On the westen side of the entrance to Darling Harbour is Pyrmont Bay, which developed alongside Darling Harbour over the years as an inportant part of the Port of Sydney. Separating Pyrmont Bay and Jones Bay is Darling Island, one of a number of islands in Sydney Harbour that have been reclaimed and are now a part of the mainland with little or no evidence remaining as to its former disposition.
Pyrmont Wharves 8 and 9, which today are known as Sydney Wharf, were once part of the busy fabric of Sydney’s maritime history and were the first and last port of call for ships travelling to and from Britain and Europe. For many thousands of Australia’s first immigrants, this was where they first set foot onto their new homeland. From 1924 onwards, immigrants from Britain, Italy, Greece and Asia stepped ashore at these wharves. Nearby this historical fact is preserved and recognised in "The Wall" situated alongside the Sydney Maritime Museum and with a wonderful sculpture located at the entrance to wharf 10.
Pyrmont Wharves 8 and 9. Photo: Sydney Wharf Apartments
With the decline of passenger shipping in the 1960s, the sheds of Wharfs 8 and 9 were abandoned. The first stage of the redevelopment of Wharf 10 was completed in 2001, and involved a harbour's edge commercial office building and retail complex over 3 levels. Wharves 8 and 9 have residential uses (Sydney Wharf Apartments) and a marina with boat berths.
When the first fleet arrived from Britain in 1788, Darling Island was a rocky inhospitable place on the western side of what is today known as Darling Harbour. The island was originally separated from the mainland by a mud flat, which was first bridged by a causeway in the 1840s. In the first forty years of European settlement, Darling Harbour was known as Cockle Bay, because of the abundance of shellfish on its shore, and the island was subsequently called Cockle Island.
Darling Island Berth 13 (foreground) and Jones Bay Finger Wharf
In 1855, the Australian Steam Navigation Company acquired Darling Island upon which it would build one of Australia's foremost slipways and engineering workshops. In preparation for its construction, they contracted Pyrmont Robert Saunders, son of Pyrmont quarryman Charles Saunders, to level the island and connect it to the mainland. The contract time for excavation, quarrying and removal was two years. It was completed in one year. Robert Saunders was listed in the Australian Men of Marks Vol. II for the work he completed on Darling Island.
Pyrmont Bay and Darling Island (right centre), 1968
Darling Island as we know it today began to take shape in the 1890s with the construction of coaling jetties from Pyrmont Bridge to Darling Island. Ongoing reclamation work saw the harbour foreshores reduced by more than 70 kilometres since colonisation. By the turn of the 20th century, Darling Island was totally lined by wharves that were in continual use by overseas ships.
Berth 13 Passenger Terminal
After World War I, an influx of European migrants saw No. 13 Berth Pyrmont on Darling Island reserved for passenger liners. In 1951, the Pier 13 shed was demolished and a passenger terminal built in its place. The new terminal was the first stucture of its type constructed in Australia to cater for thr growing tourist and passenger traffic.
Darling Island today
By the 1990s, the terminal was superfluous to the port's needs. For a while it was the temporary home of Sydney’s casino prior to being demolished in 2004 and replaced by new apartment buildings, by which time the sheds around it had been demolished and replaced by parklands, car parks, apartment buildings and a waterfront function centre. The heritage listed former Ordnance Stores of the Royal Edward Victualling Yard, built between 1902 and 1912, remains.
About Darling Island
Jones Bay is situated to the west of Darling Island. Its name recalls Tom Jones, a Welshman, who was a convict transported for stealing linen. Tom and his son John (Johnny) used the bay as the base for their ferry operations on Port Jackson. Born in Sydney in 1808 or 1809, John (Johnny) Jones was a 'Currency Lad', which was the first generation of native-born white Australians. He was a street wise child growing up in the convict settled area of The Rocks in Sydney. He had a reactive temper and was predisposed to solving his problems and disputes with his fists. As a young boy he joined a whaling and sealing ship and learned the skills of harpooning whales and slaughtering seals. By the age of 20, he had interests in three whaling ships, and worked for his father rowing boats as a waterman/ferryman on Port Jackson. At 19 years of age he married Sarah Sizemore on 7 January 1828 in Sydney, and they had 11 children, although two died as infants.
In 1834, now a captain of a whaling and sealing vessel based in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), he explored St Vinent's Gulf and entered Port River at Port Adelaide while searching for suitable sites from which to conduct fishing, whaling and sealing activities. A year later, Johnny and Edwin Palmer went into a partnership to purchase a whaling station in New Zealand and a schooner for whaling. Within the next few years, his shrewd business skills allowed him to gain a controlling interest in seven New Zealand whaling stations. He died in Dunedin, New Zealand, age 60.
The Jones Bay Finger Wharf was constructed during the period 1911-1919. Work was sporadically interrupted by material and labour shortages during World War I. The constructing authority was the Sydney Harbour Trust, established in 1901, which took over all private wharf facilities and established a ten year plan for the Harbour involving complete re-development of port facilities and the construction of new wharfage.
Jones Bay Berths 19-21 had been built to accommodate the needs of overseas ships which were becoming much larger, requiring efficient handling and quick turnaround. Other berths which were built just prior to and during the construction of the Pyrmont Bay wharves were those at Walsh Bay, Millers Point and Woolloomooloo. The Pyrmont Wharves differed significantly in the provision of rail links to Berths 19-22 as an integral part of their design. They linked to the Darling Harbour goods yard and to the New South Wales extensive railway network, and were designed to carry large volumes of wool and wheat for export.
The Finger Wharf has supported a variety of uses over the years, handling millions of tonnes of goods and providing employment for hundreds of stevedores. It was one of the staging points for Australian troops leaving for combat in the Second World War and also the point of entry into Australia for many migrants after the War.
About Jones Bay
A section of the Pyrmont Bay quarry after landscaping in the 1990s
By the beginning of the 1880s, Quarryman Robert Saunders had abandoned his sandstone quarrying sites on the western side of the Pyrmont peninsula and moved on to the harder stone to the north, leaving gaping holes in the landscape which filled with stagnant water. Eventually he worked practically the whole of the north east end of the peninsula, the two main quarries being at Jones Bay and Pyrmont Bay opposite Darling Island.
General Post Office, Pitt Street Wing
These quarries produced stone blocks used in the construction of many of Sydney's sandstone buildings of the late Victoria/Federation era. In 1883, when the McCredie brothers purchased stone from Saunders for the Pitt Street extension of the General Post Office, he employed 27 cranes, 100 men and over 50 horses at work in the quarry on their project alone. The majority of the last Sydney buildings to be built of sandstone had their stone sourced from the Jones Bay and Pyrmont Bay quarries. The advent of the Great War saw the end of large scale sandstone quarrying on the Pyrmont peninsula and at these two quarries.
Mitchell Wing, State Library of NSW (1906-1910)
Sydney buildings made from sandstone quarried from the Jones and Pyrmont Bay quarries include the Queen Victoria Building 91893-1898; Lands Department Building (1877-1890); St Mary's Cathedral (1868-1928); Sydney Town Hall (1869-1889; Mitchell Wing, State Library of NSW (1906-1910); Art Gallery of NSW (1896-1909); Land Titles Office (1908-1913); Central Police Court (1892); Pyrmont Bridge (1902).
For many years the quarries at the north-eastern end of the Pyrmont peninsula had the appearance of an abandoned and unsightly wasteland. In recent years, the gaping holes of the quarry have been filled with apartment buildings which have been cleverly designed to cover the scars in the landscape left by the quarries. Star City Casino is built in part of the Pyrmont Bay quarry.
The Quarries of Pyrmont
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