Out Of The Ashes

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday January 24, 2006

Dugald Jellie

The reborn suburb is no longer the pits, writes Dugald Jellie.

The old brick pits of St Peters belie its well-to-do beginnings. Once upon a time, this was the colony's first planned village, streets laid formally around the grounds of St Peter's Anglican church, consecrated in 1839 and one of the earliest in the land. Gentlemen's estates dignified a parish fashionably distanced from Sydney Town's hullabaloo.

But its fortunes were undermined by rich clay deposits - Wianmatta shale - ideal for the business of brick-making. From the 1870s, the new 5.2 sq km municipality became synonymous with the chimneys and kilns of the Goodsell and Austral brickworks, furnacing Sydney's basic building block for the next 100 years.

By century's turn, the social slide was complete. A How to Know Sydney guide of 1896 distanced the high end of town - "Darling Point and Double Bay, which are near the harbour", from "Pyrmont, St Peters and Woolloomooloo, best described as working men's suburbs".

The Great Depression hit hard. In the early 1930s St Peters had the highest infant mortality rate in the metropolitan area (87 per 1000 compared with 30 per 1000 in Mosman), a barometer of the poor health of this inner-city working-class enclave.

How times change. The erstwhile brickworks are now parks and gardens and the uppity classes have slowly moved back to find an admirable architectural legacy: Victorian terraces, freestanding Federation villas, inter-war brick bungalows, even weatherboard cottages ripe for a makeover. Side streets are quiet, dotted with little gems and a community contented with its place in the world.

Which, down the south end, incidentally, is plumb under the flight path - accounting for the suburb's $482,000 median house price, the lowest rung in the inner-west. The prospects for the year can only look up.

dugaldjellie@hotmail.com

BEST STREETS

Goodsell, Silver, Florence, Church, Brown, Lackey streets.

AGENTS' TIPS

"The suburb's record is $972,000 in Silver Street in late 2002. Most two-bedroom semis trade in the mid-$400,000s, some even lower. It's very affordable for first-home buyers."

Nick Politis, LJ Hooker Marrickville

"You get a lot more for your dollar in the south end. It gets more aircraft noise but you've got to sacrifice something if you want a better house."

Kale Balbi, Ray White Newtown

ON THE MARKET

18 Hogan Street (pictured) Six-bedroom house with spa bathroom, plus two-bedroom flat with separate entrance. Inspect Sat 11-11.45am. Agent Marrickville First National, 0416 006 004. Auction Feb 4. About $550,000

38 Silver Street Three-bedroom Federation home with two street frontages. Timber fireplace. Inspect Sat 1-1.45pm. Agent Richardson & Wrench Newtown, 0408 973 026. Auction Feb 28. $680,000 +

E105/21-27 Princes Highway

Modern first-floor apartment with two bedrooms, timber kitchen and balcony off the living area. Inspect By appointment. Agent LJ Hooker Newtown, 0417 240 138. $389,000

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home