By Lyn Collingwood, Bulletin 9/2023, November
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).
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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