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From: "alan doughty" <>
Subject: [PJ] Cattle Yards and Government Paddocks Part 1.
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 07:55:39 +1000


Patricia McGill was our other part of the team. Patricia lives outside of Sydney so was not able to make the walk with us. Below is our research of the area given to us by Lesley:-

The Cattle Yards and the Government Paddocks. - CAMPBELL STREET. - FRANK CLUNE - SERENADE TO SYDNEY - SOME HISTORICAL LANDMARKS - A & R 1967 - MARKER 31- PITT STREET NEAR CAMPBELL SC
This site is used as a Cattle Market from 1829 to 1834 when a brick building was erected on the George Street frontange and known as the Hay and Corn Market.

The Cattle and Corn Market, opened by the orders of Governor Darling in 1829, covered the area between Castlereagh, Campbell George and Hay Streets and was bisected by Pitt Street as shown on a map; of 1842. A fine brick building surmounted by a clock tower was built at the George Street end. The area, first known as the Hay and Corn Market, became officially the Belmore Market in honour of the Earl of Belmore, governor of New South Wales from 1868 to 1872. Gradually the unofficial name of Paddy's Market was adopted and the name Belmore forgotten.

In my boyhood cattle were sold not from paddy's Markets but from Inglis saleyards near Greenaway's Toll House, at what is now called Railway Square.

Since my youth paddy's Markets have been torn down and moved half a mile to the west, beyond George Street. The original site and the Chinese quarters in nearby Wesford Street were reclaimed, and the Hotel Sydney, the Tivoli Theatre, the Capital Picture
Theatre, and numerous other buildings replaced them.

Over one hundred and forty years ago the district was a vast swampy catchment area from the slopes of Brickfield Hill, draining westward the Darling Harbour. Brickfield Hill was very steep, and Governor Gipps (who reigned from 1838 to 1846) decreed the hill to "be levelled and the ascent rendered accessible to wheeled carriages".

GOVERNMENT PADDOCKS OR CLEVELAND PADDOCKS

Before European settlement in 1788, this area was the home of the Cadogal people of the Eora Nation for many thousands of years.

The sands of Strawberry Hills were originally covered by stands of blackbutt, bloodwood, angopphora and banksis trees of immense size, but were soon chopped down. In the early 19th century, this area remained undeveloped, gazetted as Government Paddocks" but soon became known as the Cleveland Paddocks after Macquarie's friend, Major Thomas Cleveland.

It was surrounded by various land grants with Cleveland House being the first house associated with it.

The western side of the paddocks was granted to the Sydney Railway Company (formed 1849) for establishment of a rail line to Parramatta (the first in the colony) which opened in 1855.

Source: Inside Redfern - A Guided Walk Revision 1 May, 1996 - South Sydney Heritage Society, 1996

PRINCE ALFRED PARK

Originally part of the Government paddocks, following resumptions for construction of the Railway, St Paul's Anglican Church and Cleveland Street Public School, the remaining portion was dedicated as a Public Reserve in 1856 and construction of the formal park commenced in 1869.

Named to commemorate the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Alfred, to the colonies in the late 1860s (when he was almost assassinated at Clontarf), it was the site of the NSW Agricultural exhibition held in 1869.

.....................CONTINUED.


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