Lord Dudley Hotel and interiors

Item details


Name of item:	Lord Dudley Hotel and interiors
Other name/s:	Underwood Estate Hotel (NB in the years 1878-1908, an earlier building of this name was on the site)
Type of item:	Built
Group/Collection:	Recreation and Entertainment
Category:	Hotel
Primary address:	236 Jersey Road, Paddington, NSW 2021
Local govt. area:	Woollahra

All addresses

Street Address	Suburb/town	LGA	Parish	County	Type
236 Jersey Road	Paddington	Woollahra			Primary Address

Statement of significance:


	The Lord Dudley Hotel is of cultural heritage significance to Paddington and the Woollahra LGA as one of Paddington’s older, successful and enduring hotels, occupying a site that has been in continuous hotel use since its delineation by subdivision. It is an example of the local landmark, corner commercial development incorporated into the closer urban consolidation of the suburb, as that activity spread to the areas located on the expanding fringes of residential building, near some of the waning residual quarrying and industrial areas being overtaken by the demand for housing. The Hotel is of historical and social significance as a reference point for community identity, as Paddington’s early pubs were and remain, having served the evolving community of the suburb through 100 years of demographic change leading to its re-emergence as a popular, desirable and fashionable area. The Lord Dudley Hotel’s associations with locally influential identities, encompassing developer-publicans, prominent Irish community members, politicians, and a sporting hero give it both an historic and contemporary interest. Its long association with brewer/hoteliers Tooth & Co means that the building is well-documented archivally in local, state and national repositories, whose records also support interpretation of the building’s history of change in step with its community. The Lord Dudley is of aesthetic significance, having a strong landmark streetscape and townscape presence in its locality, derived of its astute and sophisticated architectural design and construction. Its Anglophile design references, through use of the Edwardian/Federation Queen Anne Revival style, made it and continue to make it individual and characterful in the locality and the Municipality as a whole. While its interiors have sustained change, they are legibly part of the building’s story, and it remains one of the most prominent landmark corner hotel buildings in the Paddington Heritage Conservation Area. As an element of the Paddington Heritage Conservation Area, and one of the distinctive group of hotels in Paddington, it may also prove, on further investigation, to have significance as part of an unusual group of hotels, important in their suburban context.
	Date significance updated: 24 Mar 20
	Note: The State Heritage Inventory provides information about heritage items listed by local and State government agencies. The State Heritage Inventory is continually being updated by local and State agencies as new information becomes available. Read the Department of Premier and Cabinet copyright and disclaimer.

Description


Designer/Maker:	Halligan & Wilton Architects
Builder/Maker:	Unknown
Construction years:	1877-1909
Physical description:	Located at the corner of Jersey Road and Quarry Street, and opposite the intersection with Holdsworth Street, the Lord Dudley Hotel is a part three-storey, part two-storey Edwardian/Federation Queen Anne Revival style (Richard Apperly, Robert Irving, Peter Reynolds, Identifying Australian Architecture, 1989, p.132), purpose- designed hotel building built in 1908 as a replacement for an earlier hotel on the site, the Underwood Estate Hotel. On a site where Jersey Road “dips” between Hargrave and Trelawney Streets, the three-storey principal form of the Hotel, signalled by the tall half-timbered gables to both its corner frontages, was a clever response by its architects to the need for the hotel to have a prominent architectural persona, in what was an emerging commercial and civic locality of the early 1900s, with hotels, stores, and a police station. The building was arranged over four levels – basement cellar and stores, and rear yard ; ground floor public bar, parlors, and offices; first floor bedrooms and bathroom ; and the partial second floor, of bedrooms, under the gables of the imposing corner ‘tower”. While impressive in scale in its setting against its neighbours, the Hotel is tightly planned, balancing guest accommodation with the small public bar and parlors similar to those of its older competitors in the suburb. Using the splayed footprint of the corner site, the Hotel features a complex, steeply pitched, terracotta-tiled and hipped main roof with the two half-timbered gables joined by a three-sided bay with oriel window and surmounting roughcast rendered curvilinear parapet. A timbered balcony overlooks Jersey Road. The corner form steps down to a two-level hip-ended wing along Quarry Street, with a further detailed gable continuing the building’s stylistic theme and richness. The gables, roughcast render, timber windows and other joinery are posed against the red dry- pressed face brick of the elevations, all delivered by commercially successful architects adroit and practised in their facility with the style. Responding to changing social trends and the needs of its clientele, the Hotel has been carefully adapted internally to provide the larger and more complex socialising and dining spaces required since the 1980s. New indoor-outdoor eating areas served by modern kitchens, and function/meeting rooms have re-purposed the re- arranged service areas and bedroom accommodation, in reflection of changes that have occurred in other Paddington pubs. However, in the Lord Dudley, much of the original building appears to remain intact, with the evidence of this in its plan form, original room spaces, pressed metal ceilings, the main staircase, all comparable with the original plans and descriptions of the building.
Physical condition and/or Archaeological potential:	Having been continuously maintained and upgraded, the hotel is in good condition. The site having been virtually wholly excavated in preparation for construction works incorporating a basement level, it is considered unlikely that the site has archaeological potential, other than of the building itself to reveal its construction and successive adaptation.
Modifications and dates:	Access to the interiors other than the public areas of the Hotel (ground and basement) was not available. Successive plans for the building depicting various programs for upgrading have been used to understand some of the changes that have been made, or proposed. The building retains much of the plan, layout and fabric shown in the architects’ plan of 1908 prepared for Tooth & Co (Fig.5). Interestingly the strut-supported awning wrapping around the corner of the building and sheltering its public bar and entrance appears not to have been built as such, for a conventional post-supporting awning is shown in the earlier photos of the building (Figs.6 and 7). This was removed in 1953 as part of upgrades after Tooth & Co secured full ownership of the Hotel in that year. A later, suspended box form awning is depicted in the 1956 Emile Mercer cartoon (Fig.8) and 1960 photograph (Fig.9). In the 1920s the Hotel remained much as built, this being reported in the Manager’s Office Files of Tooth & Co, when they declined to purchase the adjoining terrace No.1 Quarry Street. One upstairs bedroom was reported to have been adapted as a sitting room. In 1942-3, as shown in Council approved drawings by D.Hardy for F. Dexter, a small extension of the main bar into the men’s parlor was undertaken, allowing for more patrons to be served, and by fewer bar staff. A 1949 report on the hotel for Tooth’s described it in the following terms: “This hotel is situated on a corner site measuring 31ft to Jersey Road by a depth of 75ft [and the hotel] is built over the greater part of the site. The hotel yard and cellar are on the same level and below the footpath. The building is about forty-five years old of very pleasing appearance, built of brick with steeply pitched tiled roof and half-timbered gables, it has been well maintained. The accommodation consists of a Public Bar, two parlours, one of which has been converted into a small bar and the other is used by the present licensee as an office, (no room is now available for use as parlours), dining room, kitchen and servery complete the ground floor. The basement contains a large cellar, two store rooms, men’s lavatories, ladies w.c., laundry and yard are on one level. A tradesman’s gate and passage is the only access from street to yard. First floor contains six bedrooms, one sitting room, one bathroom and one w.c. Second floor contains four bedrooms. Many of the internal walls are of lath and plaster construction.” Having secured full ownership of the Hotel freehold in 1953, in July of that year Tooth & Co undertook more substantial renovations, removing ground floor partitions to combine ground floor rooms being the kitchen, dining and parlour into one large public lounge, with adjacent lavatories, to plans by Mr R.G. Simpson, Architect. The success of the new lounge attracted more women to the Hotel. The post-supported street awning was removed and replaced at this time. In 1963 a new bottle department was created by inserting new partitions, and the Public Bar counter was replaced and realigned (although this has since been removed) (Fig.10). The rear verandah, off the Saloon Bar, was enclosed. This created more drinking areas in front of the bars, but the footpaths outside the Hotel remained busy. In 1979-81, the new licensee under Tooths - Jamie Couche - adapted most of the cellar storerooms into a new restaurant and kitchen area, by roofing over the rear service yard and converting the storage rooms to a new kitchen, stores and toilets. Drawings were prepared in 1982 by John Moorcroft Architect, and these show the adaptation of the existing basement/cellar rooms, and creation of the new roofed restaurant courtyard (Fig.11). The Hotel was decorated in “Old English Pub Style”. James and Honor Couche purchased the freehold of the Hotel from Tooths in 1990. Smaller alterations continued through the 1990s and into the new century. The external ground floor doors were modified to form windows with sandstone seats or planters externally in 2001, and an illuminated clock was added to the Jersey Road façade in 2002. A smoker’s balcony was added to the rear of the ground floor in 2006 (Fig. 12) with access from the lounge bar. The extent of any changes to the first and second floor has not been ascertained in this report. In 2016, Council approval was gained for proposed further alterations in which an upper level was to be added to the garden courtyard, replacing the glazed roof over the basement level dining courtyard. This work has not proceeded.
Further information:	Hotels in 19th Century Sydney developed in the tradition of English inns and public houses, combining the serving of food and provision of accommodation, and the serving of beer and spirits as found in a public house. In the earliest years of the Colony, they served both travellers and a local community, with many being the first or second major building erected in a new settlement area, suburb or town. The earliest hotels in Sydney were built in the Rocks and city area, at Parramatta and in the towns developing among farmlands along the Hawkesbury River near Windsor. In many cases, the hotel served not only as a place to eat, drink or sleep, but also as the first or only community space that allowed for public meetings, gatherings and events, where the hotel was often larger than the average house. Many suburbs in the middle and later part of the 19th Century had a hotel built on one or more corners in a neighbourhood. Many stood with a corner shop opposite (a grocery or butcher), although these have now largely disappeared with buildings converted to residential or office use, leaving the hotel as the only reminder of this early style of local, community-focussed commercial development. While hotels appeared on main streets and roads, within the suburban development of the inner city, the corner hotels were the most prominent position. Often wedged at the end of a row of terraces, the hotel acted as a type of keystone or landmark building between one street row and another. In Paddington, speculative builders commonly built a row of terraces and a hotel as part of the small scale urban development that characterised the area. Paddington’s hotels were fitted in to the style of development, with nearly all being two or three storeys, mirroring the buildings around them. By 1880 there were 21 hotels listed in the Sands Directory in Paddington, rising to 29 by 1900. Paddington had one of the highest resident-to-hotel ratios for any suburb in Sydney (Kelly, M, Paddock Full of Houses: Paddington 1840-1890, Doak Press, Sydney, 1978, pp. 180-181). The area known as Paddington has changed over the years with Council redistributions, so direct comparisons are not possible. Such was the place of the hotel in the suburb, that during the enacting of the Local Option Clause in 1882, whereby ratepayers could vote Yes or No to two questions, whether (1) any new publicans license’s should be granted in the coming three years, and (2) if any should be removed from the area, Paddington, while voting to not allow any new licences, also voted not to remove any (Kelly, op cit, p.181). In NSW, an early closing time of six o’clock was introduced in 1916 and lasted until 1955, when a referendum was narrowly won for extended trading hours until 10pm. The six o’clock closing time, introduced with the intention of improving public morals and getting men home to their families earlier, had the unintended consequence of fostering an endemic culture of daily binge-drinking, which came to be known as the "Six O'Clock Swill" (from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_pubs and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_o%27clock_swill) Around the same time, the three large breweries that dominated the Sydney market, Tooth & Co, Resch’s and Toohey’s, began to buy the freehold or leasehold of many of Sydney’s hotels in order to secure an exclusive market for their products. The hotels were “tied” to the brewery, selling only their beers and preferred wines or spirits. Tooth’s and Resch’s breweries dominated the Paddington hotel trade from the turn of the 20th Century until the 1920s, after which Tooth’s took over Resch’s and with it, their hotels as well. Following the introduction of early closing time, many of the brewery-owned hotels were altered to extend the small parlours, saloons and bars that had characterised the 19th century hotel into larger public bars and ladies’ lounges, and new dining areas. Every possible area that could be spared and still receive the approval of the licensing courts was converted to bar space. The intention was to maximise the length of the public bar to accommodate the drinks and the area available for patrons for the intense hour prior to closing. Generally, public bars were designed with the serving bar running the length of the two principal facades with additional doors added, opening onto the footpath. The bar counters were modified by removing the uprights that held upper shelves and the counter top was covered with linoleum, as it was soft and easy to clean (Freeland J.M. The Australian Pub, MUP, 1966, p176). External change to the appearance of hotels was also common during the first decades of the 20th century. The breweries used either in-house architects, or prominent architectural firms, to redesign their older hotels to modernise their appearance. New buildings reflected modern architectural styles, and the classic Sydney pub, with sleek lines, wall tiles and art deco or modern features dates from this period. For those hotels that were not totally redeveloped, new building and licensing laws prohibiting verandah posts along the footpath edge, that were now considered hazardous to ever increasing numbers of cars on the road, saw the old- style verandahs replaced by light steel-framed awnings, hung on steel tension rods anchored back to the upper masonry walls. The external façade beneath the awning was often clad in vitreous tiles to a height of 5 feet, above which the wall was plastered and painted. Many pubs were extended during this period with sleeping and dining accommodation as well as bar space, also the result of the requirements of the licensing authorities. During the 1960s, the pub-based ‘Bottle Shop’ was introduced, usually by converting one of the smaller bars into a sales area for bottled and canned drinks (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_pubs). As more women and eventually families began to visit hotels from the late 1960s onwards, ‘beer gardens’ appeared and became a feature in many hotels to encourage leisurely and respectable family drinking and eating. As the breweries began to exit the hotel market from the mid-1970s new rounds of renovations swept through Sydney, with hotels upgraded to include carpeted lounge bars, ample sit- down drinking facilities, waiter service and entertainment (Freeland J.M., op.cit, p.192). In many, the old accommodation rooms on the upper levels were converted to dining areas, or used for storage, or in many pubs, lay idle. Some pubs became an alternative to boarding houses for single residents. Following American trends, through the post-WW2 decades increasing car ownership and a growing travelling public saw the advent throughout Australia of the motel. Facing this competition for the accommodation market, many older Australian pubs built new motel-style wings or outbuildings to provide for the independently accessed, self-contained, “modern” accommodation to which their existing rooms could not be easily converted. With the new interest in heritage places and buildings, some older pubs could reclaim and promote their traditional architecture or historic community values, but for many, changes in licensing law allowed them to strategically narrow their hospitality offering to food, drink, and entertainment. Increasing community affluence and the more sophisticated drinking and dining habits of Australians have challenged pubs to adapt and attract new custom, while publicans must, as ever, solicit and maintain the loyalty of their regulars. In modern- day, fashionable, inner city suburbs like Paddington, where residents and businesses characteristically respond quickly to trends and fashions, pubs face the complex mixed competition of restaurants, cafes and coffee shops, pop-up bars and bistros. In the close knit, 19th Century streetscapes of Paddington, that competition is highly visible, immediate and compelling. The cycle of reinvention, renovation and re-presentation of Paddington’s pubs has become more frequent and design-driven; increasingly ambitious design and commercial viability are carefully considered. In Sydney the compounding land value of inner-city sites is encouraging conversion to residential use, raising community concern about the loss of the meeting places and entertainment services that corner pubs provide. For these pubs with significant surviving early building fabric and remaining historic integrity, the ongoing processes of change need to be informed by appropriate conservation planning.


Current use:	Hotel
Former use:	Hotel

History

Historical notes:

Paddington is part of the land of the Cadigal people.

In 1823, ex-convict James Underwood and two other emancipists, Robert Cooper and Francis Ewan Forbes, combined to establish Sydney’s first legal distillery on 100 acres of land granted to them between Old South Head Road (Oxford Street) and Rushcutters Bay. By the time the grant was ratified in 1831, Underwood had bought Forbes’ share and his relationship with Copper had broken down, and the partnership was dissolved. 97 acres were by then in the sole ownership of Underwood and 3 acres were retained by Cooper around Juniper Hall facing South Head Road (Parkinson ‘The Underwoods: Lock, Stock & Barrel). This grant comprised a quarter of present day Paddington and was chosen for its supply of fine water from the Glenmore Brook near Jersey Road. The area became known as the Underwood Estate, or Underwood’s Paddock. It encompassed the land between Oxford, Ormond, Cascade Streets, Glenmore Brook and Jersey Road.

Underwood’s Paddock was first subdivided in 1839 and was called the Paddington Estate. He called the area after the London Borough where he had property and by the mid-1830s, the name ‘Paddington’ was in common use. The subdivision ran from Juniper Hall along Oxford Street to Jersey Road and down to Paddington Street. Four streets, Underwood, Paddington, Elizabeth and William, were formed for the subdivision and 80 allotments were offered for sale. The main sales however occurred in the 1870s, when the rest of the estate, totalling over 800 lots was sold.

The growth of Paddington had been slow during the early years of the nineteenth century. Large estates, the relative isolation of the area and an economic slowdown in the early 1840s hampered development. The construction of Victoria Barracks in 1848 was the impetus for the main development of the village, firstly along Oxford Street opposite the new barracks. Victoria Barracks provided the main source of custom for the early hotels, which were mostly within a short distance of the Barracks along Oxford Street, including the Sussex Arms, the Britannia, the Rose and Crown, the Londonderry, the Rifle Butts and Colonel Bloomfield’s Arms, the Crab Guns, the Greenwood Tree and the Paddington Inn.

The subdivision of the large estates, such as the Underwood Estate, particularly between 1870 and 1890 fuelled a building boom, including houses and hotels across what was to become the suburb of Paddington. The predominant form was the terrace house, built largely by small scale builder developers, in rows of four to six houses. Terraces made maximum use of the narrow suburban blocks, and the sloping topography of the area while still offering enough room for families and small backyards. Paddington was a renter’s suburb, with the majority of houses leased to workers who commuted into the city, to the docks or the industries around Sydney’s southern fringe (Kelly,op cit, pp.83-84; pp95-100). This working class community, with few public halls or restaurants, relied on local hotels for their meeting areas and dining rooms.

Lord Dudley Hotel
Point Piper Road, which ran down the eastern boundary of the Paddington Municipality as a connecting thoroughfare between Oxford Street and New South Head Road, had been developed in stages since the 1850s. The road was controlled by the South Head Road Trust, which by the 1870s was struggling to keep the road in working order as traffic increased. The lower reaches of the road, towards Ocean Street, although part of the large Underwood Estate, had been left unsold and undeveloped into the late 1870s, with a large quarry and a tannery being the main land use. In 1878, lots fronting Point Piper Road were finally released as part of the sale of residue areas of the Underwood Estate.

The corner of Point Piper Road and a new street, called Quarry Street, was within Lot 7, Section 15 of the Estate and was purchased by William Buchanan, a carpenter of Paddington. By 1878 Buchanan had erected a dwelling and hotel on the corner, initially naming it the Estate Hotel, and then the Underwood Estate Hotel.

Another hotel, the Horticultural Hotel was built next door on Lot 6 at the same time by George Graham. Buchanan took up the licence for the hotel for its first years, before sub-leasing it to various publicans. Plans show the Underwood Estate Hotel as addressing the corner block, with two detached outbuildings in the rear yard space. In 1885 Buchanan purchased the Horticultural Hotel next door as well (LPI Old Systems Torrens title Volume 330 Folio 80). In 1888, he built three terrace houses to the rear of the Hotel, these being Nos. 1,3 and 5 Quarry Street, and all were leased by 1889.

The two hotels traded side-by-side until the license of the Horticultural was cancelled in 1891 due to a lack of accommodation offered (Evening News, 15 May 1891, p.6). Buchanan changed the building to a grocery, and later a laundry. The nearby Glenmore Tannery and Woollahra Quarry industrial sites probably provided custom.

The Underwood Estate hotel continued to trade on the site until July 1908, when the building was demolished to make way for a new, modern hotel. The old hotel was totally dismantled and the salvage material sold at a public auction, including over 10,000 hardwood joists, beams and floorboards, roofing iron, ceiling iron, water pipes, doors, window frames and sashes, as well as tubs, stoves and other fixings (Sydney Morning Herald, 27 June 1908, p.3). Tooth & Co had by this time taken up the head lease on the property (from 1 June 1908) and had plans prepared by architects Halligan & Wilton for a new hotel, to be called the Underwood Estate Hotel, on the site.

The new hotel was completed in early 1909, but had changed its name to be the Lord Dudley Hotel, in recognition of the swearing in of William Humble Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley, otherwise known as Lord Dudley, as the Governor-General in September 1908. Publican Thomas O’Sullivan held the licence for the new hotel. O’Sullivan had been publican of the former Underwood Estate Hotel since February 1902. He had arrived from Ireland in the mid-1880s and first started in Sydney’s horse racing industry, having a good knowledge of Irish thoroughbred racing, before moving into the hotel business.

The new hotel was designed in a Federation Queen Anne Revival style, addressing the corner, with frontage to Jersey Road and Quarry Street. The hotel included a large cellar and basement level and three floors of bar and accommodation. The basement level covered the footprint of the entire ground level of the Hotel, with a large cellar at the front, a spirits store and general storeroom, a wood and coal store and a laundry. A public toilet and urinal, as well as staff toilet were also in the basement, with a small yard area at the back.

On the ground level the main U-shaped bar with a bottle department took up the corner portion, with two parlours behind and a hallway access to a dining room and kitchen at the rear. The kitchen, dining room and one parlour all had fireplaces. Stairs to the basement and a second flight to the upper levels led off the hallway, with a small balcony to the back of the hotel.

On the first floor were seven bedrooms and a single bathroom. The two bedrooms on the Jersey Road frontage each had a fireplace and access to a small, shared balcony, with the rear bedroom also including a fireplace. On the second floor a small landing at the top of the stairs gave access to another four bedrooms, one with a fireplace. No bathroom was placed on the second floor, with residents required to use that one provided on the first floor.

In October 1920, the owner of the terrace house at 1 Quarry Street, immediately behind the Hotel, approached Tooth & Co to acquire their terrace for incorporation into the Hotel. The offer was rejected as the Hotel, being new, was considered big enough for the area and the trade. Further, as the house was old and dilapidated, and its yard was below the yard level of the Hotel, any incorporation would require too much work. A report on the Hotel at this time shows it in the same configuration as when built, with the exception of one of the bedrooms on the first floor having been converted to a sitting room, leaving a total of 10 bedrooms (Lord Dudley Hotel Managers Office Files N60/1816, Tooth & Co Collection, Noel Butlin Achives, ANU).

Thomas O’Sullivan ran the Lord Dudley with his wife Sarah until, due to ill health, he transferred the licence in December 1920 to his son Maurice. Maurice continued with the license until he traded it in 1925, moving to the United Service Hotel (now the Paddington Inn) on Oxford Street, Paddington. In 1927 he left to join the NSW Parliament as the ALP member for Woollahra, becoming Member for Paddington in 1930, a position he held until 1959.

The O’Sullivan family was a prominent Catholic and ALP family. Thomas and Sarah’s daughter Winifred was the sweetheart of Australian boxing legend Les Darcy, with Darcy regularly visiting the family at the Lord Dudley from the time they met in 1914 until Darcy travelled to America in 1916. Darcy asked Thomas if he could marry his daughter, but they were both considered too young and Thomas refused (Park, R & R. Champion, Home Before Dark: The Story of Les Darcy, A Great Australian Hero, Penguin Australia, Melbourne, 1995 pp 131-132; 185). Darcy sometimes stayed in the rooms at the hotel and may have also helped behind the bar at the Lord Dudley during this period (Sporting Globe, 23 February 1946, p4). Maurice O’Sullivan was one of Darcy’s closest friends, including being in the corner during a number of Darcy’s bouts. After Darcy’s death in America in May 1917, Winifred, who was with him and Maurice, who was in Sydney, paid and organised to have his body returned to Australia (Park, pp. 334-336).

When Thomas died in May 1943, his son (and successor as licensee) Maurice was by then NSW Minister for Transport. Thomas’s funeral was attended by the Premier and his cabinet, the Chief of Police, the Mayors of Waverley, Woollahra and Paddington, as well as the local Sisters of Charity and members of Sydney’s Irish community (The Catholic Weekly, 6 May 1943, p.6). His wife Sarah had died in 1935, and had also been honoured at her funeral with the attendance of the ALP Whip, as well as numerous Parliamentarians, local alderman, church leaders and union officials. 500 people attended Sarah’s funeral, with a cortege stretching 800 metres behind the hearse (Labour Daily, 20 December 1935, p.12).

After the O’Sullivan family left the Lord Dudley in 1925, the hotel freehold which belonged to the estate of William Buchanan, the original owner of the Underwood Estate Hotel, was offered to Tooth & Co for £1400, who refused the offer and the Hotel was sold at auction to a triumvirate of owners, three women Mesdames Wall, Mortimer and Davis. Tooth & Co continued to hold the head lease and to sub-let the property to publicans. In 1931, the then licensee Harry Firkin asked for a rent reduction, complaining that due to the Depression, local workers were being put off and his trade was down. Tooth & Co agreed and reduced his rent accordingly. Firkin left in 1932, replaced by Frederick Hallgreen in March, who in turn left in August to be replaced by Frederick Crawford. The trade at the Hotel was still suffering and Tooth’s reduced the rent again for Crawford in June 1933 (Lord Dudley Hotel , Yellow Card, Noel Butlin Archives; Lord Dudley Hotel Managers Office Files N60/1816, Tooth & Co Collection, Noel Butlin Achives, ANU).

In 1949, as the end of the 50 year head lease on the building approached, the company began to investigate the viability of purchasing the freehold for the building. A report on the building noted that all ten bedrooms were occupied and some changes had taken place throughout. One of the parlours on the ground floor ( a “men’s parlour”) had been converted into a small bar area in 1942, with a U- shaped counter added that could be accessed from the main bar, and the other parlour converted into the licensee’s office. Internal walls were described as being lathe and plaster, while outside it was recommended to remove the post awning and to tile the exterior (Lord Dudley Hotel Managers Office Files N60/1817, Tooth & Co Collection, Noel Butlin Achives, ANU).

Tooth & Co purchased 2/3 of the freehold in June 1949, negotiating with the estate for the remaining 1/3 which they finally secured in May 1953 (Lord Dudley Hotel Managers Office Files N60/1817, Tooth & Co Collection, Noel Butlin Achives, ANU). At this time some internal renovations were carried out, with the walls separating the former dining room and kitchen area, and the office/parlour being removed to form a larger lounge area behind the main bar (Lord Dudley Hotel , Yellow Card, Noel Butlin Archives). The lounge could seat 70 and was partly in response to the increasing number of women coming to the hotel. At peak periods the manager reported women spilled out of the parlour, into the stair hall and up the stairs and mixing with the male drinkers (Lord Dudley Hotel Managers Office Files N60/1817, Tooth & Co Collection, Noel Butlin Achives, ANU). The work was done in July 1953, with the post awning being removed in August. The tile roof and the metal ceilings in the bedrooms were also repaired during 1952-1953.

In 1956 the Lord Dudley featured in a cartoon in The Sun newspaper, to celebrate the hotel installing a television (possibly to take advantage of the televised Melbourne Olympics). The cartoonist Emile Mercier drank at the Lord Dudley, and renamed the hotel the Jolly Dudley in his cartoon in honour of the then publican, Frank Jolley (Fig.8)(Lord Dudley Hotel Managers Office Files N60/1817, Tooth & Co Collection, Noel Butlin Achives, ANU).

In 1963 the main bar was reconfigured to create a straight bar counter for the main bar, replacing what had been an angular, serpentine style bar. This created more even work space behind the bar and a larger drinking area in front of the bar.

In 1979, Jamie Couche took on the license under Tooth & Co, before finally purchasing the freehold in c1990 from the brewery. Couche had converted the downstairs storerooms into a restaurant and kitchen area in c1979-1981, with the hotel being redecorated in an old English pub style. Little work was done to the hotel after this period, except for an internal smoking balcony on the first floor in 2007, later removed. In 2015-16 “The Garden” restaurant opened in what had been the open rear service yard at the basement level.

Plans were approved by Council for a further development of this space, by adding additional space at the ground floor level of the Hotel, but the work has not proceeded.

Historic themes

Australian theme (abbrev)	New South Wales theme	Local theme
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Commerce-Activities relating to buying, selling and exchanging goods and services	(none)-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Accommodation-Activities associated with the provision of accommodation, and particular types of accommodation – does not include architectural styles – use the theme of Creative Endeavour for such activities.	Emergence of building styles-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	(none)-
8. Culture-Developing cultural institutions and ways of life	Social institutions-Activities and organisational arrangements for the provision of social activities	Cultural and social life-

Assessment of significance


SHR Criteria a) [Historical significance]	The Lord Dudley Hotel is of historic significance within Paddington and Woollahra as one of the early hotels of Paddington, emblematic of the development and consolidation of the suburb. Its site has continuously been used for a hotel since its delineation by subdivision of the earlier landholding in 1878, and construction of the Underwood Estate Hotel in that year. Built in 1908 in the fashionable Edwardian Federation/Queen Anne Revival style, by fashionable architects Halligan & Wilton, the Hotel is a milestone development in its style, sophistication and reflection of Paddington’s urban maturity.
SHR Criteria b) [Associative significance]	The Lord Dudley Hotel has a complex array of associations with persons prominent in Paddington, Woollahra and in the broader Australian community. The site and its first hotel were built by William Buchanan, carpenter, merchant and property developer who built and leased nearby business premises and houses and whose family retained the Hotel’s freehold until 1925. Tooth & Co, the important brewers and hoteliers who owned or leased many of Paddington’s hotels, were the head lessees of the Lord Dudley and commissioned its design from architects Halligan and Wilton. They eventually acquired the Hotel’s freehold in 1949-53 and sold it to the present owners c.1990. Thomas and Sarah O’Sullivan, who were the publicans from 1908-1920, were prominent and highly regarded Irish Catholics whose son Maurice became the NSW Minister for Transport, being elected as the ALP member for Woollahra(1927) and then Paddington (1930-1959). Their daughter Winifred was the sweetheart of Australian boxing legend Les Darcy and repatriated his body after his untimely death in the USA in 1917.
SHR Criteria c) [Aesthetic significance]	Significant as an important example of its architectural style (the Edwardian /Federation Queen Anne Revival style) the assertive design and characteristic features of the Lord Dudley Hotel make it a distinctive landmark on Jersey Road, and in its local setting. Emphasized by its topographical context and set against smaller and earlier dwellings, with later modern development opposite, the Hotel remains a commanding streetscape and townscape element of individual personality and appeal.
SHR Criteria d) [Social significance]	Hotels are an important part of the social fabric of Sydney’s older suburbs as a popular meeting place, and celebrated destinations for locals, tourists and visitors. While the importance of the Lord Dudley Hotel in the current day local community or to any particular sub-group or community organisation has not been researched in this study, its community esteem has been demonstrated in its prolonged commercial success. It is part of the distinctive group of Paddington hotels which continue to serve the local and broader community, giving identity and individuality to the suburb. Paddington has a history of community and political activism and this has inevitably been facilitated by the local traditions of meeting and socialising in the network of local corner hotels in the suburb, of which the Lord Dudley is one, with candidates electioneering from the balcony.
SHR Criteria e) [Research potential]	The Lord Dudley Hotel retains important evidence of its evolution as an exemplar of a distinct building type, the Late 19th Century and 20th Century Sydney pub. Together with the substantial archival records of its use and adaptation across time, it demonstrates the processes of change in buildings of its genre, responding to the changing society in which it is valued and continues to serve.
SHR Criteria f) [Rarity]	As one of the small and decreasing number of historically significant hotels still trading commercially in the distinctive and historic urban “village” of Paddington, and still a vibrant element of its urban fabric and local streetscapes, the Lord Dudley Hotel is uncommon, rare and at some risk. Market challenges and an increasingly valuable site, attractive for conversion or redevelopment for housing use, make the Hotel part of an endangered and threatened group in Paddington, also evident in other inner city suburbs. It is the only substantially intact Edwardian Federation/Queen Anne Revival Style hotel within the Woollahra Municipality.
SHR Criteria g) [Representativeness]	The Lord Dudley Hotel is notable as being a corner hotel building, being one of the locally important, aesthetic/physical and social landmark corner hotel buildings which are a key element of the character of the Paddington Heritage Conservation Area. It has a clear and notable Representative value.
Integrity/Intactness:	The Lord Dudley Hotel is significantly intact, although it has been modified internally. It has an important integrity in that it still demonstrates its original architectural design, and its evolution. The changes to the Hotel have been considered and effectively respectful of its character and fabric.
Assessment criteria:	Items are assessed against the State Heritage Register (SHR) Criteria to determine the level of significance. Refer to the Listings below for the level of statutory protection.

Recommended management:

It is recommended that : • Appropriate Conservation Management Documents be prepared to guide all future change and development of the Lord Dudley Hotel; • The Lord Dudley Hotel and its interiors be listed as a heritage item in the Woollahra LEP (2014), subject to clarification of the interiors’ significance through further detailed assessments in the Conservation Management Documents to be prepared ; • Further investigation be undertaken to determine if the group of remaining hotels in Paddington should be listed as a group item on the Woollahra LEP or on the State Heritage Register; and • The continued use of the building as a hotel should be supported by Local and State Governments, consistent with its long history of hotel trading and acknowledging the need for suitable periodic upgrading and adaptation to meet contemporary hotel requirements, and subject to environmental and heritage impact assessment processes. • Council officers be available to liaise with owners prior to developing plans for change or development; The significant heritage attributes and elements of the Lord Dudley Hotel, modified and adapted as outlined above and confirmed by full heritage assessment and Conservation Management Documents (CMDs), should be appropriately conserved, adapted and retained. Proposals for new work should reflect the CMP policies and demonstrate that they are contributing to the conservation of the significance and commercial viability of the hotel. Subject to the CMDs, existing alterations and additions which may be considered detrimental to the identified heritage significance of the hotel, should be evaluated for possible removal or reversal, allowing reconstruction to original or early detail or a more sympathetic treatment, where this can be proposed. All reconstruction and repair work to the significant fabric of the building should be carried out using traditional materials and techniques and in accordance with best contemporary conservation practice. The emphasis should be upon retention of original fabric. For example, there should be no further enlargement or filling-in of window or external door openings, and no additions or alterations to the building should break through the current roofline or rise above the parapets – so as not to affect its external integrity, scale and character, and relationships with the streetscapes of which it is an important contributory element. Externally mounted plant and equipment should also be carefully considered, for possible alternative arrangements to be made where no detracting visual impact can occur. The external ground floor doors have been modified to form windows with sandstone seats and planters externally. The modification of the doors was intrusive and future alterations could reinstate the doors and provide seating in a more sympathetic manner. The planter boxes should be adapted so that they cannot cause water damage to original fabric, or be considered for removal. The climbing vine growing on the main façades may be damaging the face brickwork and the desirability of its removal should be ascertained. Only surfaces that have previously been painted should be painted. The face brickwork should not be rendered or painted.

Listings

Heritage Listing	Listing Title	Listing Number	Gazette Date	Gazette Number
Local Environmental Plan	Woollahra	LEP 1995	10 Mar 95	28
Local Environmental Plan	Woollahra Local Environmental Plan 2014	261	23 May 15
Within a conservation area on an LEP	Paddington HCA	LEP 1995	10 Mar 95	28

Study details

Title	Year	Number	Author	Inspected by	Guidelines used
Woollahra Heritage Study 1995	1995	394.0810A	Schwager Brooks	Schwager Brooks	No
Paddington Hotels Study	2018		Robert A. Moore		Yes

References, internet links & images

Type	Author	Year	Title
Written	J.M. Freeland	1966	‘The Australian Pub’ Melbourne University Press
Written	Liz Parkinson	1989	The Underwoods: Lock, Stock & Barrel
Written	Max Kelly		Paddock Full of Houses: Paddington 1840-1890
Written	Richard Apperly, Robert Irving, Peter Reynolds	1989	Identifying Australian Architecture
Written	Ron Johnson		Paddington History and Heritage
Written	Ruth Park & Rafe Champion	1997	Home before dark - the story of Les Darcy, a great Australian Hero

Note: internet links may be to web pages, documents or images.

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Data source


The information for this entry comes from the following source:
Name:	Local Government
Database number:	2710072

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