Central Station's "Grand Concourse"

These photographs were all taken at 8am on a Sunday. Hence, the sparsity of travellers! My Central Coast train left from Platform 9 at 8:15am.

When I returned at about 2:30pm, hundreds of people alighted from my train alone. Other than week-day peaks, I should think that Saturday arvo is one of the busiest times for train travel in my state. People seem to come to the city for the major-league football.

All railway stations in the CBD are having cosmetic renovations. The renos at Central are just about complete. The renos at Wynyard Station are a challenge to negotiate.

Donna, the Hearing Guide Dog

This is a statue that pays tribute to Donna, a hearing guide dog, not a seeing eye dog. The statue can be found in the western garden forecourt of Central Station as you make your way down to Railway Square, where George Street morphs into Broadway. Donna was the companion of John Hogan of Pymont, who took Donna with him all over the state in trains. Donna was born in February 1975, and died in May 1995. She was recognised, at that time, by the Guiness Book of Records, as the world's longest living hearing guide dog.

Heading out ...

Yes, Susan, Central Station (aka Sydney Terminal) is still operating as a railway station. Indeed, I think I would put it on my list of icons (just had to fix the spelling there, as my diplopia caused me to type "lust"), not just for my city of Sydney, but also for my state of New South Wales. In the affection of the hoi poloi, I suspect it would rank second after the "coat-hanger". We do, though, have a penchant for demolishing fine old buildings such as this, eg the original Stock Exchange in Bridge Street, and of showing disrespect and changing them into hotels and eateries for the well-off folk, eg the GPO (General Post Office) in Martin Place. Every two weeks, I catch a train from Central up to Gosford, about 60kms, or 90 minutes. I visit my brother in an aged-care facility. This train shown here, was the 8:15am Intercity, yesterday, Sunday. I can also take the 7:45 am City-Rail train on a Saturday, depending of how my fortnight is structured. I love to travel by train. It is soothing, and I can people-watch 'til my heart's content.

Central Railway Station (2)

Significant buildings in Sydney can be recognised by their use of sandstone. In the construction of the third incarnation of Sydney Station, the sandstone was sourced from the Saunders Family quarry in Pyrmont, known sarcastically by the quarrymen as "Paradise", which produced the most mellow yellow block sandstone.

The tram interchange on the first floor was in the original design, to replace the tram that used to run from the 1874 station, through Belmore Park, and along Pitt Street to the centre of the city. In 1906, the trams ran the reverse to that in which the lite-rail now runs. The government is extending the lite-rail infra-structure throughout the city.

Central Railway Station (1)

Sydney's Central Station was opened for traffic (and customers) in August 1906. It is small, and unsophisticated, in comparison with Grand Central (1871) in New Yorkj City. It is leisurely and quiet in comparison with Gare du Nord (1864) in Paris. It is simple and obvious in comparison with St Pancras (1868)in London. But I love it. It is, for me, the go-to place for people watching in my city. It is full of real people, poor people, ugly people, harrassed people irrascible people, unfortunate people. Interesting people, not plastic sophisticates without a brain to rub together.

This is the third station to serve this role in Sydney. The first Sydney Station opened in 1855, roughly on a line with the Mortuary Station. It was called Redfern (what we now know as Redfern was then known as Eveleigh). The second Sydney Station opened in 1874 and fronted Devonshire Street, which ran above what is now the Devonshire tunnel. What we have currently is the third incarnation of Sydney Station, which could only be built once all the remains in the Devonshire Street Cemetery had been re-interred elsewhere.

These three photographs were taken on the western concourse, just around from the lite-rail terminus. The ornately carved cedar doors are original 1906 installatios, and lead to the upstairs admin suite. I have not yet found them unlocked.

Scots Kirk - Dr Fullerton's Church

Opposite the manse discussed in yesterday's post, is this church, specifically a Presbyterian Church, on the corner of Pitt Street, and Hay Street, in the Haymarket. The third such Presbyterian church established in Sydney Town, by Dr John Dunmore Lang, fire-breathing dragon that he was!

Nowadays, there is absolutely no evidence that a church ever existed on this site. It would have been about where that newspaper kiosk is today, where the exiting tram comes down from the upper concourse of Central Railway station. I cannot pin down an exact date for the demolition of the church, but it was between 1899 and December 1902. The State government of the day resumed everything that stood in the way of the new station, including: the Benevolent Asylum the old steam tram depot a police barracks the Convent of the Good Shepherd (built on the site of Carters' Barracks) small domestic terraces small retail terraces the Scots Kirk, and the Devonshire Street Cemetery (aka the Sandhills).

The article from the "Illustrated News" in June 1870 gives a hint that all was not well, and perhaps the manse was being leased, or even sold. By then, Dr Fullerton's family had doubled in number, and he had moved to premises in Elizabeth Street, not all that far away. The old Kerry photographic image on the right (1872) is leading us from George Street, east along Hay Street. I have added text to show both the manse and Fullerton's church. My three shots taken at the end of June, show the disrespect that ignorance engenders. The people scurrying across Pitt St at the lights, and then up the tram exit to the railway, are just going about their business, oblivious to the history beneath their feet. Once, they get up to the rail platform, they will have no idea that the platforms lie atop an old cemetery (1819-1902).

Two more images to give colour to an unglamourous part of my city. An old 1906 shot, looking south along Pitt Street from its intersection with Campbell Street. The railway station was operational, albeit minus its clock-tower, the resumptions, and demolitions, dun'n'dusted. And on the right, my shot looking in the opposite direction, north along Pitt Street from the bend just before Eddy Avenue. My next post will trace the life and times of Dr James Fullerton. Did he run a "marriage shop", or has he been verballed all these years?

All aboard

Central Railway Station, early Sunday morning.

This blog participates in the Weekend in Black & White meme.

Taphophile Tragics - The earth moves even after death

It seems sacrilegious, and disrespectful of our ancestors and our history, but cemeteries in Sydney have closed, and the interred 'moved' on a number of occasions. My first image today, is one of the few images available (courtesy of NSW State Records) of the Devonshire Sandhills Cemetery. What the pedestrians are walking along here is Devonshire Street, which is now replaced by the Devonshire Street Tunnel beneath Central Railway Station. The view is to the NW, with the steeple of St Laurence on the left, and the turrett from the old Anthony Hordern warehouse in the mid-distance. Here is an 1895 interactive map of the area, with the camera positioned about the 'v' in Devonshire pointing to the NW. It did my head in trying to work out what was now on this very site, but it is all the country and city platforms of Central, which were opened in 1906 (with the recently-refurbished clock tower added in 1924).

The image below was taken at St Stephen's graveyard in Newtown, aka Camperdown Cemetery. Chiselled into one post is the inscription:

These gate posts erected prior to 1830 at the old Devonshire St Cemetery
Removed 1901 and erected Camperdown Cemetery 1946

This was after Camperdown Cemetery underwent its own cosmetic surgery from a cemetery to a 'memorial peace park' with the headstones brought within the 'protection' of the churchyard.


Devonshire Sandhills Cemetery opened about 1819, just prior to the Old Burial Ground on the future Town Hall site in George Street closing. Remains and headstones were moved the mile or so down to Devonshire Street. When construction of Central Station commenced at the turn of the century, remains and headstones from Devonshire Street were scattered to other cemeteries across Sydney. I have seen headstones from Devonshire Street in Gore Hill Cemetery, many in Rookwood Cemetery, and in Waverley Cemetery. The two-image set below, is a monument moved from Devonshire Street to St Jude's graveyard in Randwick. The inscription reads:

Reinterred after removal from Devonshire Street Cemetery, the mortal remains of
Hugh MacDonald
Lieutenant and Quartermaster of H.M. 46th Regiment.

Other remains rest beneath the same monument, but I cannot be sure they were transferred from Devonshire Street.


Down in Botany Cemetery (Eastern Suburbs Memorial Rest Park!) there is a 'Pioneers' Park' of headstones removed from Devonshire Street. It does not specifically say that the remains were reinterred, so I think they simply retrieved the unclaimed monuments. The bodies that were reinterred were done so by descendents, who were given financial assistance by the government of the day. Go down to Botany and have a look, but take a packed-lunch, and be dedicated.

This is my contribution to the Taphophile Tragics community.

I don't have a dog, so I took my camera for an early morning walk

F6.3, 1/250, ISO 1000, 55mm, Spot

Same viaduct as yesterday, first one way and then the other.

An older chap simply bounced onto my stage, and I thought 'here's a go'! So I stripped the 'No Entry' sign out of the viewer and zoomed in a bit more, ensuring that I spot-metered the colonade along the Eddy Avenue edge of Central Station.

Then I hobbled with my stick down t'other end of the tunnel, and tried again and again to get a silhoutte of a person in just the right position with regard to the tunnel AND the traffic flow on Elizbeth Street. Patience. It's all about patience. And perseverance.

By then, the stench of overdone chip-oil from the Express Diner was making me woozey, and I went home for breakfast.

F6.3, 1/400, ISO 1000, 105mm, Spot

This is my contribution to the Weekend in Black and White community.

Tunnel vision

Swinging from the complex intersection that is Chalmers, Elizabeth, and Foveaux Streets with Eddy Avenue, I am swamped by the trudging public, disgorging from buses and trains into this gritty end of town, as the precinct reluctantly awakes.

The gut churning aroma of bitter coffee dregs, melds with the stench of recycled saturated fats glugging in less-than-gleaming vats along the rear wall of the Eddy Avenue Express Diner, its neon sign splattered with deceased bogons drawn like the proverbial to the flame. A frosting of pigeon guano cakes the torn awning not unwound in more than a decade.

Pulling last year's grey-coat around my chest, I cast my sight low, and thrust into the first chilly blast of autumn.

8 am Commutersville

Monday Mural - The Devonshire St Tunnel

Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, used to dead-end at a cemetery. Well, it did from about 1820 to about 1895 or so. Then at the turn of that century, all the bodies had to be moved because the powers-that-was decided that great expanse of land would be just dandy for the terminal of the state railways, which commenced in 1855 and until then, terminated at Redfern Station which is off the lower left of the map.


See all that area on the map down there that is now occupied by a maze of rail tracks? All used to be bodies and grave markers. The hassle became, though, how to get from one side of the city to the other once Sydney Central Station was plonked down in the middle of that end of the city. The solution was to dig a tunnel. Well, this is just the largest (and straightest) of a maze of tunnels beneath the train tracks. Now, as to whether they found any bodies still there when digging the tunnels, no one is telling.


You can just see the dotted line on the map which represents the Devonshire Street Tunnel. This is a very busy pedestrian throughway from one side of the city to the other, and into Central Station itself. The tunnel invariably has a busker or three trying to coerce the unwilling commuter. But the tunnel also has its walls adorned with murals on the history of rail in and around Central Station. They seem to be that sort of painting that is air-brushed on to thin metal and then tacked into position. The other parts of the tunnel are tiled. The effect is quite pleasing, I reckon.

View Larger Map

This is my contribution to the Monday Mural community.

Taphophile Tragics # 4 - Botany's Pioneer Park

A well-worn epitaph for the deceased is 'Rest in Peace' (Requiescat in pace). However, in the first century of this city, we denied the dead a restful peace. We were a gaol, a convict colony. We did not treat our dead venerably, and we had no expectation that the colony would thrive. So we plonked our boot-hill in the middle of the town. Not once, but twice. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to mislocate one burial ground may be regarded as a misfortune; to mislocate two smells distinctly like a lack of vision.


Many of the original inhabitants of the city (and, by definition, the nation) were not left to rest peacefully, but were moved around willy-nilly. It beggars belief that mortal remains were kept intact, were relocated with correct head and foot stones. In total 2,285 plots were relocated from where they were originally interred. Here at Pioneer Park in Botany Cemetery (originally Bunnerong Cemetery) just 746 gravestones have been preserved. No mention of the remains. The rest of the stones were worn away by weather and neglect. Although the park lacks a graveyard authenticity (no need to worry about where one treads here), it is a very moving experience to walk up the rise through Botany Cemetery into this distinctly different area of commemoration.


The first official burying ground for Sydney was in the area now occupied by the Town Hall and St Andrews (Anglican) Cathedral. However, this was not cared for and became full and foul by 1819. So most (but not all, as we gloriously discovered just a few short years ago when digging up the basement of the Town Hall) of the bodies and headstones were moved down to the Devonshire Street (Sandhills) Burial Ground.

However, in 1901 it was determined that the main railway station of Sydney was to be erected on this self-same site. So, all the bodies were, once again, exhumed and relocated. However, this time, they had to be relocated where space (and descendants) permitted. Some remains were devolved to Rookwood Cemetery to the West, some to Gore Hill Cemetery to the North, some to both South Head and Waverley Cemeteries to the East, and still others to Bunnerong Cemetery to the South. Scattered to the four winds, if you will ...

View Cemeteries in Sydney in a larger map