vintage
Anzac Day. A
Anzac Day. A public holiday throughout Australia, commemorating the landing of the 30,000 strong Australian & New Zealand Army Corps on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, at the start of a failed invasion of the Turkish-held peninsular. The British campaign to capture the Dardanelles and march on Constantinople was abandoned nine months later and all troops evacuated. Collectively, the British and Ottoman Empires lost more than 110,000 men killed in battle on Gallipoli. Senseless loss at tremendous scale.
Memorial to Annandale’s Immortal Dead (1921). A simple pillar with the names of the 87 local men who were killed in battle, died of wounds, succumbed to disease or never made it on the ship home. Inscription reads: “Erected by the Citizens of Annandale to the Memory of the Men of this District who made the Supreme Sacrifice in the Great War 1914-1920.” (The name R.E.Watson is that of a 16-year-old boy soldier killed in action nine months before the war ended, after a year of fighting in France). Features unusual curved seating at the base of the pillar for quiet contemplation. An ersatz grave once existed behind the memorial below the words “To The Immortal Dead” for more personal mourning. Design competition won by R. Keith Harris and monument built by F. Gagliardi in finely grained trachyte stone quarried at Bowral, 100 km south of Sydney. Annandale.
Real narrow laneway.
Real narrow laneway. These lanes were built behind 19th century terrace houses to collect “night soil”, before the advent of widespread mains sewerage in the Inner West in the late 1920’s. Folks would put their shit cans out in the lane, to be collected by the “night soil cart” each evening. An endless cycle until the proliferation of the flush toilet in the 1930’s. The lanes remain. Newtown.
Heavily modified late
Heavily modified late Victorian era terrace houses dated 1888. The “Centenary Year” was peak boom times in Sydney with rampant real estate speculation, but it all went to shit in the Panic of 1890, which led to an almost decade long economic depression. Newtown.
Building site from
Building site from hell. Jammed up hard against a 1902 Sydney Sandstone church, now used as a church hall for the newer church next door. Apartments suddenly appear from nothing to lock-up stage in six months flat. Canterbury.
A ‘modest’ late
A ‘modest’ late Victorian era mansion c.1884. There aren’t many of these left in the Inner West that have been restored to original condition; a lot of them vanished during sub-divisions of large blocks for apartment building booms in the 1930’s, 50’s and 70’s, before Heritage listings became a thing. Lewisham.
Former Methodist church
Former Methodist church (1891). Extraordinary facade on an old church built of Sydney Sandstone salvaged from an inner city warehouse destroyed by fire the previous year, and transported to the site. The sandstone gargoyles, sculpted by stone mason Thomas Wran, are the only ones in all of Sydney - and probably Australia - depicting native plants and animals. Now a publicly owned local visual and performing arts workshop. Annandale.
The funereal urn
The funereal urn as an architectural adornment was very fashionable during the late Victorian era. It’s usually seen in moulded terracotta. The folks back in 1880’s had a strange obsession with the afterlife and memento mori. Annandale.
A godly woman
A godly woman in residence at a columbarium outside an Anglican church (1957). Annandale.
Remnant Edwardian era
Remnant Edwardian era corner; the only reminder of what might have been there more than a century ago. Canterbury.