The Terrace Detective: Village people

In this instalment of your favourite local history column, the Terrace Detective has been driven to drink.

Like many Paddingtonians, I was shocked and disappointed to read headlines such as, 'Outrage as iconic 130-year-old inner Sydney pub set for redevelopment into retail space'. A quick text to the editor and the topic for this issue was locked in. Let’s look at the history of the Village Inn.

There seems to be some conjecture about how old this pub is. Broadsheet, the Daily Mail, Channel 9 and even the Village Inn’s own website referenced the pub operating from the 1890s. Some ‘Save the Village Inn’ posts I’ve seen on Facebook reference the pub dating from the 1850s.

Well, which is it? Readers, if you want answers, you are in the right place.

We will once again call on the local historians' toolkit — the trusty Sands Postal Directory, available online via the City of Sydney archives — as well as the National Library of Australia’s Trove website to see if we can learn more about the Village Inn and this part of Glenmore Rd.

I complete my first search and straight off the bat there is a pub on the corner of Glenmore Rd and Gipps St in 1890 — and we have the original name. The Rose and Crown Hotel (Miss Fanny Hennessy, licensee). It’s helpful to get the name of the pub as earlier issues of the Sands Directory are alphabetical by surname rather than a listing in street order (so I will also need to know the name of the proprietor).

Trove lives up to its name when using 'Rose and Crown Paddington' as the search term. Mr Kennedy appears to be the proprietor in 1858 and page 169 of the debut issue of the Sands Directory lists John Kennedy at the Rose and Crown, Glenmore Rd.

Pushing further into the past, I access a copy of The Sydney Morning Herald from May 8, 1852. In this issue there is a report on the annual licensing process for public houses. There were 336 applications for a publican's license within the entire Sydney district (out to Parramatta). Four were withdrawn, three applications were refused and one applicant died before the licence was issued, for a grand total of 328 licensed venues.

At least three of these are Paddington pubs. Joining the Rose and Crown in 1852 are the Greenwood Tree on South Head Road (it was only renamed Oxford St in 1875) as well as the Paddington Inn (no street given).

The earliest date I can find for the Rose and Crown on Glenmore Rd in Trove is March 1851 when The Herald reports that the licence has been transferred from Andrew Higgins to Benjamin Haigh. An Andrew Higgins is the licensee of the Rose and Crown in 1850 — but the location is George St in the city. Prior to the Rose and Crown, Mr Higgins was publican of the Cheshire Cheese on Elizabeth St.

So does that mean the 1850 date is right and the 1890 wrong? Not so fast. One possibility is that they are both correct — the original Rose and Crown being rebuilt in 1890. Let’s try to get some corroborating evidence.

I can imagine some loyal readers thinking, “Doesn’t the Terrace Detective always swear by a visual inspection? Why has he skipped this step?” You’ve got me. I was withholding that information for some suspense. If you walk past 9 Glenmore Rd you will clearly see a date on the facade — 1850.

So, case closed? Again, not so fast. That date is on the third floor of the hotel and I’ve seen undated old photos of the site that clearly show the Rose and Crown as a two-storey venue. That is to say, the 1850 date itself isn’t from 1850.

My next stop is the Noel Butlin archives maintained by Australian National University. This is a great source for anyone looking at pub history in NSW, as it collates pretty much the entirety of the Tooth & Co archives. We are in luck as the Rose and Crown was a Tooth pub.

They have a 'yellow card' for this pub for each decade under company ownership (it’s like a summary of venue, seats, taps, rooms etc and it includes a photo). Tooth bought the pub in the 1930s and so we downloaded that to review. It’s a bit of an anti-climax. The pub looks remarkably similar to today’s Village Inn — it has the balcony seating and is three storeys — though it does have a longer awning that is no longer there. One interesting bit from the 1950s summary has Tooth describing the district as 'mainly poor class' — gentrification hadn’t been invented in the 1950s.

Protesting the pub’s proposed changes in August 2023

With that dead end, I had to play a hunch and dive into the Paddington Municipal Council Rate Books maintained by Woollahra Library. Paddington had its own council from 1860 to 1948 and its records are scattered between City of Sydney (where it was from 1948 to 1960, when the north part was given to Woollahra Council and City of Sydney retained South Paddington).

The rate books aren’t for the faint-hearted. You have to work out which ward the subject site is in and then decipher the copperplate handwriting of the rate clerk, which varies year to year. For those following along at home this section of Glenmore Rd was in Lower Ward.

Examining the rate books between 1888 and 1891, we get our answer. The council assessed the value of the Rose and Crown in 1889 at £140 (with the neighbouring building being £30). In 1890, the Rose and Crown was valued at £163 (a 16% increase while the neighbouring property did not change — in fact, apart from this one change the values for this section of Glenmore Rd did not move between 1885 and 1892). I’ll take that as corroborating evidence that a third storey was put on circa-1890.

So everyone’s right and case closed? Well, yes, but let’s not close out this article just yet. I’d like to share some stories about the hotel from my research.

In 1933, Rose and Crown patrons had to go to court to determine who had joined the ‘Stiff Neck’ lottery syndicate — the winning £5000 entry was put together in the Rose and Crown, but after winning, it turned out nearly every Paddingtonian claimed to be a part of the syndicate.

Another tabloid tale was in 1952 when a local man casually walked into the Rose and Crown, put a smoking gun down on the bar and told the publican, “Here is the gun Johnny, ring the police”. John Ryan used his handkerchief to wrap the pistol and then did indeed call the police. The police came and arrested the patron who had shot and killed his estranged wife in broad daylight out on Glenmore Rd.

I had also hoped to link the Rose and Crown to the Victoria Barracks — it would have been trading when the 12th Regiment of Foot (East Suffolk) put down the Lambing Flat riots near present day Young. This goldfield rebellion was bigger than the Eureka Stockade and in its aftermath the battalion undertook the longest winter march by any British regiment when they marched more than 400km in only 12 days back to Victoria Barracks.

In my mind I imagine the weary soldiers repaired to the Rose and Crown for some post-march refreshment. I think we can make that connection.

I would like to end by exhorting everyone to support the cause to save the Village Inn. As an amateur local historian, it pains me to consider what this suburb has lost across the years — the Greenwood Tree Hotel on Oxford St to apartments and shops, the Windsor Castle to a private residence, the Police Boys Club and gymnasium on Heeley St to apartments, and White City Tennis Club to a private soccer club.

I guess it was never in doubt, but the Terrace Detective is a big fan of retaining our built heritage and social infrastructure and I would love to see the Village Inn continue trading as a public house. Case closed.