Lost Sydney: Princes Street
Location: The Rocks, SydneyAs the most important street in the area, Princes Street was named for the Prince of Wales by Gov. Macquarie in 1810. It ran along the crown of the ridge to the west of Sydney Cove. The southern approach road between the northern end of York Street and the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge today follows the line of Princes Street. The part between Charlotte Square and government stone windmill northerly to Dawes Point was previously known as Windmill Row.
In the 1830s the northern end of The Rocks around Bunkers Hill developed into Sydney s most prestigious residential area, in spite of the fact that the surrounding streets were populated by some of Sydney s poorer residents who lived in squalor, crammed into homes of various shapes and sizes up and down the hillsides of The Rocks. Cumberland and Princes Streets, which ran along the top of the ridge, enjoyed panoramic views up and down the harbour, and attracted Sydney s wealthy middle-class people who built elegant and fashionable mansions and town houses there. But within a hundred years of its creation, Princess Street would disappear completely, replaced by the Bradfield Highway, which is the southern road approach to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
In 1901, after an outbreak of the bubonic plague in The Rocks and Millers Point, many streets on both sides of Princes Street were resumed by the government, their houses were razed to the ground and the streets rebuilt, often on a new alignment. The residents of Princes Street had no reason to fear the resumptions of the day, as their street and the homes in it had been kept clean, tidy and free of disease. But when, during the first decade of the new century, the government made a decision to build a bridge across the harbour between Dawes Point and Milsons Point, the release of its proposals put Princes Street right in the way of progress. It the plans were to be adopted, which they ultimately were, then Princes Street and the buildings in it would have to be demolished to make way for the southern approaches of the new bridge. Twenty years would pass from the time the first plans were released to the arrival of the first demolition team, giving residents plenty of time to re-settle elsewhere.
Princes Street during demolition
Up until the time of the release of plans for the new bridge, Princes Street had remained relatively unchanged for around sixty years. It contained many historic residences from a time when the ridge top of The Rocks area was one of the most fashionable residential districts near the city. Alderman W. P. Fitzgerald, a former Lord Mayor of Sydney, had resided on the Rocks for sixty-two years, and his home was one of a number of notable houses in the doomed street. At the northern end of Princes street, a terrace of three two-story buildings facing the south had been built by Mr. Clayton, who was a well-known shipping butcher of the early days, and who was a great competitor of Tom Playfair, after whom Playfair Street is named. Mr. Clayton for many years lived in one of the houses.
Many shipping people had resided in Princes Street from the 1860s, with the homes of some old-time stevedores dominating the southern end. William Owen Healy, the general stevedore of the A.U.S.N. Company, and later of the Bellambi Company, resided there for many years. The Burns family, whose name is remembered today in the shipping company, Burns Philp Ltd, were Princes Street residents. No. 39. No. 49 were the homes of the Misses Finnigan, two sisters who were both e teachers at Fort-street School. No. 81 and adjoining buildings were owned by Robert Watson, an old-time grocer of the Rocks who purchased considerable property in the locality to prevent any business being opened in opposition to him. The old Bee Hive Hotel stood at the corner of Essex Street. At the southern end of Princes Street was the old Wesleyan Church , and adjoining it the clergyman s residence, which were in ruins at the time the street disappeared.
The larger of the two bridges across the Argyle Cut in The Rocks carries the roadway and railway lines of the southern approaches to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This concrete arch was opened in August 1931 and replaced an earlier much smaller and lower bridge over which it was built. The earlier bridge had carried Princes Street over The Cut. A stone removed from the that bridge bore the date of 1857 and the name of Sydney's then Mayor, George Thornton.
