Secrets of a Sydney past

Growing up, discovering and uncovering the forgotten

We do try to cover our costs by selling mugs, teeshirts, hats, bags, stickers and images...
addicted2wheels Large Mug
The A2W large mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
The GTVeloce mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
OODB large mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
The Tipo116 large mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
Yet another mug!

Monday, August 24, 2009

 

Marrickville's first Town Hall, Illawarra Road

Well it was more than just a Town Hall, it was the local Primary school, too. It may not look like much now but it was pretty interesting to a small boy like myself attending the last 2 years of his primary education.

The original Marrickville Town Hall was opened in 1879 as a single storey building, designed by John Michael Despointes, an architect and local brick maker. Despointes of course lent his name to Despointes Street, one of those locally fascinating facts that have perplexed a few people. It sounds French... why name a street in Marrickville after some obscure French person? Well now you know. In 1883 a second storey was added, to plans prepared by Blacket & Son Architects.


(Despointes Street, BTW, was a boundary of the "Frogmore Estate". Sales plans for land in the suburb showed that Frogmore was bordered by Marrickville Road, Petersham Road, Cecilia Street, Malakoff Street, Despointes Street, Illawarra Road, Frogmore Street, and Sydenham Road. Can anyone shed light on Frogmore itself? Was it a homestead?)


Entering the old school building in the late 1960s via the front gate in the low wire fence you passed the brick milk crate shelter (where we got our small bottle of milk, free, if you could stand the cream at the top and the curdling from the heat - I certainly could, just) and went straight up the steps between resting lions. Fairly ornate wooden doors swung open to reveal a solid wooden staircase to the left - or was it 2, one on each side? Hmmm. The Principal's office was to the right, I think! Straight ahead was a classroom with a backdoor into a teachers library and common room, with a common room and kitchen. Exit to the playground on the left, and also I think to the street on the right. Upstairs was a larger, more ornately clad room that comprised a pupil's library and the assembly hall. The Queen of England was dead ahead, on the western wall. We faced her when we sang God Save the Queen (original, not the Sex Pistols version still to come). A staircase led down from the left hand side, facing west. Or so I think (memory can play tricks)!


Anyway, Marrickville Council built the "new" town hall (now another old one, since Council moved to Petersham at least) in 1922 on Marrickville Road, up against Petersham Rd. There was a wooden library at the back of that building. (Childhood immunisations were done in the main building, and I can remember paying rates with my mother at a small office upstairs.) Council sold the original Illawarra Rd building to the Department of Education, opening as Marrickville Boy’s Junior Technical School in 1923. (There is an older girl's school in Chapel Street that later formed part of the Marrickville Infants School.) The Junior Technical School transferred to Dulwich Hill in 1949. The building was then occupied by the Boy’s Primary Department of Marrickville Public School - but was co-ed by the 1960s. In 1985 it was declared surplus to the needs of the Department of Education and acquired by the Department of Housing, who promptly surrounded it in a wire fence and built town houses on the playground.

Appropriately, given the late-60s/early 70s dominance by Greek immigrants, in 2006 the building was sold on to Atlas Hall Pty Ltd as Trustee for The Greek Atlas League of NSW. Apparently restoration works are progressing. Any updates out there?



There's a pic and more words here via Marrickville Council.

Labels: , , ,


Comments: Post a Comment





<< Home
blog comments powered by Disqus

Archives

September 2007   October 2007   February 2008   May 2008   June 2008   July 2008   September 2008   November 2008   January 2009   March 2009   April 2009   May 2009   August 2009   September 2009   October 2009   December 2009   January 2010   March 2010  

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to Posts [Atom]






www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from gtveloce. Make your own badge here.

Society Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory


We do try to cover our costs by selling mugs, teeshirts, hats, bags, stickers and images...
addicted2wheels Large Mug
The A2W large mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
The GTVeloce mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
OODB large mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
The Tipo116 large mug!
gtveloce Large Mug
Yet another mug!





Cars, bikes and com-munities Alfa Romeos and cars in general Fort Street Class of 75 Reunion Varied Image Gallery Aviation The Spiel - futurism and business Bikes!



ss_blog_claim=a0387bd7920c58aa342340cba85a8860

These posts represent my opinions only and may have little or no association with the facts as you see them. Look elsewhere, think, make up your own minds. If I quote someone else I attribute. If I recommend a web site it's because I use it myself. If an advert appears it's because I affiliate with Google and others similar in nature and usually means nothing more than that... the Internet is a wild and untamed place folks, so please tread warily. My opinions are just that and do not constitute advice or legal opinion of any sort.
All original material is copyright 2008, 2009, 2010 by myself, too, in accord with the Creative Commons licence (see below).



QuickLinks: Addicted2Wheels Autoexpo 2000 GTVeloce Automotive Gallery GTVeloce.com GTVeloce Image Library Fort Street High School Class of 75 All purpose Chatroom Userplane Chat Fortian Image Gallery 1975 Flora Gallery Miscellaneous Image Gallery Bike Racing Gallery Airliner Gallery Airline Postcard Gallery Gerry's Gallery GTVeloce rave on Alfa Romeos Alfa Gallery Automotive How-to Index Staying Alive Handling 101 Handling 102 Handling 103 Tyrepressures Camber Toe Caster Polar Moment Roll Oversteer Understeer Weight transfer Coil springs Wheels and Tyres Pitch Heel and Toe Double Declutch Offset Rollbars BMEP calculator Cornering load calculator GTVeloce Blog Offline Blog Out Out Damned Blog Addicted2Wheels Blog The Spiel on business MBA Resources HR Resources KM Reframed Bike Racing forum KlausenRussell Com-munity Chain Chatter Unofficial RBCC info Official RBCC info Unofficial CCCC info Official CCCC info Rob's Guide to Road, Crit and Track Racing Rob's Guide, part 2 Track race tips Sydney's Velodromes What do those lines mean? Automobile links Mustknow links Philosophy links Music Links Images of the Russell, Matthews, O'Brien and Brown families in Australia Rob's Amateur Art Gallery The GTVeloce GiftShop The GTVeloce Shopfront Rob Russell's images at Image Tank


Creative Commons License