WHO would have thought? The wharfies who frequented the Harbour View Hotel in the shadow of the Sydney Harbour Bridge at Millers Point during the early 1950s insisted on having fresh flowers in the bar every day – and, as… Read More ›
NSW hotels
Central West NSW Road Trip: The pubs of Canowindra
By MICK ROBERTS © WE ended our 2018 road trip to the former gold mining villages and towns of central west NSW by calling into historic Canowindra, located between Orange and Cowra. Where the town’s pubs trade is the curving main street, which… Read More ›
Road trip: A visit to central west NSW and the Cargo Inn
CONTINUING our road trip to the former gold mining towns of central west NSW, we left the Railway Hotel at Spring Hill for the charm of another single storey brick pub, the Cargo Inn. The drive from Spring Hill, via… Read More ›
Warwick Farm Hotel’s roustabout found dead on rail lines after £30,000 inheritance
By MICK ROBERTS © A drifter, William Price did most odd jobs around the pubs where he worked in return for boarding and lodgings. He tapped beer barrels, collected glasses, cleaned toilets, and emptied ashtrays. His job was often labelled as… Read More ›
Road Trip: Railway Hotel, Spring Hill
I RECKON it’s more than appropriate that a bloke who watched the first passenger train in NSW puff its way between Sydney and Granville in 1855 names his pub the Railway Hotel. Among the thousands of Sydneysiders who gathered to… Read More ›
Road Trip: Forest Reef Tavern
By Mick Roberts © ESTABLISHED on the back of mining and the thirsts it created, there’s a pub about 20kms from Orange, in central west NSW that survives from those heady days when gold raised the hopes of many, and… Read More ›
Botany’s Waterworks Hotel joined Sydney’s ‘150 club’ in 2018
THE Waterworks Hotel at Botany reached a significant milestone in 2018 when it joined a select number of Sydney pubs that have marked 150 years of trade. Named after the nearby Sydney Waterworks, which was established in 1858, the little… Read More ›
Like old times: Royal Hotel, Lismore
LIKE OLD TIMES – At about midday on Thursday, a young man drove up to the front of the Royal Hotel, in Molesworth Street, Lismore, got out of the sulky, took the horse out and tied him up to the… Read More ›
Sydney’s stolen beer glass epidemic: Over 180,000 glasses a week disappeared from the city’s 600 pubs in 1944
DURING the 1940s, Sydney’s pubs was suffering a persisting problem with customers stealing beer glasses. The problem had been around for decades, but the curious practice of ‘souveniring’ beer glasses from Sydney’s pubs had become a major headache for publicans… Read More ›
In the shadow of the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylon: Imperial Hotel, Milson’s Point
By MICK ROBERTS © THE Imperial Hotel at Milson’s Point started life as the Cornish Arms when John Whitford was granted a license in April 1844. Thirty-five-year old Dind, his wife, Eliza, 34, and their 12-year-old son, William Jnr, moved… Read More ›