The 2011 postcode area has plethora of buildings and houses with individual names. These were chosen by previous owners and made a social statement about their own family heritage.

Some are ominous, some are delightful and some are nostalgic. All add interest to their properties and to streetscapes.

The Gunnery, 45 Cowper Wharf Roadway Woolloomooloo, is an imposing brick edifice opposite the Naval Defence Force base, has a history of gunfire. It was built c1900 as a bulk store for the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. During World War II the Commonwealth it was used for defence purposes. The Royal Australian Navy used it as a gunnery and instructional centre for trainees to practice their gunnery skills. it was then named HMAS Mindari and commissioned on 1 July 1945. It was decommissioned on 30 April 1948 and was initially used as a naval film laboratory and cinema before being repurposed as the Gunnery Art Gallery under the management of the Ministry for the Arts.

A newspaper article in 1945 reported that “HMAS Mindari is a gunnery instructional centre in Woolloomooloo. Its principal activity had been the training of Australian and Allied merchant seamen in the use of guns. For this it used a “dome,” on the ceiling of which a cinema projects a plane. Members of the class shoot at this with Oerlikons and Bofors guns while attempts to distract their aim are made by the realistic sound of guns and planes.”
Manar cottage, as it was first named, 40A- 42 Macleay Street (see photo above) was built by Emma Trant Lamb (née Robinson), widow of Commander John Lamb of Larbert Lodge, between 1866 and 1869. It cost £1,350 pounds. By early January 1869, her son, Alfred, and his wife, Mary Elizabeth (née Gordon), were living there.
Mary Elizabeth Gordon was the daughter of Hugh Gordon of Manar, Braidwood.

Manar Cottage appears to have been named after the Gordon family home. The property was named after either her father’s property at Braidwood or after their childhood home, a property near Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The Scottish property had been bought by her grandfather’s father, Hugh, a rich man from India in 1804 and renamed Manar after the straits between India and Ceylon where he had, according to some accounts, made part of his fortune in pearls.

In 1872 Emma Trant Lamb’s original 1866 lease of Lots 17 and 18 was replaced by a lease which added Lot 16, essentially the site of 40 Macleay Street. She spent a further £500 on buildings on Lots 17 and 18 and £100 on improvements to Lot 16.

Today’s Manar consists of three buildings, two of which face Macleay Street. The third faces Elizabeth Bay.

A triptych of heritage terraces in McDonald Street has their names inscribed in stained glass above their front doors. Number 9 is named Cleo after the goddess of History. Number 7 is named Greta, perhaps after a country town in the Hunter Valley.
It was common for an owner’s city town properties to adopt the names of their country cousins.

Birtley towers is named after the former mansion on the site demolished 1933-4 to build the current apartments. The magnificent heritage-listed phalanx of fig trees remains in front of where the original mansion once stood.

There are many other examples but each adds to the interest and character of our area.

by Andrew Woodhouse
Heritage Solutions

with thanks to Richard D’ Apice