Holyrood - Strathfield Sydney
Santa Sabina College Strathfield is a Catholic Girls school. Santa Sabina is known for its fine and historic buildings. One of the most famous is ‘Holyrood’, the facade of a former City Bank, which was built in Pitt Street Sydney in 1873 but moved stone-by-stone to Strathfield to form the facade of a then residential property.
Described on completion as ‘This building which we may be pardoned for referring to as one of the architectural gems of Sydney, was designed and erected by Messrs. Mansfield Bros. The front which is composed of a rich coloured sandstone, is Italian in style, perhaps the term Italian-Gothic would more accurately describe it. A considerable ornament to the streets of Sydney’.
At the same time as the Bank was being constructed, an imaginative engineer, Charles Hoskins, was saving up to build a little cottage in Bendigo. The Bank building had created great interest because of the precautions against fire incorporated into the design of the building – all the main parts of the buildings were inter-connected by doors for quick escape from a fire, and a fire-hose connected to the water main in Pitt Street was a striking innovation in the days before universal fire regulations. The edifice was divided into two, a building within a building, with walls averaging six feet through, iron doors, ceilings of arched stone and not a particle of wood used in any part of the construction.
However the fire that broke out in the early hours of the 2nd. October 1890 consumed the whole block bounded by Moore, Pitt and Castlereagh Sts. and Hosking Place, and in the subsequent city improvement plans the razed ruins cleared the way for the creation of the modern Martin Place.
Charles Hoskins
This most disastrous conflagration in the history of Sydney started in a Pitt Street printery and burned all day and into the following day, attended by seventeen professional and voluntary fire brigades. It attracted so many spectators that police, troopers and special constables were on duty. The damage was estimated at ‘three quarters of a million Sterling’ and the intensity of the fire can be gauged by the fact that even the City Bank did not escape destruction – water causing considerable damage.
The standing stone work or facade of the Bank attracted the attention of Charles Hoskins and he decided to ‘purchase it and remove it stone by stone to his building site on The Boulevarde where it was re-assembled to form the front part of his residence, so grand that the home was named ‘Illyria’ after the home of so many great Roman emperors.
A more conventional Italianate building completed the residence. As the land faces the same aspect as the Pitt Street block on which the Bank stood the pattern of light and shade is as the Mansfield Bros. envisioned it. Added to that effect, Charles Hoskins complemented it with a beautifully landscaped area including a circular drive and very beautiful trees.
Source: Strathfield Heritage
SD Set, Strathfield, Sydney, NSW
Scanned from Slide. Taken Sept 1989
A-17, Strathfield, Sydney, September 10th 2014
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A-20, Strathfield, Sydney, September 10th 2014
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The Sydney Train Race
June Long Weekend in Sydney is traditionally a time when the heaviest rain of the year falls. June Long Weekend also plays host to The Sydney Great Train Weekend when Heritage Express (NSWRTM) bring a selection of carriages to Sydney for display, whilst operating steam shuttles between Central and Clyde (in Western Sydney).
During 2014, Lachlan Valley Railway joined the festivities with locomotive 5917 replacing Powerhouse Museum owned 3265 (a 113 year old locomotive, and the problem keeping it from running trains was a one year old radio...). As well as running the traditional push-pull shuttles between Sydney and Clyde, 3642 and 5917 would race between Sydney and Strathfield at the culmination of the weekend.
Seen here almost neck and neck approaching Burwood, the crews of both locomotives are giving it their all as they come into the home stretch. Hanging off the whistles as these two stalwarts roared through the inner western suburbs of Sydney, they were greeted at every platform, every overpass and every track-side vantage point by adoring fans who braved the wind and rain to see what was once an everyday occurrence.
Considering just how many trains use both the main and suburban tracks between Central and Strathfield, it was an amazing achievement by Transport Heritage NSW to put on this spectacle for the passengers and spectators alike. Full marks to the crew for operating their steeds in the worst weather conditions.
Now a precedent has been set, bring on 2015. Heritage in NSW keeps going from strength to strength!
wet day
iPhone 4 + hipstamatic
Hinchcliff Wool Store - Sydney
I have long wanted to capture an image of this building but it is obscured by the leaves on the tree for most of the year and busses that park in front of it every evening. An early morning winter visit was required.
John Hinchcliff was a woolbroker of the City business A. Hinchcliff & Sons, which was started by his father Andrew. The Hinchcliff woolstore survives today and is located at 5-7 Young St Sydney, now the Marist Chapel and International School near Circular Quay. This building is heritage listed and classified by the National Trust. Hinchliff was appointed as a Director of the Commercial Union Assurance Company (now CGU insurance) in 1880.
Unfortunately, the long economic boom between 1860 and 1890 came to an abrupt end plunging Australia into economic depression. One of the industries hardest hit was the wool industry. In 1895 John Hinchcliff died at Mount Royal, heavily in debt.
Source: Strathfield Heritage website
More information can be found at:
www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/1...
Strathfield Station, Sydney, 2017
iPhone 6s + RNI Films
Approaching Sydney Central
The approaches to Sydney Central railway station, just a few metres north of Redfern station.
This is a frame grab from a 1080i video shot on a Nokia Lumia smartphone on 1 August 2013.
The full 16-minute video, Strathfield to Redfern, will be posted online within the next 72 hours.
reason to smile
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Sunset - Strathfield South, Sydney
Sunset, from our hotel at Strathfield South, Sydney N.S.W...
Date 13/07/16
Godsend
Experimenting with Leica M7
Strathfield, sydney, austrlia
Added to the Cream of the Crop pool as Personal Favorite
April 1 cabshift
Nth Strathfield
Immature Ravens - playing tug-of-war
Sydney, NSW
A-20, Strathfield, Sydney, September 10th 2014
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QRN BM7
G534 and CLF1 lead a QRN BM7 service past North Strathfield
CEY006, CEY003, CEY005 LG01 North Strathfield
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QRN BM7
G534 and CLF1 lead a QRN BM7 service past North Strathfield
North Strathfield SSR
059099 23 Dec 2012 - LS05
Future freight underpass approach
Having crossed from the freight line to the Down Main at Concord West rather than Rhodes, 7MB4 Superfreighter is accelerating as it passed the newly laid track for the North Strathfield Rail Underpass Project.
072474 1 Feb 2015
Immature Common Starling
Sydney, NSW
Night Time Super Highway || THE M4
5 min exposure
Took this one on the way home from work tonight. Shot at about 130am at the western end of the M4 motorway. Got pretty lucky with this as road works trucks were going past on the right side of the road, hence the dotted orange lines.
The M4 Western Motorway, (also known as the M4 Motorway or simply M4) is a motorway in central Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It forms part of Sydney Metroad 4.
The Motorway is mostly 6 lanes wide, and carries constant heavy traffic during daylight hours, seven days a week. Built as a four lane motorway, it was widened to six lanes during 1998 to 2000, but this did little to ease the congestion. Widening the motorway any further would probably not help, as without the M4 East extension (see below), the congestion would just move further east, where traffic is deposited onto surface streets at Strathfield.
take a walk small
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Strathfield
Strathfield, Sydney, Australia
Strathfield
Strathfield, Sydney, Australia
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