Crown Hotel is a heritage-listed hotel at 160–162 Elizabeth Street, Sydney,

City of Sydney The City of Sydney is the local government area covering the Sydney central business district and surrounding inner city suburbs of the greater metropolitan area of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Established by Act of Parliament in 1842, th ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, Australia. It was added to the

New South Wales State Heritage Register The New South Wales State Heritage Register, also known as NSW State Heritage Register, is a heritage list of places in the state of New South Wales, Australia, that are protected by New South Wales legislation, generally covered by the Heritag ...

on 2 April 1999.

History

The coastal Aboriginal people around Sydney are known as the

Eora The Eora (''Yura'') are an Aboriginal Australian people of New South Wales. Eora is the name given by the earliest European settlers to a group of Aboriginal people belonging to the clans along the coastal area of what is now known as the Sy ...

. Central Sydney is therefore often referred to as "Eora Country". Within the City of Sydney local government area, the

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

are the

Cadigal The Cadigal, also spelled as Gadigal and Caddiegal, are a group of Indigenous people whose traditional lands are located in Gadi, on Eora country, the location of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Gadigal originally inhabited the area that ...

and

Wangal The Wangal people ( Wanegal or Won-gal,) are a clan of the Dharug ( ?) Aboriginal people whose heirs are custodians of the lands and waters of what is now the Inner West of Sydney, New South Wales, centred around the Municipality of Strathfie ...

bands of the Eora. Following white colonisation from 1788, land grants in the 1790s saw much of

Surry Hills Surry Hills is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Surry Hills is immediately south-east of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Sydney. Surry Hills is surroun ...

come under private ownership. Captain

Joseph Foveaux Joseph Foveaux (1767 – 20 March 1846) was a soldier and convict settlement administrator in colonial New South Wales, Australia. Early life Foveaux was baptised on 6 April 1767 at Ampthill, Bedfordshire, England, the sixth child of Joseph Fove ...

was the first Surry Hills landowner. Samuel Terry, an ex-convict controlled 19,000 acres of pastoral land at the southern end of the city in the area now known as Surry Hills. The Crown Hotel is located on the corner of Elizabeth and Goulburn Streets, just outside the area of Donaldson's Farm and on land originally known as Sheriff's Garden. The site of the hotel was part of the original grant to John Wilde dated 1823. The earliest record of a Crown hotel on the site is in the Sands Directory and occurs in 1882 when a Mrs. Sarah Walsh is recorded as occupant (licensee) of the Crown Hotel. In 1883, the Crown Hotel is recorded as No. 160 with licensee John Bell. Charles Hones became licensee in 1888. The present building is said to have been constructed as a guesthouse in the early 1900s and licensed in 1909. The land appears to have been resumed by the Municipal Council of Sydney in 1910 and the hotel was leased to John R. L. Rundle in 1921.

Tooth and Co. Tooth and Co was the major brewer of beer in New South Wales, Australia. The company owned a large brewery on Broadway in Sydney from 1835 until 1985, known as the Kent Brewery. It was historically one of Australia's oldest companies, having be ...

Ltd purchased the property from the Council in 1936. Tooth then leased the hotel. Licensees included John Edward Hennessy (1937–1954), Louis John Liddle (1954-580, Paul John Berry (1957–60), Ronald Moroni Samuel (1960-unknown).

Description

The Crown Hotel is a three-storey rendered brick building in the Federation Anglo Dutch style located on a prominent corner site on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Goulburn Street a few blocks north of Central railway station. The building features rendered detailing and Dutch gables typical of the style, with ceramic wall tiling below its awning. The building remains largely intact with original doors and windows. A large satellite dish is located on the roof and a steel frame structure can be seen from the street. A rendered brick laundry and store takes up much of the roofspace and the remainder is tiled and used as an outdoor deck. The original layout and planning remains on the upper floors. Early striped ceramic wall tiling has been retained on most of the walls of the public bar. The bar counter and fittings do not appear original, dating from the early 1930s, but may be located in the original position. The interior retains original joinery and the Saloon bar has timber panelling over the original tiling.

Significance

The Crown Hotel is significant as a fine and largely intact example of the style used in Australian corner hotels. The existing hotel continues the tradition of an earlier hotel of the same name on the site. The building is also significant for the strong contribution it makes to the character of the immediate area and for the aesthetic relationship it has with the Victorian buildings in Goulburn Street. It is one of only three hotels in the style located within the city; the others are the Forbes Hotel (on the corner of York Street and King Street opposite the Grace Building) and the Chamberlain Hotel (on the corner of Pitt Street and Campbell Street near the Capitol Theatre). The building has significance as part of the network of small purpose built hotels providing a social / recreational venue and budget accommodation located within a short distance from Central Station, and reflects the social character of the area during the early years of the 20th century.

Heritage listing

Crown Hotel was listed on the

on 2 April 1999.

References

Bibliography

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Attribution

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External links

{{Sydney central business district historical attractions, state=collapsed New South Wales State Heritage Register Pubs in Sydney Articles incorporating text from the New South Wales State Heritage Register Elizabeth Street, Sydney