The Terrace Detective: hard yakka

Hargrave St’s “double wide” terraces (real estate agents, feel free to use the term)

The Terrace Detective has been on a roll uncovering forgotten terrace house names lately. Can we keep the streak alive?

In this edition, we will try to name some of the terraces on another major Paddington thoroughfare: Hargrave St. It’s quite a long block so I am going to focus on a handful of terraces on the south side — the ‘duplex’ terraces from 113 to 119 and the ‘double wide’ (my term, real estate agents, feel free to borrow) at 111.

In our previous columns we touched on why some terraces have names. For those who came in late, here’s a recap.

During the early days of Paddington’s development, it was often unclear how many houses were going to be built on a street. House names were therefore invaluable for working out who lived where before the street numbers were finally allocated.

They could also help personalise houses that were often built in groups. Once again, for this edition’s discoveries, we will use the trusty Sands Postal Directory (available online via the City of Sydney archives) as our primary source of information, backed up by good old-fashioned Googling.

As always, I first suggest a visual inspection of the subject site can help corroborate online findings. This stretch of Hargrave St has a great landmark that should be a constant through the archives — a pub. We can use that landmark to count how many houses are between it and our subject site. This will be helpful if the street has a renumbering.

However, as it turns out, the eyes can be deceived. The deceiver in this case is the pub itself. And no, the Terrace Detective hasn’t been waylaid by too many shandies.

It turns out the pub has been a shapeshifter through time. Originally listed in the 1879 Sands Directory as the Elphin Hotel — with one James Quigley, proprietor — it stayed in the same family for more than 50 years, being listed in the 1930 Sands as the Elfin Hotel with Phoebe Quigley as proprietor (the different spelling of the pub’s name probably being a typo from Sands).

The Bellevue Hotel back when it was still the Elfin (or Elphin) Hotel. Picture: Tooth and Co. Ltd.; Photographer: Unknown // Noel Butlin Archives Centre

The Bellevue in more recent times, note the terrace next door has become a part of the pub

Some online digging finds the excellent pub project, TimeGents.com, that reveals some historical photos and details on the pub. Originally named after a small township in James Quigley’s native Ireland (Elphin is 155km northwest of Dublin), the pub’s name was changed in the 1930s when Tooth & Co bought it. A photo from 1949 still clearly shows the pub with its smaller footprint and a grocer next door.

Now on to the nearby terraces. I’ll start by answering the burning question: Was Hargrave St ever renumbered? The answer is yes. According to Sands, Hargrave St was renumbered twice, first in 1889, with 137 becoming 71, and then again in 1910, with 159 becoming 137.

The names of the terraces remained hard to find. I wasn’t having much luck with Sands as I moved earlier and earlier. There was a single name in 1905, Rutledge, but this was for the house on the corner of Elizabeth St (which would now be 85 Hargrave) and nothing on my subject site.

I’ve got to tell you readers, it was getting pretty tense at Terrace Detective HQ as we pushed into the 1800s.

Finally, we got a hit on our first subject site in 1890, with 91 (what is now 113) named Fenton House. Popping that into another online resource, Trove, we also got some hits for rooms to rent at Fenton House in 1890.

1888 and 1887 were more fruitful. Sharp-eyed readers will recall a street renumbering in 1889 and I can now see why house names were popular. The initial Hargrave St numbering scheme was a complete mess.

There were two complete sets of numbers 1 through to 35. The first from Cascade to Elizabeth streets, and then these same numbers were repeated from Elizabeth St through to Taylor St.

These two editions of Sands gave me all I needed to close this case, and a little extra — it turns out 1 Hargrave (aka 85) was originally Friendville before it was Rutledge. What is now 105 was Glenwood House, 101 was Blanche House and 145 was Exeter House.

So here are the names for our subject site (the year is the entry in the corresponding Sands).

31 Hargrave (now 119) was listed as Amyville (1887).

29 Hargrave (now 117) was listed as Ernestville (1887).

27 Hargrave (now 115) was called Baroda (1888).

25 Hargrave (now 113) was called Fenton House (1888).

23 Hargrave (now 111) was called Golconda House (1886).

Another case closed. Now if only the former Tooth's-owned Bellevue Hotel still had KB on tap.