Two views

Lower Fort Street in about 1911

The same view this morning

Sophocles and Euripides, the charming pair of 1840s townhouses in the centre of both photos have been sold recently by Housing NSW.  Now it looks as if they are preparing to sell the next house in this line which also dates from the 1840s. It looks tired but reasonably intact, for example most of the original verandah posts remain with bottom sections replaced with brick. Some time since the top photo was taken, the pink brick house to the south of number 24 has been erected and appears squashed up against it. Not a particularly sensitive addition to the streetscape, but still in a "heritage" style. Wonder if Housing NSW will retain this newer house and only sell off the heritage houses they don't want to maintain.

Number 3 Lower Fort Street, one slice of Milton Terrace, is on the auction block tomorrow night, and so is another house in the street. If memory serves me correctly, the other house being auctioned has been auctioned before and not long ago by Housing NSW. There would be a lot of stress on the successful bidders on any of these heritage properties -- so many conditions and clauses and authorities to deal with.

Also stressful is the effect of these sales on our existing neighbours, many of whom have been here a very long time. It appears likely the government will want to sell all the heritage houses they own in Lower Fort Street (which amounts to nearly all the houses in the street). Just as likely the residents, both new and old, will want to maintain a mixed and lively neighbourhood. Let's hope there is some discussion that includes all residents in future plans.

Contemporary art in our heritage precinct

The foreground in the c.1935 photo above shows the rear of 57 Lower Fort Street, and presumably the washing of the occupants hanging above the road. It features on Unguarded Moments favourite photos as part of a the contemporary art exhibition which also lights up the streets around us (see below). Great to see contemporary art finding a place in our neighbourhood and congratulations to City of Sydney for putting this project together.

UNGUARDED MOMENTS is the City of Sydney's Village Art project for Art & About Sydney 2011, based this September and October in Millers Point. 

Produced in partnership with creative studio killanoodle and researcher & producer Sarah Barns, Unguarded Moments presents a series of site-specific film portraits capturing the changing faces of Millers Point. 

FILM PROJECTIONS: Wander through the area experiencing the living history of the streets as captured on film. Projections will draw from documentary films and photographs, featuring past & present residents and workers. In this way, the history of the working port, its waterside workers and its residents will be re-inscribed back into its present day environment, connecting us to the area’s living history and the ties existing within the community today. 

To see the projections begin at Abraham Mott Hall, walk down Kent Street towards Walsh Bay and Windmill Steps, then along Hickson Road towards Sydney Harbour Bridge, where you’ll finish up at the roundabout near Pottinger Street. Click here to view a map. 

EXPLORE MORE ONLINE: We've created this website to provide some more in-depth coverage of the many different films, photographs, and people that feature in the film projections. You'll also be able to listen in to past and present residents talk about what life's been like in Millers Point over the years

Neighbourhood Snapshot

The ariel photo above shows Lower Fort Street which runs between the approaches to Sydney Harbour Bridge and the wharves of Walsh Bay. A few house numbers will help orientation, and we live beneath the yellow star. What follows is a snapshot of Lower Fort Street from Dawes Point to Ferry Lane.

At left near the Dawes Point end of Lower Fort Street is Milton Terrace, once described as the finest terrace in Sydney. It runs from 1-19 Lower Fort Street. These are big, wide four-storey houses, with some interesting architectural details, including many from the grand 50-foot-wide Milton House, built in the 1820s and still largely intact within numbers seven and nine, including a front door, a serpentine Georgian staircase, fireplace surrounds and hob grates, and many other internal features.

The whole terrace has been run as a series of boarding houses and flats for more than 100 years, and soon the first of these is to be offered for sale on 99-year lease. Number three is getting a final clean-up before the Di Jones marketing begins, and there are a few other properties in this terrace that might soon be offered for sale as well.

Just beyond Milton Terrace is a pair of houses built by Captain Nicholson in 1832. One side was sold on 99-year lease a couple of years ago, and work has been going on apace, recently extending to the exterior where a paint consultant has chosen an adventurous yellow for the exterior walls and a clip-on bathroom has been added.

Inside is some stunning woodwork, and perhaps the interior will be painted incarnadine -- an interesting colour if you look into it.

Here is the view of this pair from the front. The front verandah was added later and is in urgent need of repair, but is Housing NSW about to spend a substantial amount on the half it still maintains? It seems not. The residents on the unsold side are soon to leave and this half might also be offered for sale on a 99-year lease.

This is the beginning of the roadway that once ran behind the houses to the right and down to the wharves of Edwards and Hunter who built our house at number 37 in 1833. Two of the houses in the Morris's Terrace (numbers 25-33 Lower Fort Street and also built in 1833) have been sold on 99-year leases and our new neighbours have moved in. In another of these houses lives a charming resident who has been here for many decades, and we hope to keep her in our neighbourhood. This is the run of houses that includes us, and unfortunately there is no current activity on the renovation front (see previous post), so our snapshot moves further up the street to Palermo Terrace.

A couple of houses in this terrace have been sold on 99-year leases, and some fine restoration of woodwork has been evident in the workshop that has been set up on the ground floor. It must be getting close to finished.

This gracious Regency-style terrace was built by the Flavelle brothers in the early 1850s, and all three properties have been sold by Housing NSW on 99-year leases over the past few years. This terrace is at 57–61 Lower Fort Street.

These are the jewel of our neighbourhood and are going to be the most wonderful homes. The restoration of one of them is to be the subject of a series of stories in the Herald. Here's a link to the first story last weekend...

http://tiny.cc/oszl4

The houses in this terrace are only two rooms deep and this photo shows how much light comes through the floor-to-ceiling windows – such a wonderful solution to housing, so it's a shame Sydney did not get more terraces like this.

Rear view of numbers 57-61. These will look great if the tacked-on verandahs come off and the original verandahs below are restored. Wonder what their plans are?

Next terrace along the street and this is the house undergoing the most work. It includes a delightful attic room a little like our own. Below is a view of this terrace from the front, and the lane at the end is Ferry Lane which marks the official end of our suburb Dawes Point -- surely the smallest suburb in Sydney.

The suburb of Dawes Point begins at Ferry Lane, just to the left of these buildings on Lower Fort Street.












This pair of houses looks like they would be at home in southern USA. Built in the early 1840s and once named Sophocles and Euripides, both have now been sold on 99-year leases and we look forward to watching how these are restored. These are the only houses on the other side of the road to have been offered for sale by Housing NSW, and so they mark the end of this snapshot.

No progress.

A huge renovation awaiting and we are at a standstill. 

A while back we dismantled the air-conditioning ducts that snaked through our house when it was home to the Royal College of Radiologists. Out came the sprinkler system as well, and we discovered beneath the chipboard most of the timber flooring on the first floor was missing.

Now we have two floors out of action, and we are keen to get back to work to make our house livable again.

We had a meeting with planners from the City of Sydney and they were fabulous, going through our plans and advising how we should proceed. It seems we can submit a Section 96 amendment to our approved plans.

It looked like we were good to go, but somehow we remain stalled. It might be to do with heritage architects -- we have our own of course, and there is at least one other who has taken an interest in our house. Correspondence has occurred.

This blog was to be the story of our renovations, and those of people around us who were embarking on similar work. Three months ago this is what we wrote to everyone we knew who had signed on to renovate one of these old houses...

People who are buying the old houses of Millers Point and Dawes Point are finding they have much in common. All of us want to join the vibrant community that already exists here, and we want to save these heritage houses from further deterioration. We are repairing, restoring, maintaining, adapting and making habitable houses that are a significant remnant of Colonial Sydney, and we are learning to work with several authorities, including Heritage Branch, Housing and Sydney CIty Council.

This was an introduction to say we were looking for ways to share our experiences and connect with people we hope will be part of our community for a long time. Three months later and we are doing this with several of the renovating future-residents of Lower Fort Street and beyond. Some are planning the most exciting renovations, keeping within the strict heritage guidelines but still finding ways to make these houses vibrant, contemporary and personal. Lower Fort Street has attracted some adventurous folk and already there are many whose friendship we value.

So in spite of our lack of progress, we are seeing something of our new community emerging, forming friendships with existing and future residents, and becoming involved in plans that will reinvigorate this whole area -- not only the Barangaroo development that will bring thousands of new people to live our area, but also the new town plan for all our area that we are encouraged to develop with the City of Sydney planners. 

History has become our other distraction -- uncovering the people who built our house and its history. We have become very taken with them as well.

So all of these subjects will be coming up in this blog, and together they might provide some insight into life in Lower Fort Street at a time of change. But the day we really look forward to is the one when we can report on more change within our house as well as what happens beyond.

Stairwell to Heaven a cappella on the steps of St Mary's Cathedral just before Christmas. Next performing on 26 January as part of the Rocks Australia Day events.