So we set the Cambridge Street blog up to share some of the interesting historical facts and photos of Cambridge Street we've found during the research into our own home and the study of local history we have undertaken.
If anyone has any other stories or photos of Cambridge Street Paddington from back in the day that they would like to share we'd love to put them up as well. Drop us a line at the following email address:
cambridgestblog@gmail.com
We'll also take requests to help digging up answers any history question you may have - although you might need to be patient!
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Origins of street names - Cambridge street
In Lilith Norman's 1961 publication, 'Historical Notes on Paddington', she devotes a chapter to the origin of street names. According to Ms. Norman, most Paddington street names can be classified etymologically into 6 broad categories:
1. Descriptive - describing a characteristic of the street, such as Boundary st, Short st, etc. This category can include descriptions of the view, such as Prospect st or Bellevue st.
2. Royal - names honouring various royals, including Windsor, Queen, Regent, Victoria, etc.
3. Empire - those commemorating heroes of the British empire, including generals, statesmen and admirals such as Napier, Hopetoun, Belmore, Hampden, etc.
4. Nostalgic - British place names such as Suffolk, Leinster, Caledonia, Norfolk, Cambridge etc.
5. Military - battle sites such as Soudan (old spelling for the Sudan conflict) and Alma (from the Crimean war).
6. Local - honouring local notables and historic place associations, including early residents such as Gurner (for John Gurner), Heeley, etc; or old estates such as Duxford st (from John Gurner's house), Good Hope st; or even businesses such as Glenmore rd which took its name from the distillery (which itself took its name from a place in Scotland).
So the Duxford estate, as subdivided (the above image is from the Local History centre, the State Library has the original), took a couple of names from category 4 (Cambridge and Norfolk) and a couple from category 6 (Gurner and Duxford). So apart from being a posh nostalgic street name designed to sell some plots I'd speculate as a guess that perhaps the presence of the public school (built prior to the subdivision) may have influenced the choice of a more scholarly British place name. Or they just liked the sound of it.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Cambridge street's first resident?
Once subdivided, the Gurner estate was offered for sale in 1885. Cambridge street makes its first appearance in the Sands Directory in 1886. There are two people listed as living in Cambridge street then, although only one goes on to stay on Cambridge street through the 1890s. That is Thomas Lawler and he was at 57 Cambridge street. That address will be familiar to anyone with kids. It is the Cambridge street playground! Thomas Lawler remained at 57 Cambridge street until his death in 1908 (you can find his funeral notice on Trove in the SMH of 28 July 1908).
Thomas' wife, Catherine, remained at 57 Cambridge street until 1925. From 1926 until they stopped printing the Sands Directory in 1932/33 there is no listing for 57 Cambridge street. Catherine Lawler passed away in 1943. The death notice in the SMH of 19 March 1943 listed her as living at 1 Cambridge street.
Thomas' wife, Catherine, remained at 57 Cambridge street until 1925. From 1926 until they stopped printing the Sands Directory in 1932/33 there is no listing for 57 Cambridge street. Catherine Lawler passed away in 1943. The death notice in the SMH of 19 March 1943 listed her as living at 1 Cambridge street.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Boot repairs at 38?
Monday, June 4, 2012
All the News That's Fit to Print ...
The title is the motto of the NY Times, you'll find it printed on the upper left corner of the front page. If you happened to buy a copy on 14 January 1996 you would've found a great little article on Paddington. I have actually seen this printed and laminated at a real estate open house on Cambridge street. Extract below as it relates to Glenmore Rd and Cambridge Street. Full article here.
"Unlike other Paddo streets, which move haphazardly across the hills, ignoring topography, Glenmore Road follows its natural route down into Paddington's valley, a path originally carved by bullock teams pulling gin from the local distillery up to Oxford Street, then called South Head Road. A right turn from Liverpool onto Glenmore takes the walker past a series of grand terraces (numbers 97 to 109) with huge garden walls molded like waves, their fronts elevated high above the street, as imposing as a row of London townhouses. The street continues below the Royal Hospital for Women, arriving at the crossroads of Five Ways, where, naturally, five roads meet. The intersection is dominated by the high Italianate form of the Royal Hotel (1887), its facade broken by a second-floor iron balcony well above street level, with wooden blinds that roll down to shield diners on sunny days.
GLENMORE Road continues down into the valley known in Georgian times as the Vale of Lacrosia, a popular site for the estates of the Rushcutter gentry, an early Sydney merchant class named for the bay where the land slanting down from Oxford Street flattens out to meet the harbor. Sydney Harbour is visible from a few points in Paddington, usually at the crest of its upper residential streets, but most clearly from the walkway passing through the public school, accessible by gate from the lower Glenmore Road.
Leaving the school grounds (at a gate behind the yellow principal's cottage), one enters steep Cambridge Street at its midsection, slightly above three fanciful, almost Mediterreanean confections with names engraved in the stone: the pistachio-green Frampton (59 Cambridge Street, built in 1889); Langlo (55 Cambridge), cream with pink and ochre trim, and intricate plaster friezes; and Westbury (47 Cambridge), its facade a mustard yellow-brown with gray quoins and ironwork. Each is notable for its front tower, topped by a balustrade and with delicate plaster urns on each corner that form a portico above the doorway.
Cambridge Street's terraces are mostly in good repair, if not quite as colorful as these three freestanding houses; at the top of the road, Cambridge meets Gurner, and across the road is the entry to Norfolk Street, an L-shaped thoroughfare that abruptly ends atop a wall above Cascade Street. Here you will find the broadest view, to the east, across the hollow shared by the suburbs of Paddington and Edgecliff, the latter now wooded parkland containing, among other things, a cricket oval."
"Unlike other Paddo streets, which move haphazardly across the hills, ignoring topography, Glenmore Road follows its natural route down into Paddington's valley, a path originally carved by bullock teams pulling gin from the local distillery up to Oxford Street, then called South Head Road. A right turn from Liverpool onto Glenmore takes the walker past a series of grand terraces (numbers 97 to 109) with huge garden walls molded like waves, their fronts elevated high above the street, as imposing as a row of London townhouses. The street continues below the Royal Hospital for Women, arriving at the crossroads of Five Ways, where, naturally, five roads meet. The intersection is dominated by the high Italianate form of the Royal Hotel (1887), its facade broken by a second-floor iron balcony well above street level, with wooden blinds that roll down to shield diners on sunny days.
GLENMORE Road continues down into the valley known in Georgian times as the Vale of Lacrosia, a popular site for the estates of the Rushcutter gentry, an early Sydney merchant class named for the bay where the land slanting down from Oxford Street flattens out to meet the harbor. Sydney Harbour is visible from a few points in Paddington, usually at the crest of its upper residential streets, but most clearly from the walkway passing through the public school, accessible by gate from the lower Glenmore Road.
Leaving the school grounds (at a gate behind the yellow principal's cottage), one enters steep Cambridge Street at its midsection, slightly above three fanciful, almost Mediterreanean confections with names engraved in the stone: the pistachio-green Frampton (59 Cambridge Street, built in 1889); Langlo (55 Cambridge), cream with pink and ochre trim, and intricate plaster friezes; and Westbury (47 Cambridge), its facade a mustard yellow-brown with gray quoins and ironwork. Each is notable for its front tower, topped by a balustrade and with delicate plaster urns on each corner that form a portico above the doorway.
Cambridge Street's terraces are mostly in good repair, if not quite as colorful as these three freestanding houses; at the top of the road, Cambridge meets Gurner, and across the road is the entry to Norfolk Street, an L-shaped thoroughfare that abruptly ends atop a wall above Cascade Street. Here you will find the broadest view, to the east, across the hollow shared by the suburbs of Paddington and Edgecliff, the latter now wooded parkland containing, among other things, a cricket oval."
Friday, June 1, 2012
Cedric Emanuel
Cedric Emanuel painted a number of Paddington streetscapes back in the 60s and 70s. This is a watercolour and pen view showing 46 to 52 back in the day.
You can still find some prints and books of his selling on ebay. Here is a link to an etching of a similar view that is currently up for grabs (ends 5 June). Photo of that below:
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