Full title: Bray's Buildings, Market Street, Sydney, Dec 1875

Author/creator: .

Date: 1875.

Call Numbers: PXA 984/9

Record Identifier: 9qoQkLq1

Language:

Formats: Pictures, Photographs

Contents: Photographs - 12.8 x 19.6 cm., on mount 20.5 x 27 cm. - 1 albumen photoprint

Publishers:

Notes: Personal inspection by sub-committee no.1, consisting of, R.B. Read, Esq., and M. Chapman, Esq. Ninth day, 2 Dec, 1875. Market Street We then inspected five old worn out buildings in Market-street, owned by Mr Bray, of Concord. This property has been for many years an eyesore and a nuisance to the citizens. Some of the buildings project to within a few feet of the curb-stones, and they are all such worthless dilapidated tenements that the wonder is that any one can be found willing to occupy them. No.39 is tenanted by a person who administers galvanic baths, and he pays 10s 6d a week, exclusive of taxes for the house. There is nothing the matter with the bath itself and the apparatus connected with it, which all looks bright and shining, and in strange contrast to the building in which it is placed. This is a wretched dirty apology for a house ; the place is reeking with filth. One bed-room is 10 ft. x 6 ft., with a skillion roof of an average height of 6 ft. ; another room 8 ft. square and 9 ft. high, without any ventilation ; there is no opening except the door, the window being a fixture ; water-closet with direct action. The whole of the drinking water is supplied through a series of leaden pipes. The house adjoining, tenanted and used as a butcher's shop, and rented at 12s. a week, is a similarly worn out and dilapidated condition, and equally dirty ; the drain in the yard is without grating or stench-trap, and was apparently choked up with refuse from the shop. Opposite to and almost touching it, was a cask for salting meat - meat of which we should be very sorry to partake ; the yard very dirty ; the whole premises being in a filthy state. The roof of this house is quite a curiosity, only a vestige of the material of which it was originally composed remaining. The shingles have gradually rotted and crumbled to pieces, and been replaced by pieces of tin, apparently from kerosene tins. A small portion only remains to be tinned over, and that part of the house must be pretty damp since there is nothing to keep out the rain. Three other houses in the same line appeared to be used for storing rooms for ironmongery, and are in an equally tumble-down condition. All these houses should be removed at once and replaced by others, the ground being close to George-street in its busiest part, and very valuable. -- Excerpt from: Sydney City and Suburban Sewage and Health Board : Eleventh progress report. Evidence taken before No. 11 Committee / NSW Legislative Assembly. Sydney : Thomas Richards, Government Printer, 1876. p.25 (Q628.0991/S Mitchell Library) Digital order no:a424009

Permalink: https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/9qoQkLq1

MMS ID: 110318911