Walk this way

Bronte Rd, Charring Cross, 1886

It’s a sunny weekday morning as we tackle a newly designed Eastern Suburbs walking route — a heritage stroll from Charing Cross to Bronte Beach.

It starts at the bottom of Victoria Street, with a distant glimpse of the Blue Mountains. They appear as a faint line, slightly darker than the sky, and the view across the Sydney basin is a reminder we’re perched on one of the many sandstone ridges that crisscross the city’s eastern seaboard.

Next head back up to the intersection on Bronte Road, where our Waverley Council-designated map — printed and folded and packed with information — instructs us to view a pair of streamlined Art Deco pubs, the Charing Cross and the Robin Hood. They stand watch over the neighbourhood, examples of an Australian phenomenon that flourished from the mid-1930s to the early 40s when licensing laws required public houses to provide accomodation. Accordingly, the local breweries promoted themselves with landmark architecture.

The history of Charing Cross stretches back to the middle of the 19th century. It was Waverley’s first commercial centre, complete with its own tram service, sadly long since departed.

Up Victoria Street, meanwhile, two churches face off. On the left is the Gothic-style Graham Memorial Church, built in 1897 for Presbyterians. Local church elder, Scotsman Peter Dodds McCormick, was the composer of Advance Australia Fair.

Across the road, the Catholic Mary Immaculate Church, built in 1912, is more showy — biscuit coloured and stately with square bell towers. Inside are seven large frescoes painted during the late 1940s by Italian artist Cesare Vagarini, who came to Australia as a prisoner of war.

Back on Bronte Road, the traces of earlier historic buildings are harder to spot among today’s shops. But as we look above the Vinnies thrift store we realise it’s located in Head’s grand commercial terraces, which were built in Victorian Italianate style in 1887 when prosperity and population in Waverley were booming.

As Bronte Road veers downhill we come across a couple of impressive two-storey stone residences from the same period near the corner of Prospect Street, also a pair of well-presented Queen Anne-style terraces.

But the star turn is Bronte House, closer to the beach. We peer over the fence at the whimsy of this colonial marine villa, built in 1845 as a retreat from city life. Some of the wow factor is the way it sits so peacefully in a small-scale botanic garden filled with rare and exotic plants. The gardens are occasionally open to the public on selected weekends.

A short ramble across the park takes us to the shoreline where we’re struck by the briny tang in the air, so redolent of Aussie summers. My friend says it reminds her of oysters.

Most of the activity is at the Bronte Ocean Pool. Opened in 1888, it’s shaped by the natural rock face and filled by the tide. Entrance is free and there’s none of the strutting glamour of nearby Tamarama — just ordinary folks taking exercise.

Until 1923, men and women had to bathe at separate times, but the pool managed to be a training ground for a number of early female Olympians, such as Fanny Durack, who won gold at Stockholm in 1912, and her friend Mina Wylie who won silver.

The heritage walk continues north to overlook Tamarama where you can imagine the ghost of artist Julian Ashton encouraging local painters at his house peering over the gully. He lived there for more than 50 years.

But we opt for something more contemporary — a frappé at the pavement cafes near the bus stop back to Bondi Junction.

WAVERLEY HERITAGE WALK

Download a walking map and brochure at waverley.nsw.gov.au/recreation/places_of_interest/waverley_walks

More details at hellobondi.com.au/walks/charing-cross-heritage-walk/