If you take a stroll down the 1.7km-long Sussex Street in Sydney’s CBD, distinct commercial patterns soon become evident. From it’s starting point around Barangaroo South, Sussex Street has more than its fair share of old heritage-listed pubs, parking stations, convenience shops and serviced apartments, along with the occasional more upmarket accommodation providers like the Hyatt Regency and Crowne Plaza.
Starting from the north end the first of the heritage-listed pubs we come to is the Sussex (20 Sussex Street). Built 1913-15, the hotel went through a variety of names, New Hunter River Hotel, Big House Hotel, Napoleon’s Hotel, Moreton’s Hotel, before settling on its present and self-explanatory moniker. The pub’s outdoor beer garden is probably its most appealing asset.
At 81 Sussex Street we find the small but compact Bristol Arms Hotel, a Federation Free Classical building which dates from ca.1898 (an earlier “Bristol Arms Tavern” was located at 69 Sussex St). At different times it went by the name Keyes Hotel and then later the Welcome Inn Hotel. During the 1970s the Bristol Arms was notoriously known as a roughhouse pub. Close to the Bristol Arms is another pub which predates BA’s vintage, the Slip Inn (No 111). Originally called the Royal George Hotel (built ca.1858), the pub’s main claim to fame is that it was the venue where Mary met Frederick, the prelude to the Danish royal family acquiring an Australian connexion.
The next heritage hotel in Sussex Street is the Dundee Arms (No 161, one down from the Corn Exchange – see below). The compact little Victorian Regency-style pub was built in 1860 at a time when Darling Harbour commerce was overwhelmingly industrial and maritime. The pub serviced the working class, locals and blue collar workers as well as sailors from the ships docked close by in the harbour (‘Dundee Arms Hotel’, Wikipedia). Thomas Ricketts was the best known of the early publicans (1870s-1880s). In modern times the Dundee Arms was incorporated into the Nikko Hotel and now operates as part of the Hyatt Regency Darling Harbour. The passageway on one side of the Dundee Arms has the name “Wharf Lane” imprinted into the ground, a further reminder of the street’s historic association with shipping.
A block further south on the corner of Market Street is the Shelbourne Hotel (No 200). This pub with its once grand exterior now looking a bit tired was built in 1902. Architecturally, the building is “an elaborate example of commercial Federation architecture with elements of the ‘American Romanesque’ style popular in the 1890s” (Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority). For 25 years (1975-2000) the Shelbourne operated as a restaurant before reverting to its original, hotel purpose.
The Corn Exchange
A good number of the original Victorian warehouse buildings in Sussex Street survive, most notably the Corn Exchange (Nos 173-185), whose location afforded it easy access to the wharves of Darling Harbour. Designed by George McRae and built in 1887 in the Queen Anne style, this building is presently occupied by an urban planning company☯.
As we approach the southern end of the street Sussex’s complexion changes. We see a few modern semi-high residential suite complexes with names like Millennial Towers and Maestri Towers. There’s a Anthroposophy Society/Rudolf Steiner bookshop which seems philosophically a bit out of place in a street with such constant material hustle and bustle. Another educational property in this block with an interesting past is the public school building (1874), 320 Sussex St. In 1945 the Sussex Street Public School was acquired by Sydney Technical College. 45 years later it was sold to the Sydney Bethel Union who ran it as a home for retired seafarers (initially known unfortunately as the “Mission for Seamen”) till it closed permanently in 2011 (Michael Wayne, ‘Sussex Street Public School/Flying Angel Seafarers Centre/For Sale – Sydney, NSW’, Past Lives of the Near Future, 2011).
Increasingly we come upon noodle houses, hot pot eateries, Chinese bars and pubs like Charlie Chan’s, Chinese jewellery stores and dual language parking signs, all unequivocal signs that we are entering the Chinatown/Haymarket precinct. Appropriately, considering the concentrated Chinese commercial presence in this end of the street, at the junction where Sussex Street terminates, stands the Bank of China Haymarket branch.
But the southern portion of Sussex Street is also organised labour turf. 377 Sussex Street is the stronghold of political labour in NSW. Here you’ll find Trades Hall and the Labor Council NSW and the headquarters of the state Labor Party⚘. Just further along Sussex Street is the famous Star Hotel, traditional drinking hole, discussion ground for labour politics and home away from home for generations of trade unionists (now under Chinese ownership).
Footnote: Sussex Street derives its name from a member of Britain’s ruling House of Hanover rather than from any direct references to the southern English county. It is named after the reformist-minded youngest son of George III, Prince Augustus Frederick, the Duke of Sussex.
Fmr Bank of NSW branch, cnr King & Sussex Sts (in the Victorian era it was the King Street Post Office)••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
☯ the preserved Corn Exchange building has fared better than the Hawker and Vance Produce Exchange (95-99 Sussex St) which retains only its original facade after a 1989 demolition
⚘ “Sussex Street” is a metonym for NSW Labor, used especially when referring to the dominant right wing party machine on that side of politics