Max Solling on the pubs of Glebe and Forest Lodge

By Rodney Hammett, Bulletin 02/2026, April

Max Solling’s latest talk was held at the Forest Lodge Hotel on 1 March. I’d read about it in the 16 January Glebe Society Update and quickly booked my ticket. Unsurprisingly, within a few days it was sold out and there was a long waiting list. 

On entering the Forest Lodge pub that afternoon, you immediately felt welcomed with the hum and bustle of patrons being served and chatting plus the sweet sound of a jazz trio. The room at the rear of the pub quickly filled to overflowing and we were entertained by Max in his engaging style. But this wasn’t just a talk in a pub, it was a talk about pubs. The history of the Forest Lodge Hotel from 1866 was explained, with images of its changing floor layout and appearance over the years as it was ‘modernised’ to suit the changing clientele. 

The first pub in Glebe was the Glebe Tavern which opened in 1844 on the corner of Franklyn Place and Greek Street and traded there until 1934 when the licence was transferred to the new Toxteth Hotel at the corner of Glebe Point Road and Ferry Road. Max also gave us details of beer consumption at a number of Tooth’s pubs, whose records are in the Australian National University Archives, and spoke about how many of the publicans became slaves to the powerful beer barons at the Toohey’s and Tooth’s breweries. 

Pubs initially only catered to men. Later, ladies-only lounges (with higher prices) were introduced but by the 1970s, everyone drank together. There was an engaging photo from 1950 of a woman drinking in a car outside a pub. Max discussed the issues around the ‘six o’clock swill’–the rush to drink as much as possible in the hour between finishing work at 5pm and 6pm when, by law, hotels had to close.

Pubs came and went. In 1857 there were 11 pubs. By 1874 there were 21 pubs, 4 having closed and 14 new pubs having opened. Many were located on Church lands, close to the working men’s terraces, with 99-year leases. The Church was happy for the rent from the housing but not so happy about the proliferation of pubs.

Some pubs like the Bridge Hotel at the corner of Bridge Road and Junction Street were given special mention. The name ‘Bridge’ referred to the large timber bridge built in the 1850s over Orphan School Creek as part of the new road–Pyrmont Bridge Road–from Sydney via Pyrmont, across Blackwattle Swamp and through Glebe to Camperdown. The Bridge Hotel operated from 1882 to 1950.In true Max style, the talk veered here and there, with his entertaining anecdotes collected over the years during conversations with characters now long goneThe images shown on the pub’s enormous screen by Virginia Simpson-Young were an important part of this talk, as they illustrated the changes in Glebe and Forest Lodge pubs over the last 180 years. Virginia also distributed a handout with a map and table of the pubs mentioned in the talk.

Max provoked us to think about the future of Glebe’s pubs as profitability has always been a challenge. In the beginning, pubs were run by entrepreneurs, some in premises they owned and some with a lease. Increasingly, these ‘free houses’ became tied to the breweries and, while some were profitable, many were not as bankruptcy notices in newspapers testify. Then in 1997 pokies were permitted in pubs which changed everything. Now we see the nine remaining pubs catering for a new and varied clientele, offering a wide range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, food with enticing menus and, of course, space for gaming and pokies.Time was our enemy as the talk had to end around 6pm because the room was booked for another group, so manyof the audience continued the theme of the talk by ordering drinks and a meal.