Sinai II: A Tour of Moses Miracle Country in South Sinai

Regional History, Travel

If you go to Sinai, as many European vacationers do (escaping the Northern Hemisphere winter) solely for the diving and snorkeling or to chill out on a Gulf of Suez/Red Sea or Gulf of Aqaba beach resort, you will be short-changing yourself on all that the peninsula has to offer. A trip to Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa) and Saint Catherine’s Monastery shows you another side of the Sinai tourism portfolio.

Mt Sinai is a place of contrasts. Obviously there is the spiritual dimension to Sinai, a sacred location for the three great and distinct Abrahamic religions. It is also a place that swings widely in climatic conditions, hot desert weather during the day but can be “cold as” at night, especially when your sleeping arrangements are exposed to the desert winds. We spent the night in a flimsy Bedouin camp shack, trying to sleep on what passed in the Bedouin world for ‘bedding’ – on the floor lying on a kind of stiff, itchy strip of carpet (no sheets), a pillow comprising a hard mat made of tent canvas rolled up like a newspaper that felt like it had an iron bar inside, and as a doona, a thin, coarse camel rug with more than a lingering whiff of the even-toed ungulate about it! Definitely a case of more ‘Bedouin’ than ‘bed’!!! Outside, conditions were bitterly cold, something akin to a gale-force wind was blowing and we could palpably feel it through the several gaps in the door! (clearly, the locals round here have never heard of the terms ‘doorstop’ or ‘windbreak’!)

ref=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/image-17.jpg”> Sunrise over Sinai[/ca
In the early morning, we dragged ourselves out of the icy bed(sic) and still half-asleep, clamoured up the mountain (approximately 3,700 rough-hewn steps worth of clamouring!✥) for the privilege of taking photos of the sunrise peaking over the imposing mountain range. On the way down again, in company with an assembled multitude of other climbers all treading carefully down the ancient, rock strewn staircase, we took shots of the harsh, sun-baked ochre-brown terrain and the ancient Mt Sinai Monastery (official name: “Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount Sinai”) which is enclosed within a fortress compound.

f=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/image-18.jpg”> Saint Cath’s [/capt
Later that morning we visited the church itself, Saint Catherine’s was packed to its 6th century AD rafters with visitors and pilgrims. The Monastery’s governors, the Greek Orthodox custodians of Saint Catherine’s permit only a narrow window of opportunity for people to visit the Monastery (it was open only three hours in the morning and all tour groups need to be accommodated within that time period!)…so there were crowds all over the compound and massive queues for the toilets✱. The main church building was pretty basic, Spartan in parts, but in the section housing (according to tradition) the relic of the cherished Saint, everything was crammed full of icons and other Orthodox paraphernalia. The feeling of being cluttered and crowded was added to by the numbers of visitors and pilgrims from everywhere all trying to soak in the holy martyr’s saintly ambience at the same time.

“http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/image-16.jpg”> “The Bush” in question[/captio
Saint Catherine’s is the attributed site of at least one Old Testament✧ classic mainstay, the fabled ‘Burning Bush’ of Moses. Frankly though I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary about it, a wilderness-variety bramble bush (botanically speaking a rubus sanctus apparently) but much like any other arboreal specimen in the vicinity. I’m not sure what I was expecting, I guess an instant, minor miracle was too much to hope for, but I found this glorified spectacle all a bit underwhelming. In any case we didn’t have time to dwell on its authenticity or plausibility, we were pretty much rushed through the rest of the Monastery’s curious sights and extravaganzas with the sound of our guide Biko hollering “yalla-yalla” and “yalla-beena’ constantly ringing in our ears!

Outer walls of the monastery

Later in the afternoon we visited other places of note on the coast of south-western Sinai which we were told were similarly imbued with great biblical significance, such as Ayun or Oyun Musa (Moses’ Spring⊡) where Moses is supposed to have tossed a barberry bush into bitter springs, instantly turning them into a drinkable, sweet nectar. Also near here is where, according to the Bible, he parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross and make good their escape from African Egypt (not quite sure about the year, although I did catch the filmed re-enactment in 1956 with Charlton Heston doing the parting!). Another well-touted highlight we visited near the village of El Tor was Hamam Musa (Moses’ Bath) or Hammam Pharaon (Pharaoh’s Bath), a series of natural hot sulfuric springs reputedly with great therapeutic benefits. Sitting in the springs, which emanate from a nearby hill and runs off into the sea, did feel vaguely invigorating, but I baulked at drinking the oily, malodorous if allegedly curative water…although I observed some more trusting souls there that certainly weren’t holding back! South Sinai done, we headed back up the coast to the Suez Canal and a more orthodox route across the Gulf of Suez via the M50!

≊≅≅≅≅≅≊≅≅≅≅≅≊≅≅≅≅≅≊≅≅≅≅≅≊≅≅≅≅≅≊≅≅≅≅≅≊≅≅≅≅≅≊≅≅≅≅≅≊
✥ some ‘ascenders’ like our travelling companions from ‘Bris-Vegas’ chose to take the camelid transport route to the top, but in their case this resulted in a unexpected, nasty altercation with the camels’ Bedouin owner who was aggrieved that they didn’t pay (what he reckoned was) the full amount for the hire of the camels (he was still hounding them for more Egyptian pounds back at ground level in the morning!)
✱ some time after our Sinai excursion, all tours of Saint Catherine’s were suspended in owing to a heightening of security issues in Egypt – fortunately this proved to be only a short-term situation which was massacring the local business, tourism is back in full swing now in South Sinai, even more so for the sun, sand and dive resorts at Dahab, Nuweiba and Sharm El-Sheikh
✧ or to use the current PC term, “the Hebrew Bible”
⊡ not to be confused with the identically named ‘Moses’ Spring’, a locality in Jordan similarly revered for its “God-given” healing waters

Sinai I: Dahab, an Oasis carved out of a Rock Hard Place – still with some Rough Edges

Regional History, Travel

Many years ago I did a side excursion from Egypt’s tourism central, departing from the bustling, over-peopled Cairo to cross the Suez Canal into Asian Egypt, to the under-peopled peninsula of Sinai. To many who haven’t been there, the Sinai probably sounds like a land of extremes of climate and dry harsh, unforgiving terrain, photos of the landscape certainly convey that impression…I remember the deprivations suffered by Peter O’Toole and his boy servant as they tried to cross Sinai’s blindingly windstorm-swept desert by camel in the classic film Lawrence of Arabia). The desert is one powerful element of the land for sure, but the coastal strip on the western edge of the peninsula on the Gulf of Aqaba reveals a very different picture. Dahab midway up the Gulf is one such oasis jewel in a rugged and unyielding desert landscape.

But first we had to get there! Our mini-bus drove from Cairo to Sinai (under the narrow channel of water!), from one continent, Africa, to another, Asia. The Egyptian tour guide Biko didn’t seem to know exactly where Dahab was, and so instead of going straight down the Red Sea coast, we went right across the top, west to east, ending up at Taba✱ on the Israeli border where we found ourselves tensely eyeballing the heavily armed Jewish soldiers on the other side of the border gate in Israel’s Eilat township.

Eventually we got to Dahab, but it was a long, hot trek through kilometres and kilometres of dusty sandstone hills and wadis (valleys) – the day drive from Cairo to Dahab, following Biko’s circuitous route, took all of eight hours. It is difficult driving around the Sinai because of the sensitive security situation (close proximity to Israel and recent terrorist activity), you don’t drive very far on the peninsula before you have to stop at a military checkpoint (we had to produce our Australian passports at a number of these points).

f=”http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/A2303EF4-520C-40BB-A205-5879A3FF4A13.jpeg”> Dahab: rugged landscape & coastline[/capt
Once we reached the township it wasn’t the end of our ordeal. Neither Biko or the driver had an address for our hotel (WTF!?!) so we kept driving around, looking for it (passing other resorts and hotels that wasn’t ours!), then we’d drive back to the main coastal road and ask the soldiers at the checkpoints where it was. Eventually Biko worked it out from the directions we were given, but I was at a loss to fathom why he didn’t just ask the first resort we came to where it was – it seemed a “no-brainer” to me that they would know where their competition in town was!

Our hotel, Miami Beach Resort, was right on the beach and boasted all the desired amenities, although annoyingly part of the hotel was still being constructed, so our auditory senses got to experience regular sessions of grinding and drilling from the machinery outside our block. The vast, ancient mountains just behind the resort did provide an exotic backdrop to the location. I didn’t care for the Dahab beach much though as it was full of gravelly stones, Peebles and small rocks right along the shoreline which was unpleasant to walk on and a bit cold, fortunately the resort had a pool. There was plenty to do including camel and horse riding up and down the beach and 4WD trips up to the mountains close by.

Dahab Dive Centre, Aqaba Gulf

Dahab has a famous dive centre 10km north of the town (called the “Blue Hole”) where the clear waters and coral reefs attract lots of visitors from Europe and beyond. As our resort was a little way out of town we were able to get lifts from staff at the hotel when we needed to go somewhere. But, one thing learnt quickly is that, anywhere in Egypt, nothing is for free. If someone gives you a lift, loans you a torch, gives you a ‘gift’ of a broken-off chunk of alabaster, carries your bag 20 metres, lets you use their toilet, etc, baksheesh (an informal payment in Middle Eastern culture for some sort of service provided) is always expected!

The Masbat

Dahab Town itself is a long line of ramshackle, dilapidated structures comprising restaurants, bars and souvenir shops. The town exuded a kind of dusty, laid-back hippie, off-the-beaten track, feel to it. It was impossible to walk down the seafront street (the Masbat) without being bombarded by numerous restaurant and bar touts and spruikers, each one vigorously and vociferously trying to entice you into their particular establishment (which according to every spruiker on the strip is naturally “the best in town!!!”).

There is an old Bedouin township in Dahab that predates the tourism hub that developed in the Nineties…before its tourism potential was tapped Dahab was a small, sleepy Bedouin fishing village with lots of camels, goats and sheep wandering randomly around the streets (they are still wandering the town!). I discovered that the local Bedouins, like the market workers in Cairo, are good hagglers when it comes to trading with the tourists…even the very young ones it seems are seasoned negotiators at it – such as the doggedly determined five or six-year-old Bedouin girl we encountered at a cafe on the Masbat who just wasn’t going to be bargained down by Biko for her modest offerings of beaded tribal bracelets and trinkets.

The old Crusader castle, south of Taba

_____________________________________________
✱ when we got here I tried to spot Pharaoh’s Island (Jezeirat Faurun) which is just off the coastline south of Taba. I couldn’t see it but it’s a place with an interesting history, in the 12th century it was initially a Crusader castle, then captured and rebuilt by the great Sal-ad-din as Muslim fortifications. The fortress was significantly restored several years ago and tours of the tiny island are now possible

Ft-note: experiencing the leisurely poolside lifestyle in the Dahab gulf resort, it’s hard to reconcile the evident peace and tranquility with a recent pattern of disturbing and deadly incidents. The Sinai gulf resort towns and tourists have been the target of a number of recent terrorist attacks (including Taba 2004, Sharm El-Sheikh 2005, Dahab 2006, Sharm El-Sheikh airport 2015)

The Hybridised Suburb Experiment: Rosebery’s Model Industrial / Residential Estate

Built Environment, Commerce & Business, Heritage & Conservation, Local history

The suburbs immediately to the south of the City of Sydney have traditionally housed much of the city’s industrial and commercial activity. But in recent decades land use in suburbs like Alexandria, Zetland and Waterloo has undergone a remarkable transformation…a lot of the old industries and factories have closed down or decentralised to Western Sydney. In their place high-density residential estates have emerged, modern housing complexes on the streets and blocks where light industry once monopolised the urban landscape. The industrial “desert wastelands” have gradually been replaced by new residential ‘precincts’… glossy property ads for these gentrified zones of inner-Sydney suburbia tend to emphasise the modern lifestyle attractions for home-seekers – “green-linked” neighbourhoods, “bike and pedestrian friendly”, “close to the city”, etc.

The suburb of Rosebery, six kilometres from the CBD, is part of the modern makeover of the once dominant industrial landscape of South Sydney. One of the suburb’s newer buildings, known as ‘The Cannery” (a former warehouse and cyclone fencing factory), gives a clue to a very different Rosebery 100 years ago. One of the building’s new tenants is a restaurant called Stanton & Co, the name references the man who was instrumental in developing the suburb in the early 20th century, Richard Stanton.

81CBF8FA-C51B-41C8-8BA7-2D193A7881E0

(Source: Broadsheet)

Market garden, cattle holdings and a midweek racecourse
The area of Rosebery was part of Cooper’s Estate (Daniel Cooper, 19th century property ‘baron’, owner of the Waterloo Estate amongst others), prior to 1912 had developed in a rather spasmodic fashion…’Rosebery’ comprised a “hodge-podge” of different enterprises and activities – “dairymen and gardeners” with their market gardens peopled much of the sand-soaked terrain, the occasional factory was scattered here and there interspersed with some isolated houses. The south side of Rosebery was the venue for a popular racecourse.

Stanton & Son’s slice of Rosebery

In 1912 Sydney estate agent Richard Stanton, fresh from creating his Haberfield garden suburb “model estate”, (see Planning for Suburban Bliss, a Template for the Sydney Garden Suburb: Haberfield, NSW — July 2018 blog), came to Rosebery with big plans. Stanton’s company, the Town Planning Company of Australia (TPCA), acquired for an outlay of £24,000 some 273 acres from within the greater Waterloo (Cooper’s) Estate, which he called the ‘Rosebery Workingman’s Estate’✱. The initial layout of the estate was planned by noted architect John Sulman using the land’s contours as a basis for design (once again reprising the ‘team’ of Stanton and Sulman who had done the ‘spadework’ for the earlier development of Haberfield) [‘Special Precincts’, www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au].

An all-purpose suburb?
Stanton’s scheme envisaged turning Rosebery into a model suburb which harmonised industrial production with space for living. The estate would entail both industrial and factory employment sites with worker housing. The work force for the new industrial enterprises would be situated close by for easy access. The scheme also allowed for the creation of shops and other commercial outlets within the estate, as well as community and recreational facilities. Stanton envisaged that workers could walk to their work place, which was intended to be separated from their homes by parks [‘Sydney City Council’, www.sydneyyoursay.com.au; Craig Vaughan, ‘Obscure 1912 covenant protects pocket of Rosebery from overdevelopment’, Southern Courier, 30-Jul-2014].


Rosebery: Arts & Crafts/Californian bungalow

Californian bungalow village
After TPCA subdivided the Rosebery Estate in 1914, the early dwellings tended to be Federation style (single-storey, face brick exterior walls, terracotta roof tiles) although there was not many houses constructed until the early Twenties because of the outbreak of the World War. Increasingly though, the domestic building of choice for the “Rosebery Model and Industrial Suburb” was the Californian bungalow (horizontal overreaching roof forms, flat verandah roofs in asymmetrical composition, decorative front gables, roughcast masonry contrasting with dark brickwork). On a visit to the USA Stanton became enamoured with the “Cali-bungalow” and introduced it into his Sydney estates, especially in Haberfield and Rosebery [‘Special Precincts’, loc.cit.].

Stanton’s Rosebery covenant
Stanton established a covenant for the estate (cf. Haberfield) which provided a framework for house construction which gave the cottages a distinctive neighbourhood pattern and character…eschewing a rigid homogeneity Stanton allowed for individual differences between houses (no two cottages in Stanton’s estate were exactly the same!) [ibid.]. The covenant bound the buyer of residential lots to its adherence (it was codified into the deed of sale) – all cottages built in the estate had to be one-storey and double-fronted. Houses were to have (back)yards and to be divided by lanes. A 1913 prospectus on the estate released by TPCA heralded the estate as “the ideal of the manufacturer and mechanic alike”, offering the best of both worlds “modern factories and model homes” [Sydney Living Museums, (Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection), www.collection.hht.net.au].

A bulwark against overdevelopment
The detail of the covenant contains a clause inserted by Stanton which safeguards the core of the estate from being too built-up…the safety clause applies to a 121ha area bounded by Botany Rd in the west to Gardeners Rd in the south, to Dalmeny Ave and Kimberley Grove in the east, to Cressy St in the north, comprising in all some 3,353 homes. The covenant is particularly germane to the present as developers have saturated the areas surrounding the covenant’s jurisdiction with bulky, high-density apartments and units – which the covenant prohibits! [Vaughan, op.cit.].

Stanton’s 1922 ad for the new Rosebery estatedon’t spare the hyperbole!

Selling Rosebery to the punters
To drum up interest for the Rosebery Estate, the Town Planning Company of Australia launched a street-naming competition, inviting the public to come up with a name for each street planned for the model suburb. Stanton offered a first and second prize (valued at £10 and £5 respectively) for the best names – with himself to be sole arbiter of the entries. The newspaper promo was unrestrained in heralding the ‘unique’ venture in Sydney property: “Rosebery Model and Industrial Suburb – never before attempted in Australia!” Despite being a site dedicated to light industry, the advert interestingly depicted the new estate as “undulating beautiful grasslands and sand dunes” (used for) “pastoral purposes” [‘Rosebery Street-naming Competition. First Prize £10’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13-Jul-1912, www.trove.nla.gov.au].

⍐ Estate cottage in Tweedmouth Ave

(Photo: Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection)

Sweetacres of Rosebery: “It’s moments like these…you need Minties!”

Under these arrangements the private sector was not slow in establishing plants and factories in the new estate. One of the first to set up (1917-18) was ‘Sweetacres’✱, owned by a confectionary manufacturer, James Stedman-Henderson’s Sweets Ltd (makers of the iconic ‘Minties’, ‘Jaffas’ and ‘Fantales’). The 16-acre Sweetacres complex was generously equipped with a large canteen a social hall, sports and cricket grounds, a library, band and sports clubs, to cater for 1,000-plus mainly female workforce. The factory building was designed by John Burcham Clamp [‘Sweetacres and the iconic Aussie lolly’, City of Sydney Council, www.cityofsydney,nsw.gov.au].

The old Wrigley’s Factory converted in a modern residential complex

Reviving the Garden City Movement?
Extending the local confectionary theme, Clamp also designed the Wrigley’s Gum factory in Crewe Place Rosebery (1918)…a huge Chicago-style steel-reinforced concrete structure with grid-like facade, rooftop water tower and setback landscaping. The US-owned factory made the popular chewing gum brands ‘Juicy Fruit’, ‘P.K.’ and ‘Spearmint’. With a modern fit-out and de luxe designer-gardens, the heritage protected ‘Wrigley’s building resurfaced recently as state-of-the-art accommodation (‘The Burcham’), with ads connecting it to a revival of the UK Garden City Movement [‘Built to last – an old world soul redesigned’, www.theburcham.com.au]

Other industries within the Rosebery Estate included the Commonwealth Weaving Mills (AKA Dri-Glo Towels), Dunning Ave. The premises were later acquired by Bonds Industries with part of the site becoming a warehouse in the early 1960s for Union Carbide. American multi-national chemicals and polymers giant Union Carbide also had a large plant (cnr of Rothschild St and Harcourt Ave) where it manufactured Eveready brand batteries. Other manufacturing firms operating on the Rosebery turf included the Rosella Canning Factory, Parke Davies & Co (chemicals) and Noyes Bros (makers of ‘Gypboard’) [‘City of Sydney Warehouses and Industrial Buildings. A Heritage Study Report’, www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au].

These days Rosebery remains quite a mixed bag architecturally. There is still light industry in the suburb but most of the old factory buildings with zero aesthetic appeal are either gone or transformed. Much of the landscape is occupied by glistening glass monolithic structures housing telecommunications and IT outlets, modern retail outlets and a seemingly inexhaustible conveyor-belt of new residential projects constantly in the process of erection.

PostScript: Beaconsfield, Rosebery writ tiny minus the green space
Beaconsfield, less than one kilometre east of Rosebery, offers an interesting point of comparison. Beaconsfield estate was hived off from Cooper’s Estate in an 1884 subdivision and promoted as a “Working Man’s Model Township”. The suburb’s potential however failed to elicit any interest from Richard Stanton, possibly due to several factors: the tiny size of the suburb (0.1 sq. ml.) which translates into a limited number of residential properties; and its topography was dotted with numerous sand hills✥. Accordingly Beaconsfield has tended to retain its industrial complexion longer – brickworks, noxious materials, soap and candle-making factories, and more recently mechanical and engineering works, a lack of green spaces. Recently though Beaconsfield, being close to Green Square, has been caught up with the process of gentrification and urban renewal affecting most of the South Sydney district [Anne-Marie Whitaker, Pictorial History South Sydney, (2002); ‘Beaconsfield, Sydney’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wiki.org].

Beaconsfield, NSW

⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤⌤

✱ ‘Sweetacres’ was later acquired by Nestlés (via Hoadley’s and Rowntree’s) and the plant was closed and replaced by high-rise housing…however a park nearby in Mentmore Street commemorates Sweetacres’ historic presence in Rosebery
✥ an observer in 1904 described the Beaconsfield estate as “among the dreariest parts of the environments of Sydney since the primitive sandhills remain”. So much sand that Sydneysiders would commute to Beaconsfield to engage in the pursuit of “sand-shifting” (ie, collecting bags of sand for free to take home)[Whitaker, ibid.]

Planning for a Working Class Lifestyle Upgrade, a Template for the Sydney Garden Suburb: Daceyville, NSW

Built Environment, Environmental, Heritage & Conservation, Local history, Town planning

At the tail end of the decade that the Haberfield model suburb (1901) made its appearance, the southern Sydney suburb of Daceyville was on the cusp of undergoing a comparable urban planning experiment. Like Haberfield, Dacey Model Suburb drew inspiration and impetus from the British Garden City and Arts and Crafts Movement which advocated new urban centres with an emphasis on better and genuinely innovative planning to create self-contained communities comprising ‘greenbelt’ areas (farming one’s own crops, community beautification programs, aesthetically designed formal gardens and so on)✱.

Whereas the creative and financial impetus driving the Haberfield project [see ‘Planning for Suburban Bliss, a Template for the Sydney Garden Suburb: Haberfield, NSW’] was private enterprise and it was targeted at a market of middle class clients, the Dacey “Model Suburb” was a government-funded program, public planning aimed at improving the lot of the working class. Both though were born out of a desire to provide a social reform model to planners to avoid the trap of overcrowded, slum suburbs which were plaguing Sydney’s inner city at the turn of the 20th century.
Dacey Model Suburb (Sydney), map circa 1920

JR Dacey MLA, catalyst for change
State Labor MLA (Member for Legislative Assembly) for Botany John Rowland Dacey worked tirelessly for much of his parliamentary term to create a low-cost housing community for the working class in his electorate. Dacey urged that Sydney adopt the British Garden City model introduced in Letchworth in the West Midlands✥. In 1909 there was a Royal Commission “for the improvement of Sydney” which pointed the way, the following year’s election of the first NSW Labor Government clinched it! In 1912 the newly created NSW Housing Board’s⍟ first task was to construct a new, model suburb seven kilometres south of the city. Unfortunately it occurred too late for Dacey to see its completion, the MP died that in April of that year, posthumously the suburb was named Daceyville in recognition of Dacey’s efforts to make it a reality [Sinnayah, Samantha, ‘Daceyville’, Dictionary of Sydney, 2011, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/daceyville, viewed 25 Jul 2018].

The land allocated for the Garden City prior to the project’s commencement

Solander Road, DGS (www.records.nsw.gov.au)

Dacey Garden Suburb
Dacey Garden Suburb was Australia’s first (low-cost) public housing scheme, promising to free those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder from the spectre of exorbitantly high rents and woefully sub-standard accommodation, giving members of the working class a better quality of life. Not everyone in public life approved of the Daceyville project…the conservative forces in state parliament labelled it ‘Audaciousville’, arguing, predictably, that government should not be in the public rental market. Led by Charles Wade, the outgoing premier and leader of the NSW Liberal Reform Party, the dissenters vigorously but unsuccessfully opposed the 1912 Housing Bill that brought the Daceyville estate into being [ibid.].

A profusion of blueprints
Three distinct street layouts were drawn up for the Dacey Garden housing experiment. The first was a Public Works plan, the second by John Sulman (who also had a guiding hand in the early planning of Haberfield) in association with John Hennessy. After outside criticism was voiced about the scheme by Charles Reade (from the British Garden Cities and Town Planning Association), government architect William H Foggitt was called in to produce a third, extensively revised street plan. Viewed today, Daceyville bears the distinguishing marks of both architects: the layout of the broadly expansive Cook and Banks Avenues (designed by Sulman) are in sharp contract with the smaller, more curvy lines of the streets to their east (designed by Foggitt)❂ [ibid].

As a new and novel planning project Dacey Garden Suburb (DGS) was ambitious and broad in its scale…intended to occupy 443 acres with a density of seven cottages per acre. It was to be a self-contained residential unit and made provision for shops, schools, churches, amusement halls, police and fire stations and a technical college. A tram line was connected to Daceyville in 1913. Industrial and manufacturing activity was to be excluded from the site [‘Federation-House – Dacey Garden Suburb’, https://federationhouse.wikispaces.com/].

The first task facing the government and its contractors was preparing the land which proved a surmountable task but one that was particularly formidable. Sand dunes and sandy scrub soil had first to be removed before work could commence on shaping the streets into an orderly pattern. Constructing a giant stormwater drain was also a preliminary step. After these obstacles were overcome, things went ahead with some 67 houses finished by June 1913 [‘Daceyville – The Creation of a Garden Suburb’, NSW Anzac Centenary, www.nswanzaccentenary.records.nsw.gov.au

A prescriptive suburb
The first families to move in were selected by ballot. The Housing Board, with JD (Jack) Fitzgerald directing the bureaucratic wheels, determined that the Garden Suburb would adhere to certain, strict principles (somewhat analogous to Richard Stanton’s ‘covenant’ for his Haberfield estates): some heterogeneity in cottage designs and room sizes and arrangements but no front fences were permitted (facilitating a merging of private and public green space), residential streets were to be curved to create vistas, no back lanes or pubs – which were “synonymous with slums” [‘Dacey Garden Suburb: a report for Daceyville Heritage Conservation Area within its historical context’, (Susan Jackson-Stepowski, Botany Bay Council – 2002), www.botanybaycouncil.nsw.gov.au]

Financial encumbrances to work
House production in the estate experienced a slowdown after 1915 however due to a lack of funds available for the project. Rising building costs partly accounted for this, but officially the government cited the existence of an “acute financial position” as a result of the national commitment required for the war effort in Europe [‘Daceyville – The Creation of a Garden Suburb’, op.cit.; Sinnayah, op.cit.]

The new ‘deserving’ for Dacey’s low-cost housing
The onset of the Great War eventually led to a shift in Dacey Garden Suburb’s raison d’être from workers to war veterans. It started in 1916 when 50 war widows were provided housing in the new estate…three years later resettling returning WWI servicemen became the overriding imperative in housing policy❆, relegating the needs of the working class to a secondary status [Sinnayah, ibid.]. The naming policy for the estate’s streets also reflected this trend – when the project started in 1912 DGS streets were mostly named after famous explorers (or the ships of famous explorers) from the past…there was Wills Crescent, Burke Crescent, Banks Avenue, Solander Road. After the Australian experience in Gallipoli, the street names chosen gave tribute to military figures from the campaign…Captain Jacka Crescent, Sargeant Larkin Crescent, and so on [Anzac Centenary, ibid.].

Banks Ave

A quantitative shortfall!
The difficulties (production costs, etc) meant that when the Daceyville Estate’s last rental property was finished in June 1920, only 315 out of the planned 1,473 cottages had been built. Construction of the amenities and infrastructure for the Dacey Garden Suburb also fell well short of what had been planned [Sinnayah, op.cit.].

Later Nationalist governments in NSW (forerunner of the Liberal-Country Party) did their best to undermine the Daceyville scheme by introducing private ownership in the model suburb (eg, the southern part of Daceyville, now in Pagewood, was subdivided and offered for sale to the public). Other ongoing threats came from government proposals in the 1960s to bulldoze the estate to make way for the Eastern Suburbs railway route through Kingsford, and from developers seeking to transform the suburb’s character by flooding it with high-rise, high-density buildings [Jackson-Stepowski, op.cit.].

DGS’s legacy
Despite the setbacks and checks placed on it, the Dacey Garden Suburb site has survived substantially in government hands (eg, only a tiny proportion of residents accepted the government’s offer in 1965 to buy their properties). The estate’s future character and use is protected by a strict Development Control Plan (administered by Housing NSW) and its heritage listing safeguards it from the bulldozers [Sinnayah, op.cit.].

Public housing, Gen. Bridges Cres.

DGS’s achievements were limited and the experiment failed to grow beyond its initial (Daceyville) area size and it failed to become self-sufficient (a British Garden City imperative). As well its early low-density advantages were somewhat undermined by subsequent subdivisions. However the experiment managed to achieve a number of pioneering advances in construction and urban planning…innovative building materials and techniques were employed, especially in the early cottages which incorporated tuck-pointed brick work, roughcast rendered walls, tiles roofs and local federation style joinery details. Over time, as the project’s finances ebbed, the size and quality of the houses diminished♦. Colonel Braund Crescent is one of the more innovative street features of DGS – being Australia’s first planned cul-de-sac [Jackson-Stepowski, op.cit.].

The garden suburb’s centrepiece
The very deliberate planning of DGS from the start resulted in the creation of a large garden park which formed a “central gateway’, a focal point off which the main avenues of the suburb fanned out to form a curved grid triangle. The park and other communal open spaces helped to foster a sense of civic identity among the Daceyvillites. The suburb’s commercial use facilities were grouped together near this hub to clearly separate them from the residential sector. John Sulman’s street layout reflected the architect’s predilection for wide, sweeping boulevards à la Paris. All roads were asphalted and footpaths were concreted and turfed. The public domain reserves and parks were all landscaped to match the street symmetry⊡ [ibid.].

The early residents benefitted tangibly from the delivery of services – such as sewerage connection, water, gas and electricity, curb and guttering of streets – these boons of modernity reached the Daceyville estate well before they got to many other parts of Sydney. Moreover, large verandahs and attractive backyard gardens gave residents access to fresh air and natural sunlight houses.

A win for the working class?
Dacey Garden Suburb was “a test case for state intervention in the real estate market” and it did demonstrate that the government could be “an effective provider of housing” [ibid.]. How much however individual working class families benefitted from the opening-up of DGS, is a matter of conjecture. To be eligible to participate in the ballot that determined the lucky beneficiaries of low-rent and low-density accommodation in the suburb, the sole stipulation was that applicants did not own land with a dwelling on it…being wealthy was not a barrier, the process was sorely lacking a “means test” to satisfy the criteria of financial hardship and genuine need! Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the practice after 1918 changed to one of allocating houses to war veterans and their families in preference to workers.

PostScript 1: Dacey model suburb theatre
Photo (above) (NSW Archives and Records Office) Dacey Garden Suburb had its own theatre, Daceyville ‘Little Tivoli Theatre’, General Bridges Crescent…initially it showed silent films, but later it provided ‘live’ performances of Vaudevillian style (Music Hall) entertainment with a variety of stage acts – including comedy skits, acrobats and jugglers, magic acts, kids and animals acts, musical performances and so on – as the billboard below indicates. The theatre burnt down in 1985.

Top of the bill at the Little Tivoli – tuning up for Broadway!

PostScript 2: Earlier, unsuccessful Sydney attempts at “forward-thinking” estates and subdivisions
In the late 1880s there were several attempts, both within Sydney and outside, to create a garden suburb – including San Souci (1887) (advertised to attract middle class families as “safe from the horrors of city living” (ie, the inner city slums!), Harcourt (1888) (Canterbury, NSW) and Kensington Model Suburb (1889) (which promised to combine the benefits of rural and urban life). All of these ventures came to zilch due to the prevailing conditions of (the 1890s) depression, drought and labour unrest [ibid].

︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺︺
✱ the Garden City Movement in Britain itself tapped to some extent into the contemporary City Beautiful Movement (CBM), a 1890s North American reform movement in architecture and urban planning. CBM, characterised by urban beautification and monumental grandeur, aimed at boosting quality of life in the cities and promoting a harmonious social order [‘City beautiful movement’, Wikipedia, www.en.m.wikipedia.org]
✥ when the green light was eventually given for the Dacey model suburb, the scheme sought to faithfully adopt the Letchworth template – an overabundance of green spaces, a happy mix of town and country
⍟ forerunner of the later Housing Commission of NSW (now called Housing NSW)
❂ having several individual architects taking charge at different periods resulted in considerable variety in dwellings – free-standing cottages, attached, semi-detached, some two-storey houses, etc.
❆ already in 1916 a 40 acre soldier settlement had been established at nearby Matraville
♦ the estate’s houses reflect the range of architectural styles in use at the time – “Arts and Crafts” cottages, Californian bungalows and the adaptation of some local Federation style designs
⊡ all of which no doubt contributed to Sulman’s fulsome assessment of Daceyville as “an exemplar of what a Garden Suburb should be”