The Finger Wharf in Woolloomooloo Bay,
Sydney, is the longest timbered-piled wharf in
the world, and was completed in 1915. During its working life for
around 70 years it mainly handled the export of wool, but also acted as a
staging point for troop deployment to the World Wars as well as a
disembarking point for new migrants arriving in Australia.
At the peak of its service as part of the Port of Sydney, Woolloomooloo
Bay had a total of 11 berths, four of which were part of the wharf.
Built between 1910 and 1915, the 400 metre long structure was built
primarily as the exit point for Australia s wool exports. It is the
last non-naval wharf in Woolloomooloo and is the world's largest
timber-pile finger wharf and the longest jetty ever built on Sydney
Harbour. It comprised of four sheds, berths 6 to 9, with each shed
having an office block with walls of battened fibro.
Today it has been redeveloped as a fashionable complex housing a hotel,
restaurants and residential apartments. It is still a public wharf, so
feel free to explore the innards, where you can examine its industrial
conveyor-belt relics which were retained during its conversion to its
present use. Follow the wharf's history which is etched into glass
walls.
Built between 1910 and 1915, the 400 metre long structure
extending into Woolloomooloo Bay was built at a time when the Port of
Sydney was going through a period of repid expansion. Built primarily as
the exit point for Australia's booming wool exports, it was the last
non-naval wharf in Woolloomooloo and is the world's largest timber-pile
finger wharf and the longest jetty ever built on Sydney Harbour. It
comprised of four sheds, berths 6 to 9, with each shed having an office
block with walls of battened fibro.
Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf, 1967
It was from the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf that soldiers
embarked and returned home from military service in both world wars.
When the Australian Government introduced its assisted passage scheme to
attract migrants from Europe in the 1950's, the wharf became the major
entrance point into Australia for many new arrivals attracted to
Australia by the scheme.
SS
Orama departing Woolloomooloo (Wharf 7) for London at noon on 10th
January 1925. In 1940, she was refitted as a troup carrier, three months
later she was sunk 480km west of Narvick, Norway by the German High
Seas Fleet. Photo: Australian National Maritime Museum.
The wharf's passenger terminal, built in 1956, was designed for liners
up to 20,000 tons. It was similar in design to those built at Walsh Bay
(Pier One) and Pyrmont, which together handled 150,000 passengers a year
at their busiest, one third of which came through Woolloomooloo.
By 1987, containerisation and the advent of air travel had left the
wharf redundant and it remained an empty shell for over a decade. Though
its architectural significance had been recognised by a heritage
listing on the register of the National Estate, a commission of inquiry
into plans to redevelop the site resulted in the revoking of the 1987
permanent conservation order on the wharf which claimed the cost of
conserving it was too high. One thousand of its piles were said to be
rotten and the cost of repairing the substructure alone was estimated at
$15 million.
When, in November 1990, the State Government announced the imminent
demolition of the Wharf, the Building Workers Industrial Union,
supported by the Friends of the Finger Wharf, the Royal Institute of
Architects and the National Trust, placed green bans on the project even
though by 1991 it was already being left off planning maps. Numerous
proposals came and went until 1996 when the green light was given to
redevelop the wharf.
The redevelopment incorporated a 273-room three-star hotel at
the southern end and 345 luxury apartments at the northern end, along
with restaurants, retail stores and a 63-berth boating marina whilst
large sections of the interior were left intact. These included three
bays of the Berth 6 shed being left undivided (the hotel reception
area), the preservation of one of four lifts (now a dining room of one
of the restaurants), the eight pairs of huge lattice-timber goods
conveyors, one of eight machinery rooms and much of the old corrugated
steel, fibro and multi pane sashes and chain-wire cladding along the
streets. The exterior facades were restored in Federation style.
About Woolloomooloo
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