharging into the harbour bays and instituted measures for preventing pollution of port waters. Hickson Road follows the foreshore from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour.
Argyle Lane sundecks