OFTEN A thankless job, involving mundane tasks, yardmen were – and still are in many bush and regional pubs – an indispensable cog in the works of a successfully operating hotel. Usually knock-about blokes employed to do odd-jobs around the… Read More ›
NSW hotels
Shearers take over pub
A PUBLICAN in shearing country once told me a beaut yarn. Before taking the license of a pub in the Riverina district of NSW, he was host of a pub in Wollongong. So he wasn’t accustomed to the drinking habits… Read More ›
Explosion in hotel cellar
An unusual explosion took place in the Border City Hotel at Albury, when a cask of beer in the cellar exploded, sending the flooring into the bar. A  wooden mallet, which was lying on top of the casks was driven through the… Read More ›
The Sydney Inn of Long Ago: When Quaint Signs Creaked Over the Doorways
“Whoe’er has travelled life’s dull round, ‘Where’er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an Inn.” SHORTLY after white settlement, Sydney had an assortment of public houses with quaint names… Read More ›
Beware the grog at the Black Dog
By MICK ROBERTS © BEWARE the grog at the Black Dog, they warned. And for good reason! A short, but steep walk up Brown Bear Lane from George Street at The Rocks during the first half of the 19th century, would… Read More ›
The Hero of The Rocks
By LESLIE F. HANNON TURN down any of the jigsaw streets on the northernside of Wynyard Square, run down the rock-hewn steps, slip through the twisting lanes behind the bondstores, and you are standing in chapter one of Australia’s history. The stout chipped stone blocks of the hotels, shops, warehouses, and residential that crowd the foot paths can tell… Read More ›
Oddities Among Australia’s Outback Inns
By BILL BEATTY DESERTED homesteads in the outback country are by no means uncommon, but a deserted hotel – fully furnished – is a novelty, at least in these days. Yet there is such a hotel near the old mining township… Read More ›
Mrs Watford’s pub
ANOTHER chapter in the eventful history of the  Hotel York, King Street, City, was begun at the Quarter Sessions Appeals Court last Monday.The hotel is to have a new licensee. Or rather, the old one is to come back again.Back over the door will go… Read More ›
Publicans and guests ‘got by’ in one-day hotel strike
Illawarra Mercury Thursday 8 December 1949: Hotel bars in the Illawarra district were closed on Thursday owing to the one day stop work meeting of members of the Hotels and Restaurant Employees’ Union. For publicans’ wives and families it was one of the busiest days on record,… Read More ›