For Profit or Pleasure - Cremorne Point, NSW, Australia
S 33° 50.866 E 151° 13.890
56H E 336382 N 6253316
This printed metal interpretative sign next to the playground, and acts as a Historical Marker.
Waymark Code: WM11EJC
Location: New South Wales, Australia
Date Posted: 10/08/2019
Views: 1
The printed metal sign is set at an angle atop a couple of square steel posts next to the Public Playground, and beside the concrete footpath on Cremorne Point. I had been past here about 10 days before, to photograph the nearby Lighthouse, on my way to Perth, but being late at night I had wanted to return for a better look. The Playground was pretty packed out this day of the long weekend. The Historical Marker has a photo from the 1880's, showing picnickers, where the playground now is. There is also an advertisement for the planned subdivision of blocks on Cremorne Point. The text reads as follows:
A Place for Profit or Pleasure?
'
Cremorne, Sydney, was named after the famous Cremorne Gardens in London. The name was first associated with the area when Charles Woolcott, Jacob Clarke and Joseph Simmons established their own 'Cremorne Gardens' here in 1856. Visitors paid to access the site having usually arrived by ferry from the newly-built Circular Quay. The venture did not last long as the entertainments failed to amuse and some of the behaviour was riotous. Cremorne Gardens was on of the first of several harbour-side pleasure grounds. Clifton Gardens, to the east, followed in the 1880s. The combination of fun in waterfront setting ight also be seen as a precursor to Luna Park and the now world-famous Sydney Harbour fireworks on New Year's Eve. In the 1880s, the area was turned over to more sedate picnicking when Thomas Nicholson opened another ground, again with an entry fee.
'The original operators of Cremorne Gardens leased the land from James Milson, son of the man who took up land around present-day Milsons Point in the early 1800s. He, in turn, had bought it from James Robertson who was granted the site in 1833. The name Robertson's Point is still used for the southern-most part of the peninsula but Cremorne Point is now the more common name for the whole area of land, echoing its pleasure ground past.
'Cremorne Point Reserve continues the tradition of public recreation established in the 1850s. However, the parkland is now publicly-managed and free to enter. It might have been very different. James Milson who bought the land from James Robertson wanted to develop the Point for housing and wharfage. his proposals were contested by various representatives in the colonial parliament, the local council, then called the Borough of St Leonards, and the Department of Lands. At issue was whether Milson had control of the land down to the high water mark. In 1828 a Government Order had reserved all waterfront land 100 feet (approximately 30 metres) back from the water from being privatised. Milson attempted to have this Reserve revoked but not before he had drawn up a subdivision plan which showed suburban lot available for sale down to the water.
'The matter was finally settled in the Supreme Court in 1891. The waterfront reserve was gazetted as a public recreation reserve to be managed by North Sydney Council in 1907. Today, Cremorne Point Reserve remains the best example of the 1828 100-foot reservation on Sydney Harbour.'
Visited: 1558, Sunday, 6 October, 2019