By Duncan Leys, Acting President, Bulletin 9/2025, November

A recent Glebe Society walk led by Max Solling included a tour of Toxteth Park (the house) in Avenue Road.

The Catholic Order of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan was established in Sydney in 1857 and were originally based in Pitt Street, Sydney. When their premises were demolished to make way for the construction of Central Railway Station at the turn of the 20th century, the Sisters relocated to Toxteth Park.

Joanna Mead, Archives & Records Manager of the Good Samaritan Congregational Centre, led the tour through the interior of the house and showed us some of their extensive archive collection. One item missing from their archive was a picture of the original gates that stood before the Sisters arrived. The gates now at the corner of Avenue Road and Arcadia Street came from their Pitt Street premises. Whereupon Max Solling revealed that he had a copy of a very early photo (1909) of the original gates that had been relocated to Abercrombie House near Bathurst in NSW.

A 1909 photo of the original gates to the Toxteth Park estate, relocated to Bathurst (Image: Mitchell Library PXD 588 Album 48)

After the tour we made copies of Max’s photos, maps and  subdivision brochures and gave them to the Sisters to add to their archives.

At the handover of the documents, we were told the Sisters had a suspicion that it was only the caps on the current gate posts that came from their Pitt Street premises to Glebe and not the gate posts themselves. Did we know who might have made the current gate posts? So far, the answer to this question is no.

Can any readers help us out?