Remembrances of a Juvenile Bookworm: Old Street Directories I have had the Pleasure of … (Part 3)

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Built Environment, Commerce & Business, Heritage & Conservation, Local history, Media & Communications, Memorabilia, Social History

The further I delved into my “war-ravaged” copy of Wilson’s 1922 Authentic Director of Sydney and Suburbs, the more snippets of hitherto unearthed information, little gems of Sydney’s yesterday, I stumbled upon.

Among the minutiae of miscellaneous info contained in the directory’s index, one item that got my attention was a list of the consuls and overseas government agents in Sydney in 1922. Interesting to see that at that time there were consulate offices established in Sydney for tiny international entities like Latvia, Nicaragua, Columbia, Ecuador, Honduras, Serbia and the Czechoslovak Republic, but being not yet four years after the cessation of the hostilities of WWI, no consulates for the countries deemed by the victors to be the “guilty parties”, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Turkey. So much for moving on!!!…and we all know where that path catastrophically led!

Another curio I discovered was that among the State and Commonwealth government departments listed in the index, there were several with city addresses in Richmond Tce, The Domain. The questionably named Aborigines (spelt ‘Aborogines’) Protection Board, the Pharmacy Board of NSW, the Dental Board of NSW, the Medical Board of NSW, the Metropolitan Meat Industry Board and the Inspector-General of the Insane(sic) were all located in this east side of the city street…interesting in that this street, Richmond Terrace no longer exists!

Ad for the Orient Line

A total of forty-six shipping line companies were recorded as having offices in Sydney’s CBD. These included British-India SN Co, China-Australia Mail SS Line, Nippon Yusen Kaisha, the Adelaide Steamship Company, New Guinea, New Britain and the Solomon Islands (Line), the White Star Line✲ and the more contemporarily familiar P & O Line. Only one of the 46 placed a (full-paged and quite detailed) ad in the directory, the Australia to Britain Orient Line.

Royal Autos in ‘Wilson’s’

City clubs and buildings of interest
In a section of the index Wilson’s lists the various clubs, chambers, banks and arcades that formed part of the cityscape in 1922. The more ‘highbrow’ of the clubs, predominately “Gentlemen’s” establishments, tended to congregate ‘uptown’ (the end closer to Circular Quay) considered to be the smarter and more affluent part of the city. The clubs included the Australian Club (corner of Bent and Macquarie Sts)[¹], the Automobile Club of Australia (132 Phillip St)[²], the Country Club (17 Castlereagh St), the Catholic Club (107 Castlereagh St ), Masonic Club (216 Pitt St)[³], the N.S.W. Club (Bligh St)[⁴], the Soldiers’ Club (426 George St), the Union Club (2 Bligh St)[⁵], the Warrigal Club (145 Macquarie St). Also in the city were clubs associated with the sport (and business) of horse racing – these three used to be situated in the CBD, the Australian Jockey Club (now the Australian Turf Club) (8 Bligh St), the Canterbury Park Race Club (15 Castlereagh St) and the Rosehill Racing Club (32 Elizabeth St). Another city club intricately linked to horse racing is Tattersall’s Club (202-204 Pitt St). Traditionally the haunt of old style bookmakers, “City Tatts” as it is better known, still stands and operates on its original land, 123 years after its foundation.

The 1922 city’s chambers are a predictable lot with numerous entities bearing largely homogenous Anglo-(Saxon)Celtic names scattered around Phillip Street, the traditional law hub of the city. That equally upstanding and status quo affirming pillar of society in that day, the banks, are spread over a wide radius of the CBD. The only point of note about them is discovering that in the 1920s Australia financial climate, with regulation of the sector very tight, two foreign banks had Sydney branches and were allowed to trade here at that time… the French National d’Escompté de Paris, a forerunner of Banque National de Paris? (24 Hunter St) and even more surprisingly, the Japanese Bank (Falmouth Chambers, 117 Pitt St).

The original (1907) Challis House

One of the city buildings identified in Wilson’s Director with a busy and interesting history is Challis House, N⍛ 4-10 Martin Place. Eponymously named after merchant and University of Sydney benefactor John Henry Challis, the House has a long association with the University as well as many financial tenants over the decades. During WWI it was used as the recruiting campaign headquarters for New South Wales. The office building at the time of Wilson’s publication was in its original Victorian architectural state…in the Thirties it received a new (Art Deco) facade and later in 1993 it underwent major renovations [‘Challis House’, Sydney Architecture, www.sydneyarchitecture.com]

Blue Mountains – a “Tourist’s Guide”
Although it’s a street directory whose ambit is Sydney and suburbs, the Wilson’s directory ends with an extensive section (73pp) on the Blue Mountains. The entry even encompasses the town of Lithgow (also called ‘Eskbank’ in 1922) which is 15 miles west of the Blue Mountains. The book has lots of detailed information on the BM suburbs, each suburb has an entry on accommodation and the scenic natural highlights of the Mountains with select maps indicating points of interest.

The “Half-way House” of Blue Mts

The directory gives a picture of Springwood, the largest of the Lower Mountains towns✥, that suggests a warm place in an otherwise cold region – “sheltered by its westerly walls from the cooler air of the higher altitudes…pleasant sunshine all year round…in winter the climate is so equable that many families make Springwood a permanent residence”. An opinion echoed by Springwood house and land agent R.F. Harvey’s ad extolling “The Best Winter Climate in the World”. For day visitors to Springwood, the Hotel ‘Oriental’ awaits their patronage (ad, right).

Katoomba, the “largest of the mountain tourist resorts” with its “wide choice of charming and picturesque views”. Despite being 68 miles from Sydney, “horses and vehicles are always obtainable” – as this advertisement (left) on page 706 offering trips to the famous Jenolan Caves in luxury Buicks testifies.

Nearby Leura is “celebrated for the beauty of its great showpiece – the Leura Falls…in themselves alone worth the trip to the mountains”. With unfettered enthusiasm the writer goes on to laud the town in extravagant terms: “the place has been so well laid out as a tourist resort that it offers a perfect kaleidoscope of the views”. The object of Wilson’s Director is clearly to sell the Mountains to visitors from Sydney which synergises nicely with the numerous accommodation ads (funny that!) that appear such as this one (right) for Leura’s Hotel Alexandria (still in business in 2018).

The spa town of Medlow Bath, is “a pretty little village, rising rapidly in tourist favour”. The tiny Upper Mountains town is famous for its Hydro-Majestic hotel resort where in the day the better-off citizens of Sydney would periodically retreat to benefit from its therapeutic mineral waters and clean mountain air. Built by retailer Mark Foy (Jr) as a hydropathic sanatorium, the “Hydro-Maje” in the Twenties was where the cream of Sydney’s elite flocked on the weekends to socialise.

Jenolan tourer (Blackheath)

One station further west, the mountains tourist resort of Blackheath, had the writer reaching for new superlatives! The bush trails and valleys (the “Valley of the Grose” as he calls it) lead to “world-famous Govett’s Leap (waterfall), a stream which plunges headlong over a perpendicular wall of dark-tinted rock on to a mass of boulders, some 520 feet below”. Mermaid’s Cave is “like a glimpse of a fairyland…a more picturesque scene cannot be imagined”, etc. The other attraction of Blackheath in 1922 was that “there is every probability of its having a permanent water supply in the near future”. The accommodation ad below is for Blackheath’s ‘Ivanhoe Hotel’, replaced in 1938 by the now quite old-looking ‘New Ivanhoe Hotel’.

Mt Victoria, 79 miles by paved road❂ from Sydney, the highest point of the Blue Mountains (the guide gives it at 3,424 feet above sea-level)⍍, is praised for the scenic countryside surrounding the town dotted with charmingly named spots like Fern Cave, Fairy Bower, Fern Tree Gully and Witch’s Glen, for the walker to explore.

Upper Blue Mts map (‘Wilson’s’)

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁
[¹] the Australian Club (still at the same address, 165 Macquarie St), is the oldest men-only club in the country, dating from 1838
[²] the Automobile Club changed both its name to the Royal Automobile Club of Australia (RACA), and its location to Castlereagh St North, in the year of the directory’s publication (1922)
[³] the Masonic Club still exists but the premises relocated to a new building at 169-171 Castlereagh St in 1927
[⁴] the N.S.W. Club House is still in existence at 25-31 Bligh St, but the Club itself amalgamated with the Australian Club in 1969 and the building has had a series of commercial tenants since (currently occupied by the Lowy Institute for International Affairs)
[⁵] still in operation (since 1857), these days at 25 Bent St and now called the Union, University and Schools Club

✲ of Titanic fame, White Star Line merged with Cunard in 1934 as White-Cunard, before eventually becoming defunct
✥ Blaxland and Glenbrook, two other Lower BM towns, get very short shrift from Wilson’s, relegated to brief, passing mentions only
❂ the Great Western Highway, which bisects the Blue Mountains, was still called Bathurst Road in 1922
⍍ although according to markers on the spot, One Tree Hill on the south side of Mt Victoria, is the highest point in the Blue Mountains at 3,654 feet

Mesoamerican Hardball: The Great Ball Court at Chichén-Itzá and the Ancient Game

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Archaeology, Built Environment, Regional History, Society & Culture

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⌂ Ball court at C-Itzá (southern end-zone & temple)

Our group tour of Yucatán’s archaeological Maravilla, Chichén-Itzá, ended with an informative stroll through the long-abandoned ball court. As we slowly walked from one end of the former playing field to the other, we got a feel for the atmosphere of the place as our guide Henrique told us about the religious symbolism and the savage practices associated with the court. Chichén-Itzá’s Gran cancha de pelotá (the Great Ball Court), the venue in pre-modern times for Mesoamerica’s Jugeo de Pelotá (literally: “Game of ball”), is the best surviving example of the court used by the Maya and other indigenous Mesoamerican peoples for their ancient versions of the ball game✱.

href=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/image-20.jpg”> Olmec heartland – arcing from San Lorenzo to the Gulf[/
Roots of competitive sport?
Much about the game, thought to be the world’s first organised team sport, is uncertain. The Mesoamerican ball game (MBG) seems to have had its origins with the Olmecs, the earliest known major civilisation in Mexíco, around 1,600 BCE✺. The Olmecs, whose empire centred around the Gulf of Mexíco’s southern coast area, were renowned producers of rubber (the raw material that the latex balls used in the game were made of). Most of the evidence for what the sport was about, comes from the discovery of items such as the bog-preserved balls themselves, and from ceramic pieces interred in tombs – figurines portraying ball players, sculpted miniatures of the game and its paraphernalia, or from architectural decorations, carvings and the like on the ball court walls (around 1,300 erstwhile ball courts have been discovered in or around Central America – the northernmost in the US state of Arizona).

ef=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/image-22.jpg”> The basic ‘⌶’ shape of the Ancient Mexícan ball court[/cap
The non-standardised Mesoamerican ball court
The dimensions of the ball court at Chichén-Itzá are quite large, at least 545’L x 225’W, a long, roughly rectangular space with an ⌶-shaped playing surface…whilst this ⌶-shape is the norm for Mesoamerican ball courts, other ball courts discovered elsewhere in the region show that there was no standardised size for courts, some are tiny by comparison to Chichén-Itzá, effectively alleys rather than fields. Tikal’s ball court (in present-day Guatemala) for instance is only ⅙th the size of the Chichén-Itzá field [‘Mesoamerican ballcourt’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. The courts themselves were masonry structures, composed of stone, rubble, abode, etc materials.

“http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/image-23.jpg”> The court with the Bearded Man Temple (L) & the Jaguar Temple (R)[/captio
The C-I court’s side walls
The side walls at Chichén-Itzá are high (a full 8m) and completely perpendicular except for a small sloping bench which extends a metre-and-a-half up from the ground. The walls are decorated with bas-relief carvings which mirror Mayan society. Many other court walls elsewhere in Meso-America are considerably lower and some have angled walls which are much more acutely diagonal, sloping sharply inward. Forming part of one of the side walls at Chichén-Itzá is a famous, two-tiered temple, Templo del jaguar (Temple of the Jaguar). At both ends of the field there are small temples, the best known being the Templo de hombre barbado (Temple of the Bearded Man).

⌂ Clay model of ball court from Nayarit: more spectators than players! [LA County Museum of Art]

Rules of the game?
No lists of codified rules for the sport have survived…leaving the notion of how games were conducted open to speculation. Many theories abound…the most common view is that the players used their right hip to strike the ball…the traditional game of ulama still played in Central America today with the hip is believed to have descended from the archaic indigenous game. Other views postulate that players could use their chests, shoulders, elbows, knees and forearms to propel the ball, or a hand-stone called a manopla or even some kind of racket or (hockey-like) stick. Possibly all of these are correct…the rudimentary ball game seems to have had differences from region to region, and between the different civilisations. An echo of this can be seen in the varying names used for the sport – pok-ta-pok and pitz, Pelotá Maya and ōllamaliztli (the Aztec ball game). Each team had a capitan (team captain) but again there is variance as to how many players constituted a team, some sources say between two to four athletes, although others say six or seven✥. Players (and officials) often donned flamboyant, feathered head-dresses for the games [‘Mesoamerican ball game’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].

⌂ Feathered serpent stone ring

Scoring and winning?
On the high walls at the Chichén-Itzá court, seven metres up, are stone-rings which the Maya introduced to the ball court. Because they resemble hoops, many observers have speculated that these rings decorated by intertwining feathered serpents are goals. While they may well be, it is problematic as to how significant the circular goals may have been in the context of a match…players at Chichén-Itzá, unable to use their hands and feet, would need a Herculean effort to propel a heavy ball through the relatively small hoops seven metres high, it would be extremely difficult to manoeuvre the (basketball-sized) ball through the hole!✾ The more likely avenue of scoring was to propel the ball over a centre line into your opponents’ territory, if it bounced more than twice before they played it or if they failed to return it to your side, you were awarded points. Victory therefore, unless a player was lucky enough to land a ringer, tended to be determined by the number of points each side scored [‘The Ball Game of Mesoamerica’ (Mark Cartwright), 16-Sept-2013, Ancient History Encyclopedia, www.ancient.eu (‘Pre-Hispanic City of Teothihuacan (UNESCO/NHK) video)].

Another version of how MBG was played, favoured by the Maya warriors, involved putting the ball in motion by using only the right hip, right knee and right elbow and players were penalised for letting the ball hit the ground…sometimes this involved bouncing it off the side wall, and eventually getting it through the stone ring to win the contest. Surviving artwork from different Mesoamerican communities suggest that hip-players also exclusively used the right hip [‘Mayan ball game’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].

⌂ M/Amer ballplayer (with ball approx the size of a 10-pin bowling ball) [Source: MMA]

MBG equipment:
The way ball-players dressed to take part in games was a product of the ball used in Meso-America – balls were made of solid rubber and weighed up to nine pounds (about four kilos). Some were as large as a basketball, others more the size of a softball. Propelled through the air at a good rate of knots the heavy orb could inflict a lot of harm on the human body, so from (an attempt at) self-preservation, players wore protective gear…including a sort of yoke or a loincloth reinforced with leather (occasionally they also wore a sort of girdle); sometimes helmuts; gloves and guards on their arms, legs and torsos⌖. Even so, serious injuries from the hurtling ball were known to be common, even on occasions death resulted.

MBG, real life and death ball games
George Orwell said that football was “war by other means” – a description that might be as apt for MBG as it is for modern football. Ball games for indigenous Mesoamericans served several purposes. The Maya used ball games as a proxy for war, to settle territorial disputes, and to foretell the future. Games were appended to religious ceremonies involving human sacrifice…some but not all culminated in the ritualistic execution of the captain or players on the losing side. Our guide at Chichén-Itzá pointed out the ball court’s carved stone friezes which depicted the winners making human sacrifices by decapitating the losing captain…conveyed both graphically and imaginatively with spurts of blood from the victim’s severed head turning into wriggling serpents! MBG had many martial associations, warriors took part in the games, war captives were forced to play in rigged games which inevitably resulted in their being sacrificed to the gods [‘The Bloody and Brutal History of the Mesoamerican Ball Game, Where Sometimes Loss was Death’ (Monica Petrus), Atlasobscura, 09-Jan-2014, www.altasobscura.com].

⌶⌶⌶ ⌶⌶⌶ ⌶⌶⌶

PostScript: An inclusive, multi-purpose sport – religious, political, conflict resolution, cathartic, social, astronomical
The games could be social and recreational⊟ (allowing women and children to play) but normally they were formal and ceremonial events. The Maya elite for example would use them to act out their creation myths, MBG featured in their sacred legends – such as the Hunahpu Hero Twins Myth in which twin boys get lured into Xibalba (the Maya underworld) while playing the game… within the framework of the Maya religious beliefs, ball courts like at Chichén-Itzá were thought to provide (symbolically at least) a portal into the Underworld. MBG was tied into cosmological events, the orbits of the sun and the moon, and games were performed with symbolic resonance, as allegorical battles between “good and evil” [‘The Maya Ball Game’, History on the Net, www.historyontheney.com]


▲ Ball court at Xochicalco (Morelos, Mex.): note the vast difference to Gran cancha de pelotá…Xochicalco is on an infinitely smaller scale, characterised by low, staggered side walls comprising earth mounds

⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯⌯
✱ one of the panels on the side wall depicts the leader of one team with the decapitated head of his opposing captain
✺ the earliest unearthed ball court ruins is at Paso de la Amada in the Soconusco region of Chiapas (circa 1,400 BCE)
✥ seven – the Maya lucky number. More plausibly there may have been six-a-side plus a referee
✾ although pictorial evidence indicates that the stone rings in the Aztec ball game were at ground level and much more accessible
⌖ a player’s equipment could weight up to 20lbs
⊟ gambling on the outcome of games was prevalent

A Visit to Yucatán’s Pre-Columbian Showpiece: Chichén-Itzá

Posted on by funambulator@live.com
Archaeology, Built Environment, Regional History, Science and society, Society & Culture, Sports history, Travel
Onsite site map

An exploration of the archaeological sites of Mexíco’s Yucatán Peninsula cannot be said to be complete unless it includes a trip to Chichén-Itzá (see footnote for etymology) – essential even for those with only the barest of interest in the archaeological significance embodied in its stepped pyramids and celestial-viewing platforms…according to UNESCO Chichén-Itzá represents “one of the most important examples of (the blend of) Mayan-Toltec civilizations”. An outcome of the Toltec invasion of Yucatán (and of Chichén-Itzá) in the late 10th century is that visitors to the ruins of the city can see in the city’s ancient structures a fusion of icons and styles from the two Pre-Hispanic cultures✱.

Zona arqueología

In relation to Mérida (where we were based), Chichén-Itzá is in San Felipe Nuevo, a drive of 115km along Highway 180. Predictably for somewhere lionised as a “modern wonder of the world”, the place was brimming with tourists when we arrived. Our guide for the day, Enrique, took us through the complex’s turnstiles and we made our way from the entrance through a phalanx of clamouring vendors hawking their memorabilia merchandise. After an obligatory baños stop, we headed for the large temple in the centre of the site, the Temple of Kukulcán. “El Castillo” as it is known, is 25 metres high and decorated with carvings of plumed serpents and Toltec warriors. The pyramid was roped off to prevent visitors climbing it (the consequence of a female tourist falling to her death from it in 2006).

The Kuk

The chirping bird phenomenon
Whilst we were taking in the ambience of the eleven hundred-year-old El Castillo temple, guides leading other groups of tourists would demonstrate the acoustics of the pyramid by standing at the base of the stairway and clapping their hands loudly (we were already familiar with this stage show, having first seen the clapping trick performed at Teotihuacán on the outskirts of Mexico City). It seemed a bit gimmicky to me but some pyramid researchers and acoustical engineers apparently believe that the echo effect that this generates from the ancient structure replicates the chirping noise made by the sacred Quetzal bird (the kuk), native to Central America [‘Was Maya Pyramid Designed to Chirp Like a Bird?’ (Bijal P Trivedi)
National Geographic Today, 6-Dec-2002, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/]

Templo de Kukulcán

Measuring the scientific achievements of the Maya
Chirping Quetzals aside, the Temple of Kukulcán at the height of the Mayan empire power was salient to how Mayans lived their everyday lives and planned their future endeavours. The 365◘ step pyramid demonstrates how important astronomy was to the Maya and how remarkably accurately they were able to measure mathematically (eg, the 365-day Maya calendar devised centuries before the West!). The alignment of structures like El Castillo affirms the advanced understanding the Maya had of astronomical phenomena such as solstices and equinoxes.

El Caracol

Observing the clear blue sky
Walking around the ruins we discovered from our guide that the Maya put to use different buildings to make serious astronomical observations (without the aid of telescopes) of the sky above…the Plataforma de Venus (near the Temple of Kukulcán) is a platform used by the Maya elite to track the transit of Venus. The planet Venus was important to the Maya both theologically, as a deity (god of war), and practically, to use its movements to decide when to make raids and engage in battles with enemies. On the southern axis of the city is the Observatory or El Caracol (“the snail”), a small building with a circular viewing tower in a crumbling condition, also integral to studying planetary movements [‘ChichenItzaRuins’, www.chichenitzaruins.org].

Spot the iguana!

We spent a very liberal and leisurely amount of time wandering around the various excavated remnants of the site…off to the sides were several smaller and apparently less important temples and a couple of cénotes (unlike the others in the Peninsula we swam in, these were sans hoods, fully exposed). In another minor temple (in a poor state of repair) we were able to observe that some of the native non-human locals had made a home in the crumbling stone structure, in this case a well-camouflaged iguana (above)!

La Iglesia

An elaborate multi-layered “jigsaw puzzle” in Chichén Viejó
Of those we saw, I found La Iglesia (The Church) the most interesting building, architecturally and visually. One of the oldest buildings at Chichén-Itzá (and it looks it!), the building is oddly asymmetrical with an elaborately decorative upper part sitting incongruously atop an untidy foundation “made up of hundreds of smaller stones fit(ted) together like a huge jigsaw puzzle” [Chris Reeves, ‘La Iglesia’, American Egypt (All about Chichen Itzá and Mexico’s Mayan Yucatan), www.americanegypt.com ]. The upper section is dazzlingly and elaborately decorated with bas-relief carvings comprising a composite pattern of animal symbols – armadillos, crabs, snails, tortoises (representing the four bacabs who in Maya mythology are thought to hold up the sky). The other dominant sculptural feature of La Iglesia’s facade are masks of the Rain God Chac [‘Chichén Itzá – The Church’, Mexíco Archeology, www.mexicoarcheology.com].

The Great ball court
The final highlight of the ancient city that we got to see on our visit to Chichén-Itzá was the Great (or Grand) Ball Court. The Gran cancha de pelotá, one of thirteen ball courts unearthed at Chichén-Itzá, is the best preserved and most impressive of all such ancient sports stadia in Mexíco. It is known that, from as early as 1,400 BCE, Mesoamericans played a game involving the propulsion of a rubber ball which may have incorporated features of or partly resembled football and/or handball. I will talk about what the Chichén-Itzá ball court reveals about this indigenous Mexícan game and its significance to native Pre-Columbian society in a follow-up blog.

Footnote: Nomenclature
“Chichen Itza”, a Maya word, means “at the mouth of the well of the Itza.” The Itzá were a dominant ethnic-lineage group in Yucatán’s northern peninsula. The word ‘well’ probably refers to the nearby cénote sagrado – the sacred limestone sinkhole around which the Maya city was constructed.

Chichén-Itzá vendors hard at it! Sombreros for a hot day.

␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣␣
✱ Yucatán’s “most important archaeological vestige”, ‘Pre-Hispanic City of Chichen-Itza’, www.whc.unesco.org
◘ one for each day of the calendar year

Sydney Foreshore’s Animal House of Detention and Segregation on Hen and Chicken Bay

Posted on by E Curb Nottus
Built Environment, Heritage & Conservation, Local history
⤴ Abbotsford, off Hen & Chicken Bay

On the tranquil foreshore of the Parramatta River near Abbotsford Point, some five kilometres by ferry from Sydney’s Circular Quay, sits a quiet, out-of-the-way park named Quarantine Reserve. The significance of its name relates to a unique and interesting connection it has with “four-legged immigrants” to this country…for three score-plus years (ca.1917-80) it was the quarantine station for all of Sydney’s (and New South Wales’) incoming animals from overseas. The station was located on a bluff which gently slopes down to the river at the quaintly named Hen and Chicken Bay. Prior to the animal quarantine station coming to Abbotsford, incoming animals were quarantined at Bradley’s Head on the other side of the harbour – in 1916 the site became the location for the city’s Taronga Park Zoo (hence the move to Hen and Chicken Bay in 1917).

⤴ The cow sheds on the bay side
⤴ What remains of the cattle stables today
⤴ As they once appeared during the station’s heyday!

Today, the animals and their rustic ambience are long gone, as is the medical equipment, the various machinery, domestic utensils, etc, but a good representation of the original property’s holdings remain, albeit in diminished condition. As you stroll through the green reserve whose name commemorates the vital role it once played in safeguarding domestic health from animal contamination, several animal enclosures are jotted across the landscape. In the centre of the reserve are two adjoining cattle stables comprising 24 separate stalls each with troughs, the doors were removed at either ends of the buildings long ago and quite a few of the panels have been vandalised or pulled out altogether. On the day I visited, the stalls had colourful balloons and ribbons appended to them, it was hosting a children’s birthday party! Next to the stables and connecting with them is the site of the cattle yard itself, now a vacant, grassless square.

⤴ The QS piggery

Just across and down the hill from the cow stables is a small faded green building with a worse-for-wear tin roof, this once functioned as a piggery…the pig pens contained food troughs and runs to allow the unfortunate porcine creatures some (very limited) mobility of movement✲. To the east of the cattle stables on the boundary of the reserve are the horse stables (10 in number). Over the years of the facility’s operation prominent international racehorses worth thousands of pounds (and later dollars) were detained here during their periods of quarantine.

⤴ What’s left of the two remaining dog kennels after a large tree fell on them

The enclosures for humans’ most favourite domestic animals (cats and dogs) have fared less well over the passage of time. The station’s dog kennels, numbered 83 when they were rebuilt in the 1950s on the side closest to the Bay, but now only two kennels remain! Even less fortunate for feline enthusiasts, the cattery has disappeared altogether! The same for the sheep runs (not really sure why in the 20th century there would still have been a need to import sheep into NSW – unless perhaps they were unusual, specialist breeds?)

⤴ QS incinerator – manifestly not one designed by Walter Burly Griffin!

A few of the quarantine station’s auxiliary buildings have also survived – including apparently a “dog’s kitchen”, a second kitchen where vegetables were cut up for the pigs, a storage block (the feed store) and a maintenance workshop. Also surviving near the eastern edge of the reserve is a rather unprepossessing structure, a scarred, sombre looking incinerator. Carcasses and animal excreta were disposed of here, although some dead animals were buried on the site including possibly a giraffe (unsubstantiated, could be a legendary urban anecdote?). At the Spring Street entrance to the quarantine reserve is the former caretaker’s cottage.

⤴ On-site info display contains a picture of ‘Hexham’

The Hen and Chicken Bay site before the quarantine station
Prior to the 2.8 hectare site being acquired by the Commonwealth Government in 1916 for the quarantine station❧, the site was occupied by the Hexham Estate with its residential landmark, ‘Hexham’, an 1880s Italianate Victorian property (originally the house was called ‘Emmaville’ by the Bell family, and later ‘Blanchlands’ by the succeeding owner, surveyor John Loxton). Around 1900 the estate was acquired by Lewy Pattison, a director of the early pharmacy chain Soul Pattison & Co. In 1982 ‘Hexham’ (located in Checkley Street on the northern fringe of the Reserve) was demolished after a fire severely damaged the property.

‘Hexham‘ ⤵

Animal quarantine station: postwar to 1980
The quarantine station operated until World War Two when it was temporarily closed because of restrictions on animal imports during the war, and reused by the military for storage purposes. Its reopening in 1945 was vocally opposed by residents in the surrounding Abbotsford streets who had long suffered the undesirable effects of the station’s proximity to them – their senses regularly assailed by the smell, the noise and the pollution (from the incinerator burnings).

In the ensuing years there were ongoing objections from residents and Council – in 1971 the local Commonwealth MP raised a request from Drummoyne Municipal Council about the prospect of the Commonwealth transferring the land to the jurisdiction of NSW Government so that the site could be converted into parkland. Despite the unpopularity with locals, it wasn’t until the late 1970s that a decision was made to move the animals out to a remoter site in Sydney’s outer west, Wallgrove. In 1980 the Abbotsford station was closed for good, and the following year it was turned into a park to commemorate the quarantine station’s historic role.

(Image source: Pinterest)

PostScript: Abbotsford’s and Nestlé’s grand mansion
Not far from the Quarantine Reserve sits an extraordinarily impressive mansion looking out on Abbotsford Bay. Fortunately this house, unlike ‘Hexham’ is still extant! Abbotsford House (situated on the Chiswick side of the suburb) has a similar heritage to ‘Hexham’, built for doctor and politician Sir Arthur Renwick around 1877-1878◘. If you approach the Victorian mansion from the waterfront reserve it is an imposing and most impressive sight, set in extensive grounds which abuts Wire Mill Park…bayside access to the palatial mansion is cut off by a artificially constructed canal running horizontally, giving the property a water frontage. The facade itself is a wonderful symmetrical design, a tour de force of dazzling architectural features (two storey front verandahs, imposing towers with tented roofs, elliptical arches and plastered columns, elegant steps and spired cupolas). Two plaster lions guard the front entrance with strategically placed classical sculptures decorating the lawns✧. “House of Nestlé” 1937 (Photo: RAHS – Adastra Aerial Photo Collection)

⤴ Abbotsford House

After Renwick was forced to relinquish the property in 1903 because of financial debts, it was bought by one of the principals of the Grace Brothers department stores. Then, just after World War I ‘Abbotsford House’ was acquired by the Nestlé company (operating at this time as the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co). Nestlé built a factory on the estate site which manufactured chocolate and the drink ‘Milo’, whilst the mansion itself served as the administrative centre of the business. The factory closed in 1991 and the whole estate was duly incorporated into a new medium-density housing complex (Abbotsford Cove).

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✲ seldom ever used apparently because of fear of an outbreak of “Swine Fever”
❧ prior to the Abbotsford location, the Sydney Quarantine Station was apparently situated on the other side of Sydney Harbour at Bradley’s Head, and was required to move because what became known as Taronga Park Zoo was established on Bradley’s Head in 1916
◘ the name of Abbotsford House’s architect doesn’t appear to be recorded anywhere
✧ Abbotsford House which gave the suburb its name, derives from ‘Abbotsford’, classics author Sir Walter Scott’s home in Scotland

Abbotsford Quarantine Station (1917-1980)

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50 Spring Street, Abbotsford, New South Wales 2046
Latitude -33.8483 Longitude 151.1228
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Publications consulted:
Canada Bay Connections, (City of Canada Bay), www.canadabayconnections.com
‘Abbotsford Quarantine Station’, 04-DEC-2015, www.historyofsydney.com.au
‘Top 10 Facts About Abbotsford, Sydney’, (Canada Bay Club), www.canadabayclub.com.au
‘Abbotsford House’, (Office of Environment & Heritage), www.environment.nsw.gov.au