A friend asked me to go along on a tour, held on Thursday, of this historic Rocks pub. There are a number of different pubs in this part of town that claim to be the oldest in the city. One is the Hero of Waterloo, another is the Lord Nelson Hotel, which is down the road and further west, along Argyle Street, and another is the Fortune of War Hotel on George Street, also in the Rocks. A woman who lives nearby who was with her husband on the tour told us that the Hero of Waterloo is the oldest of the three but that it wasn’t licensed for the first year of operation, so the Lord Nelson is actually the oldest licensed pub in the country. They’re all marvellous.
The tour the two of us took part in was the first of what is intended to be a regular event and it was organised by Kazuko Nelson, who is the licensee of the Hero of Waterloo. Kazuko is a dapper woman who seems passionate about her business, as the ambition embodied in the tour implies. She gave her guests blue or green wristbands to split them into two groups so that individual party numbers would not be over-large. An early point of call on the tour – the building’s cellar – is a bit cramped and not more than about 20 people can comfortably fit in it at any one time.
The tour guide was a gentleman wearing period military costume, including a red coat with brass buttons, that reminded guests of the era – the first half of the 19th century – when the hotel was built and first operated. He called himself Captain Nash and he displayed an impish relish when he put a pair of antique iron handcuffs on Richard, who with his wife had been talking with me and my friend shortly before. A man, like himself, of mature years. Our group trouped outside and “Captain Nash” told us some things about the pub, pointing to some painted windows on its the northern side facing Windmill Street. They had been built without glass because of the window tax that applied in the UK at the time. Apparently “daylight robbery” is an expression that derives from this wrinkle in one page of British history.
The Hero of Waterloo, we were told by the dapper Nash who, a bit like a pirate, had an antique pistol tucked into his belt, was originally built at the request of the soldiers of the Rum Corps using sandstone left over from the construction of a church that stands nearby on Lower Fort Street. Like the NSW Parliament, the pub is a Georgian structure and belongs to a period when building design still had the kind of clean lines that were swept away by the more ornate Italianate style of the Victorian era. If you are in Sydney and you want to see an example of the latter style you can easily go and have a look at the Town Hall in the centre of the CBD.
The stories that our red-coated guide told us when we were in the cellar of the Hero of Waterloo added to my store of local lore, as did the ghost stories he told us once we had climbed the staircase inside to reach the pub’s top floor. As he reached each dramatic point in his delivery at this point I felt shivers on my neck. Rather than alarming, it was pleasurably thrilling.
There is a dining room there up the stairs and the pub serves hot food as well as a wide range of beers. Fortunately for me, in the main bar downstairs they have on tap my favourite beer, Toohey’s New, so I was able to enjoy a schooner of this traditional Sydney brew ahead of the tour. If you take a seat at a table in this part of the pub you are right next to the bare stone of the building’s fabric, darkened from contact with the shoulders of generations of thirsty patrons.
At the end of the tour Richard’s wife chatted with us again, and she told us that she had been raised in a Dutch family in the Sydney suburb of Sutherland. Up to the age of five she had spoken nothing but Dutch, she said, as there had been a dozen or so Dutch families living in the area. She asked me if my accent was influenced by Dutch and I tried to answer her but I couldn’t account for her observation. Later I recalled that I had had a Dutch friend at Honeywell in the 1980s, but whether that had affected the way I speak is a matter for experts to puzzle over.
There were a few working journalists on the tour including Helen Pitt from the Sydney Morning Herald. With her were at least two other women who looked like professionals but I didn’t talk with any of them. Among the other visitors were a group of four teachers from the Central Coast, all women who had ridden the train to the capital with the express purpose of going on the tour.
The tour the two of us took part in was the first of what is intended to be a regular event and it was organised by Kazuko Nelson, who is the licensee of the Hero of Waterloo. Kazuko is a dapper woman who seems passionate about her business, as the ambition embodied in the tour implies. She gave her guests blue or green wristbands to split them into two groups so that individual party numbers would not be over-large. An early point of call on the tour – the building’s cellar – is a bit cramped and not more than about 20 people can comfortably fit in it at any one time.
The tour guide was a gentleman wearing period military costume, including a red coat with brass buttons, that reminded guests of the era – the first half of the 19th century – when the hotel was built and first operated. He called himself Captain Nash and he displayed an impish relish when he put a pair of antique iron handcuffs on Richard, who with his wife had been talking with me and my friend shortly before. A man, like himself, of mature years. Our group trouped outside and “Captain Nash” told us some things about the pub, pointing to some painted windows on its the northern side facing Windmill Street. They had been built without glass because of the window tax that applied in the UK at the time. Apparently “daylight robbery” is an expression that derives from this wrinkle in one page of British history.
The Hero of Waterloo, we were told by the dapper Nash who, a bit like a pirate, had an antique pistol tucked into his belt, was originally built at the request of the soldiers of the Rum Corps using sandstone left over from the construction of a church that stands nearby on Lower Fort Street. Like the NSW Parliament, the pub is a Georgian structure and belongs to a period when building design still had the kind of clean lines that were swept away by the more ornate Italianate style of the Victorian era. If you are in Sydney and you want to see an example of the latter style you can easily go and have a look at the Town Hall in the centre of the CBD.
The stories that our red-coated guide told us when we were in the cellar of the Hero of Waterloo added to my store of local lore, as did the ghost stories he told us once we had climbed the staircase inside to reach the pub’s top floor. As he reached each dramatic point in his delivery at this point I felt shivers on my neck. Rather than alarming, it was pleasurably thrilling.
There is a dining room there up the stairs and the pub serves hot food as well as a wide range of beers. Fortunately for me, in the main bar downstairs they have on tap my favourite beer, Toohey’s New, so I was able to enjoy a schooner of this traditional Sydney brew ahead of the tour. If you take a seat at a table in this part of the pub you are right next to the bare stone of the building’s fabric, darkened from contact with the shoulders of generations of thirsty patrons.
At the end of the tour Richard’s wife chatted with us again, and she told us that she had been raised in a Dutch family in the Sydney suburb of Sutherland. Up to the age of five she had spoken nothing but Dutch, she said, as there had been a dozen or so Dutch families living in the area. She asked me if my accent was influenced by Dutch and I tried to answer her but I couldn’t account for her observation. Later I recalled that I had had a Dutch friend at Honeywell in the 1980s, but whether that had affected the way I speak is a matter for experts to puzzle over.
There were a few working journalists on the tour including Helen Pitt from the Sydney Morning Herald. With her were at least two other women who looked like professionals but I didn’t talk with any of them. Among the other visitors were a group of four teachers from the Central Coast, all women who had ridden the train to the capital with the express purpose of going on the tour.
ReplyDeleteNice article as well as whole site.Thanks.