The Harbour Rocks Hotel is a heritage-listed pub, hotel, shops and former warehouse and terrace cottages located at 34–40 and 42–52 Harrington Street in the inner city Sydney suburb of The Rocks in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1873 to 1875; and again during 1890 for George Evans. It is also known as Evans' Stores. The property is owned by Property NSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 10 May 2002.
Part of the AccorHotels MGallery group, the building is currently a four star-rated hotel, and also houses the Lanes Restaurant & Bar on the lower level, complete with an outdoor terrace.
History
This site was part of the original hospital gardens. The land is shown on 1834 mapRobert Russell Survey of Allotments, 1934 as reserved for Presbyterian Church.
34–40 Harrington Street In 1836 evidence presented to the Court of Claims stated that Allotment 3 had been promised to David Smith by Governor Macquarie as a reward for services as a master mariner. Smith sold the land to Thomas Middleton shortly after acquiring it. The Court accepted the claim although no date was given for Smith land acquisition, but a later Abstract of Title gives it as 1814 with additional information that the land was sold about a month later. In 1841 is shown as Open space as left by Government.
Middleton died intestate in about 1828 but a claim by his son Charles, who was still a minor, was accepted in 1836 and the land granted to him. In 1842 when Charles Middleton was about 22 years old, he subdivided the Harrington Street property and put it up for public auction. There was only one buyer, William Adnum who purchased Lot 1 for the rather large sum of , the large sum may indicate there was a building on the site, although there is no record in the rate book. The remainder of the allotment was purchased 3 years later by Charles Middleton's mother Eliza for .
In 1846 William Riley purchased Adnum's allotment for half the price he paid for it and then in 1848 purchased Mrs Middleton's land for the same price as she paid for it.
The first major development of the site occurring during Riley's ownership during which ten dwellings were constructed on the allotment. The houses were constructed of different materials, those on Harrington Street and along the laneway were of stone and three houses at the back of the block were built of brick. The "Wells" map of 1850 shows buildings on the site, and the City Council detail sheet of 1856 shows the arrangement of the buildings. This latter map refers to the lane beside the buildings as 'Riley's Lane'. Later the name of the lane was to change to "Reynolds Lane" in 1871, "Harrington Lane" in 1880 and finally "Harrington Place" in 1883.
By 1856 ten houses filled the allotment, the difference in level between Harrington and George Streets enabled the houses to be tiered into a small site, the arrangement of the back yards and outbuildings was irregular and for No. 10 Harrington Street appear to be non-existent, other than by a share arrangement with No 11 Riley's (later Reynolds) Lane. While this type of stacking of houses was common in The Rocks, conditions were ameliorated to some extent by the fact that the land to the south (allotment 3) had not been built upon, while the properties to the east were mainly on the George Street frontage, providing a little more light and air than if the surrounding area had been completely built out.
In 1858 and 1861 Nos 12 and 14 Harrington Street were listed in the Sands Directories as seamen's lodging houses but this use seem to have been of short duration. For the next twenty years, the houses were generally let to long term tenants. For all of its owners form the 1850s to the 1880s, the Harrington Street houses were investment properties, probably let on weekly tenancies. In 1854 William Riley, now a "landowner" having moved up the social ladder, sold his Harrington Street houses with other properties to Patrick Murphy for , a phenomenal rise in value, indicative of high city land prices following the gold rush. Six years later Murphy sold the houses to Donald Kell for . Kell's ownership became complicated when, after mortgaging the property to architect James Hume in 1868, Hume died intestate three years later. The mortgage was subsequently transferred to solicitors Billyard and Adams by the firm appointed by the Supreme Court to administer Hume's estate and Kell retained his property which was still mortgaged on his death in 1875.
Under the terms of Kell's will, the property was to be managed by his trustee to provide an income for his wife and unmarried daughter. Following his widow, Elizabeth's death in 1879 the property was to be divided between their three children: the three houses on Harrington Street to his son Joseph, the four houses in Reynolds Lane to his son John and the three brick houses off Reynolds Lane to Agnes, who had married in 1876. When the mortgage on the property was discharged in 1881, the three children were free to use their separate parts of the estate as the wished. They all eventually sold out to Richard Holdsworth and George Evans, both solicitors in Sydney.
Holdsworth and Evans immediately brought the property under Torrens Title and by June 1884 were tenants in common. The houses were rented to weekly tenants. In 1885 Holdsworth transferred his share of the property to George Evans for the token sum of . The houses were demolished in 1885-86 and the new store erected in 1887.
The four-storey store was constructed with four separate loading docks on the ground floor at Harrington Street and with hoists in the rear lane. The plan was of one room per floor enabling the building to be let in four sections, each of four floors with loading facilities. For occupants requiring more space, the infill of the arches in the dividing walls could be removed.
In 1888 John William Cliff purchased the store for and then leased it back to Evans. The first tenants W. Gardiner & Co bone and free stores stayed from 1887 until 1890. As there is no entry in the Sands Directory for tenants in the store from 1891 until 1883 the building may have been empty. Evans sold the property back to Evans in 1893 for , he may have been in default with his mortgage payments.
In 1893 the building was leased to Cowan's gas meter manufacturers for five years. During this lease, there were extra windows added to the north wall of the building overlooking the laneway. It is not known if the firm used all the building but by 1895 part of it was being used as a barracks for the unemployed. In November 1895 the Australian Order of Industry and the Active Service Brigade announced the opening of a barracks for unemployed single men, it could accommodate up to 500 for 3d a night. During the 1890s depression the Brigade assisted the unemployed by establishing barracks in a succession of buildings around Sydney providing lodging and breakfast for a few pence. The aim of the organisation was not to provide charity but self-respect and reliance. The Harrington Street barracks were initially named the Wentworth Falls barracks but the name was changed to Liberty Hall in February 1896. As well as bed and breakfast, the organisation also arranged lectures and education in the building. The Harrington Street barracks were conveniently located near Circular Quay and the wharves, where work should be available, and it seems that the barracks were maintained until 1900. Paying nominal rent, the barracks barely broke even and can have done little to pay off the mortgage to Evans.
By 1900 Evans again had commercial tenants, the John Gainsford's Australian Broom Factory, but the resumption of the property by the government put an end to his investment in Harrington Street. From about 1905 the building appears to have been fully occupied. The exact occupancy of the stores is difficult to work out as the building was designed in four sections that could be occupied together or as four separate tenancies. Another complication was the street numbering, they stores had four street addresses and had replaced three houses and until 1924, when the street was renumbered, the addresses varied between 1-12 Harrington Street, 8-12 Harrington Street, or in council rates books 8, 10, 12 and 12 1/2 Harrington Street. From about 1921 the Joplin manufacturing Company also used two of the adjacent terraces Nos 42 and 44 Harrington Street which were also included in its address in the street directories, even after the company gave up the lease of 44 Harrington Street at the end of 1927.
From 1905 until the early 1930s the stores were occupied by tenants whose businesses included: indenters and importers; chemists and druggists; sheep shearing machinery; a wool and skin store; an electrical engineer; an oil merchant and polish and ink manufacturers. Until 1925 there were usually four tenants, each occupying one section of the building. By far the longest-serving tenant was the Joplin Manufacturing Company, appearing first in 1903 as G. C. Joplin importer, they had a continuous history of occupancy until November 1971 when the company went out of business.
In 1970 the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority was set up to redevelop The Rocks area, the building was originally planned to be demolished but Green Bans placed by the BLF to support the local community prevented it. By 1983 the income generated by the occupants of the building did not meet the expenditure on the property and compliance with Ordinance 70 necessitated considerable expenditure to bring the stores up to current standards.
The best outcome for the Authority was for a developer to pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the buildings, so along with the terraces 42–52 Harrington Street an Expression of Interest was put out in 1986 and five submissions received. The submission by the Tara Hotel Group was recommended to the Minister on financial and architectural grounds. The proposal was for a budget hotel using the stores and terraces with new construction at the rear. The new development took place in 1988 and the Harbour Rocks Hotel was opened in 1989. Since then changes for disabled access, the rearrangement of the restaurant and bar areas and the provision of balconies at the rear have occurred.
The building was refurbished in 2012 to restore much of its original historic feel, with modern furnishings and facilities in its 59 rooms. There is a bar which doubles as reception.Platt, 2015.
42–52 Harrington Street