By Lyn Collingwood, Bulletin 9/2023, November
![](https://glebesociety.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Toxteth-Park-Hotel-VSY-2.jpg)
The 19th site nominated for a Blue Plaque is 55 Westmoreland Street which functioned as a hotel for over three decades. Although the building differs in style and height from its single-storey neighbours, a passer-by is unlikely to guess it had once been a pub.
In the 19th century you didn’t have to walk far to get a drink if you lived at the Parramatta Road end of Glebe. There was a public house on just about every corner plus plenty in between. Most have disappeared: demolished (e.g., Lady of the Lake), converted to other uses (e.g., Kentish, Currency Lass) or obliterated by superstructure (e.g., Ancient Briton).
![](https://glebesociety.org.au/wp-content/uploads/toxteth-park-hotel-copy-300x215.jpeg)
In 1873, despite police objections that there were already enough pubs in the neighbourhood, John Mullavey was granted a publican’s licence for the Westmoreland Street property in an area increasing in housing density. He named it the Toxteth Park Hotel, ironically referencing the estate of Glebe’s biggest landowner George Allen, a strict teetotaller. The hotel remained in family hands until 1897 when the licence passed to a series of hotelkeepers before being cancelled in 1906. The following year the building was sold to George Charlton.
At a time when the motor car was still a novelty and most vehicles horse-drawn, number 55’s large yard, stables and rear lane access were ideal for the new owner, a horse dealer whose sons were horse-cab drivers. Members of the Charlton family were still at the Westmoreland Street address in 1937.
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