Leadlight of Inner Western Sydney

Hawthorne Parade has a bit of every type of housing type from the 1890's  to the 1940's (with a few later dwellings). The geography of the street was determined by the Hawthorne Canal. Originally known as Long Cove Creek it became the Hawthorne Canal in the 1890's when the canal was constructed to channel the storm-water, sewerage and other pollutants away from the suburb. The land around Hawthorne Parade between roughly Tressider Avenue through to almost Barton Avenue was described in 1900, just after the canal's construction, as being 'unhealthy land'. When the canal was constructed it included a ferry terminal near the corner of Barton Avenue and Hawthorne Parade and this coincided with the development that was occurring in Haberfield.

 

Hawthorne Parade South of Marion Street has a Victorian feel to it with a mixture of terraces, weather board cottages, single fronted cottages interspersed with a few houses from the Federation Period. It resembles streets in nearby Leichhardt to the east across the Hawthorne Canal. The frontages are narrower and houses were built closer to the street unlike what was to become the norm in Haberfield after 1901.

 

North of Marion Street Hawthorne Parade opens up and houses were only built on the western side of the road overlooking the reclaimed land  adjacent to the canal. Houses from Barton Avenue to Waratah Street were part of Stanton's first subdivision of the Haberfield Estate in 1901 and the ferry terminal is clearly indicated on the map. The lots to the north of Waratah Street were developed with the 4th subdivision of the Dobroyd Point Estate that went up for auction in 1915 in conjunction with the Haymarket Permanent Land Building and Investment Company. The leadlight reflects the change in design and aesthetics from the early Federation period to the late Interwar Bungalow of the late 1930's.

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A walk along Hawthorn Parade provides an opportunity to observe leadlight in-situ dating from the 1890's to the 1940's, roughly the entire period in which leadlight was made and installed in suburban homes in Sydney.

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