By MICK ROBERTS © BY the 1870s most Australian pubs were going by unimaginative names like the Royal or the Commercial. However, there was one Newcastle pub, which opened in 1877, that bucked the trend, and was given the tantalising… Read More ›
Newcastle hotels
Bert the navvy could out-swear a bullocky
NAVVY WHO OUTSWORE BULLOCKIES CLEARED HOTEL IN FIVE MINUTES CONST. AMAZED NEWCASTLE. Monday. HERBERT GAMBLE, laborer, walked into the public bar of the Great Northern Hotel on Saturday afternoon. Within five minutes it was empty. In the words of Constable… Read More ›
Beer bottle ear-rings for barmaids
A new fashion in ear-rings is worn by barmaids at a Newcastle suburban hotel. Carol Munday is pictured fitting a beer bottle top ear-ring for Lili Skafe. – The Newcastle Sun 17 November 1954
Beach Hotel’s ‘freak show’
WEIGHING a hefty 46 stone, or just over 290 kilograms, “Jolly Nelly”, the cook at the Beach Hotel, was dubbed “The world’s fattest lady”. Nelly was brought to Sydney from America to be part of Arthur Greenhalgh’s ‘freak show’ before… Read More ›
Where beer was thicker than blood
By Henry McCarthy THE licensee of the Amos Hotel in Newcastle employed his sister as a barmaid and, because he believed that blood was thicker than beer, refused to put her in the union. He told the other barmaids who… Read More ›
Newcastle’s three ‘Great Northerns’
The current Great Northern Hotel at Newcastle opened in 1938. It’s the third hotel of the same name to occupy the site, its predecessors having been in operation since 1864. The hotel was designed by Sydney architects Rudder and Grout and built… Read More ›
War time beer shortages
Thousands rush beer at suburban hotel Four thousand people gathered yesterday afternoon at the Imperial Hotel, Milson’s Point – one of the few hotels open in Sydney. The hotel served English beer at a shilling and six pence a pint…. Read More ›
The many faces of the Glasgow Arms, Carrington
SADLY the beer no longer flows at the Glasgow Arms, at the corner of Young and Cowper Streets, in the Newcastle suburb of Carrington. The Glasgow Arms was built in 1939, replacing an older pub on the opposite corner that… Read More ›
Road trip: Morpeth’s Commercial Hotel was operated by four sisters for 15 years
By MICK ROBERTS © OUR 2018 road trip to the Hunter Valley, included a visit to the grand old Commercial Hotel at Morpeth. There seems to have been two Commercial Hotels trading in Morpeth, the first licensed by Moses Murphy in… Read More ›