The Dry Dock Hotel is a

heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and man-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In many ...

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

located in Balmain, a suburb in the

inner west The Inner West of Sydney is an area directly west of the Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. The suburbs that make up the Inner West are predominantly located along the southern shore of Port Jackson (Parramatta River) ...

region of

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, in the state of

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 ...

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. The pub is the oldest licensed hotel in Balmain and one of a number of establishments which formed an integral part of the shipbuilding and industrial heritage of the local area.

History

The origins of the Dry Dock Hotel can be traced to the Dock Inn located at 4 Thames Street between 1857 and 1861. From here, the pub moved to 42-44 Mort Street between 1865 and 1866. The land on which the pub currently stands was part of a much larger grant to colonial surgeon Dr William Balmain made in 1800 by Governor John Hunter. The licensee Thomas Wakfer, purchased the property on the current site from James McCallum in 1867 for the sum of

A£ The pound (Sign: £, £A for distinction) was the currency of Australia from 1910 until 14 February 1966, when it was replaced by the Australian dollar. As with other £sd currencies, it was subdivided into 20 shillings (denoted by the symbol s ...

295. By the mid-1860s, nearby

Mort's Dock Mort's Dock is a former dry dock, slipway, and shipyard in Balmain, New South Wales, Australia. It was the first dry dock in Australia, opening for business in 1855 and closing more than a century later in 1959. The site is now parkland. Histor ...

was undertaking heavy industrialisation of its site in Balmain and was a generator of much housing and employment in the local area. It was from this enterprise that the pub owes much of its early history through the provision of both refreshment and accommodation for dock workers. The main gate for the dock was located only a short distance away at the opposite side of Cameron Street. The hotel was briefly known as The Clarendon in the early 1870s but then reverted to the Dock Inn until 1874, when it was renamed the Dry Dock Hotel. Mort's Dock continued to provide patrons for the Dry Dock until 1957 when rising costs, labour disputes and management problems forced it into liquidation. The hotel was one of the first to open a beer garden on the location of the current restaurant. Betty "Bottles" Holloway publican from 1979 to 1982, was one of the first to introduce live music to pubs in the local area.

Architecture

The pub is a two storey, rendered masonry building that is listed on the

Inner West Council Inner West Council is a local government area located in the inner western region of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The council makes up the eastern part of this wider region, and was formed on 12 May 2016 from the merger o ...

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

heritage register of architectural significance. Like most Balmain pubs, the building has gone through a number of structural changes, the most dramatic of which was the removal of the verandah as part of modernisation in the 1920s. The current facade dates from the 1930s.

History

Architecture

See also

References

Further reading