Heritage Issues
What is Heritage?
‘Heritage’ is the tangible evidence of our history, the things we want to keep, not only for our own enjoyment and education but also for future generations.
Posts about Heritage Issues
Glebe Point Road Main Street Study, Stage Two
Posted on 26th February 2025
Conducted by Bechervaise and Associates in 1991. The two volume report, Glebe Point Road Main Street Study, Stage Two was published in November 1991. Objectives for the study related to conserving and enhancing the identified character and heritage items of Glebe Point Road, providing a clear Statement of Cultural Significance of Glebe Point Road; providing […]
Remembering Ian Stephenson (1955-2024)
Posted on 3rd December 2024
President Duncan Leys writes about Ian Stephenson, whose funeral was on 21 November. The Glebe Society and so many other people mourn his loss as a generous, funny and passionate man and a leading heritage thinker with huge standing in the cultural heritage space.
Oh, how Glebe has changed!
Posted on 2nd December 2024
A newly-digitised collection of photographs shows the Glebe waterfront in 1976. How it has changed!
Glebe Society and Council request Heritage Council to protect Bidura
Posted on 3rd December 2024
This is one of the last articles Ian Stephenson wrote on behalf of the Glebe Society, typical of his informed and passionate support for preserving Glebe’s significant architectural heritage. We could all see the dereliction; Ian proactively pursued action to address this. Let’s hope Ian’s efforts, which are clear from this article, successfully end Bidura’s trajectory towards demolition (by neglect).
Kanangra’s restoration is progressing
Posted on 28th August 2024
At Rozelle Bay some dedicated volunteers are restoring the Kanangra, a ferry built in 1912 that served Sydney Harbour for more than 70 years. The volunteers are keeping alive the old shipbuilding skills that were once a feature of docks on the Harbour foreshore.
Heritage and the housing crisis: higher density must respect amenity
Posted on 28th November 2023
What’s the common ground between YIMBYs and NIMBYs? This article is reproduced with the permission of the Marrickville Heritage Society.
The Villas of Glebe: A Glebe Society Walk
Posted on 29th October 2023
Another successful Glebe Society Walk in October took participants on a tour of the grand villas of Glebe, some still extant, others a matter of history.
Researching your house – update
Posted on 29th August 2023
Want to know the history of your house? Guidelines and records are readily available. Historical photographs, maps and Council records which cover Glebe and Forest Lodge are online at the City of Sydney website.
Bidura: Development Application recap and update
Posted on 28th August 2023
Bidura, the heritage listed former home of architect Edmund Blacket on Glebe Point Road s now on offer for short term lease.
Heritage Subcommittee Annual Report 2022-2023
Posted on 27th August 2023
The Glebe Society’s Heritage Subcommittee is tasked with improving the amenity of Glebe and Forest Lodge by opposing development detrimental to heritage values or contrary to community interests; with encouraging sound town planning, architectural and conservation practices; and stimulating interest in the history and character of Glebe and Forest Lodge.
Celebrating Peru Perumal, a major figure in Glebe’s conservation
Posted on 17th August 2023
The Glebe Society is delighted to have received a substantial donation in memory of Peru Perumal. Peru was elected our President in 1972 and was a major figure in the conservation of Glebe.
Lyndhurst: Glebe’s Blue Plaque Nomination #16
Posted on 1st August 2023
It has been an Anglican college, a Catholic college, a laundry, an ice cream factory, and a printing works. It was set for demolition in 1972, but historic Lyndhurst in Darghan Street was saved by the Glebe Society and other community groups for restoration. Lyndhurst was nominated by the Society to be considered for a Blue Plaque.
New housing policy overrides heritage protection rules
Posted on 27th June 2023
In mid-June, NSW Premier Chris Minns announced a policy to allow developers to build higher and denser housing that will override local environment plans. It’s an attempt to solve Sydney’s housing affordability crisis. What will it mean for Glebe?
Original porch substantially retained
Posted on 28th February 2023
The Society has successfully submitted that the adaptation of the front porch of St James Hall, Woolley St, be redesigned to retain as much as possible of the original porch. A sensible decision.
Remembering Tibby Cotter
Posted on 2nd March 2023
The eleventh site nominated for a Blue Plaque by the Glebe Society is Monteith at 266 Glebe Point Road, where the famous cricketer Albert ‘Tibby’ Cotter lived. Blue Plaques are part of a NSW Government program that aims to capture public interest in and fascination with people, events and places that are important to the stories of NSW.
Glebe’s social, commercial and industrial history
Posted on 20th December 2022
This year the Glebe Society’s Bulletin has published many fascinating articles about Glebe’s social, commercial and industrial history, its historic buildings and about the people and families who lived here in the 19th and 20th centuries. Often in response to enquiries from members of the public with a family connection to Glebe.
What’s happening at Bidura?
Posted on 14th December 2022
Bidura at 357 Glebe Point Road was built in 1860 by Edmund Blacket and is listed on the State Heritage Register. Property developer Vision Land has plans to demolish the Metropolitan Remand Centre (behind the heritage building) and replace it with an apartment block. The Council is expected to make a decision about the latest DA in mid-December. Meanwhile the heritage building and fence look to be in serious need of repair.
Glebe Society submissions on development applications
Posted on 10th June 2022
Information about recent Glebe Society submissions on Development Applications in Glebe and Forest Lodge.
Heritage Subcommittee 2022 Annual Report
Posted on 11th September 2022
The Heritage Subcommittee continued their dedicated work towards the heritage preservation and enhancement of Glebe and Forest Lodge for the benefit of our community now and into the future. They contributed to the Review of the NSW Heritage Act 1977 and the Review of the Local Environmental Plan 2012, nominated properties for Blue Plaques and wrote numerous articles in the Bulletin relating to 2037’s history. They also responded to many community requests for heritage and historical information about Glebe and Forest Lodge.
From the President, August 2022
Posted on 8th August 2022
In his President’s Report, Ian Stephenson announced that the Society is looking for Convenors for two Subcommittees – Community Development and Environment. He also reports on the National Trust’s ‘No Time to Spare II’ exhibition at the Riverside Theatre, Parramatta.
Forest Lodge home wins NSW Architecture Award
Posted on 9th August 2022
“A joyful Forest Lodge home” in Wood St has been awarded the Australian Institute of Architects Wilkinson Award for the best new home in 2021. Stable House is owned and designed by Qianyi Lim, a Director at Sibling Architecture and Associate Professor of Practice (Architecture) at the University of Sydney.
The raison d’être of the Glebe Society
Posted on 9th October 2022
Reflections written in 2010 (with some factual updates since) on the social and economic conditions in Glebe in the 1960s and the factors that saw the birth of the Glebe Society. In the intervening 50 years, the changing demographics of Glebe have also played a role, arguably both positive and negative. By long term Glebe Society member and former Planning Convenor, Neil Macindoe.
Caroline Jones and the Glebe Estate, ‘This Day Tonight’ 1972
Posted on 10th June 2022
In 1972 when she was a reporter on the ABC’s ‘This Day Tonight,’ Caroline Jones’s report on the Glebe Estate shocked viewers, many of whom were seeing for the first time what living in poverty looked like in Australia. The landlord, the Anglican Church thought that the best solution to its problem was to sell the Estate to developers, knocking down the historic cottages without concern for the community that had taken root there. Thanks to Tom Uren that did not occur and it was bought by the government. Unfortunately, today it’s not safe from further predations by developers, while the current NSW Government turns a blind eye to ‘demolition by neglect’.
Glebe Society submissions on development applications
Posted on 12th June 2022
Information about recent Glebe Society submissions on Development Applications in Glebe and Forest Lodge.
From the President – March 2022
Posted on 7th March 2022
The Glebe Society has been incredibly busy over summer. Catch up with what we’ve been doing by reading the President’s Report.
The Land and Housing Corporation gets the details wrong
Posted on 7th March 2022
One on of the brilliant things about the project by the Federal Government, and later the NSW Government, to restore the former church estates was that they went to a lot of trouble to get the details right. Sadly, the NSW Land and Housing Corporation which looks after the former church estates seems to have lost its memory and its skills.
Re-submitted DA for Bidura still unacceptable
Posted on 4th March 2022
The Society has lodged a follow-up submission in relation to the Bidura development application (DA) which proposes a large scale apartment complex behind the heritage-listed building, replacing the concrete Metropolitan Remand Centre/Childrens Court built in the early 1980s. This follows a period of consultation between the City of Sydney and the developers, Visionland, and amendments to their original proposal. The Society believes that aspects of the proposed development will be alien to the architectural character of Glebe and should not be approved.
Water tower heritage interpretation artwork
Posted on 6th November 2021
One of the requirements of the DA for the development of Harold Park was that the water tank associated with the Rozelle Tram Yards be reinstated. The tank has been reinstated as an artwork by Chris Fox called ‘Immerge’.
Our new video series ‘In Sydney, it’s Glebe’
Posted on 1st October 2021
‘In Sydney it’s Glebe’, six Glebe Society videos about our suburb, its history and heritage and the risks it faces from overdevelopment, have now been released.
Protecting our environment – sewage pumping stations serving Glebe
Posted on 14th September 2021
Four low level sewage pumping stations serve Glebe and surrounding areas, part of a network constructed at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries in response to the outbreaks of typhoid which plagued Sydney from the 1870s to 1890s. Built at a time when small-scale utilitarian buildings were given as much careful attention as public buildings.
