By MICK ROBERTS © Often mispronounced, there’s a pub in Sydney’s west with an unusual name. The Keighery Hotel in Auburn is named after one of Australia’s best-known racing identities of the first half of the 20th century. The Keighery… Read More ›
Australian Hotels
The ubiquitous pub bookie
MOSTLY out of pubs, Illegal SP (Starting Price) bookmakers operated for much of the 20th century, particularly from the 1930s until the introduction of the Totalizator Agency Board (TAB) in the 1960s. An SP Bookie (Starting Price Bookmaker) refers to a bookmaker who… Read More ›
Celebrating 100 Years of Khartoum Hotel in Hunter Valley
THERE’S a pub in the Hunter Valley of NSW preparing for a special milestone. A pub centenary is always an opportunity to celebrate, reflect and to look forward. And that’s exactly what the current custodians of the Khartoum Hotel at… Read More ›
Bulong’s Court Hotel: From bustling pub to abandoned ghost town
THE Court Hotel was a jerry-built corrugated iron pub established in what is now an abandoned gold mining town in Western Australia. Bulong was a bustling settlement located 580kms east of Perth in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. In… Read More ›
The opening of Kalgoorlie’s iconic York Hotel
Built in 1900–1901 by John Crothers for proprietor Henry Edward Laslett, the York Hotel in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, is a historic landmark located on Hannan Street. Designed by architect Daniel T. Edmunds in the Federation Anglo-Dutch style, it remains a… Read More ›
The Bulli bullocky: Politics in the pub
By MICK ROBERTS © BREAKING that unwritten rule of never discussing politics and religion at the pub can have dire consequence. Some people learn the hard way: like, Bulli bullocky James Robinson. Robinson was a new arrival to the little… Read More ›
Dicey Riley’s: Wollongong’s iconic Irish pub story
By MICK ROBERTS © THE history of Wollongong’s last main street pub, Dicey Riley’s can be traced-back to when James Cosgrove was granted a publican’s license for the site almost 165 year ago. Like all good pub yarns, the colourful… Read More ›
Crown Hotel gas explosion killed Surry Hills’ newspaper vendor
By MICK ROBERTS © FATE dealt an elderly pensioner a cruel and fatal blow outside a Sydney pub just three days before Christmas, 1948. Like today, Surry Hills at the corner of Crown and Cleveland Streets, outside the Crown Hotel,… Read More ›
Discover the Royal Hotel Singleton: A historic family pub
LOCATED in the NSW Hunter Valley, the Royal Hotel at Singleton, is one of the region’s oldest pubs, established in 1859, and offering hospitality for over 165 years. Today the pub provides bistro dining, a large beer garden, motel rooms,… Read More ›
Fred Klauer, musician, digger, raconteur and publican
The following first-hand account from a famous, well-known Adelaide publican, Frederick William Augustus Klauer, was published in the South Australian publication, Quiz and the Lantern, on 17 February 1898. It’s a fascination look into the life of a German immigrant,… Read More ›