Mann Street

(Every-street walkies, Gosford #11)

First day of winter. Nice and cold this morning (6 degrees celcius/44.6 fahrenheit) and nice and sunny. The days are around 17 at the moment (62.6F). I love the cold. I can walk as far as I like. Mind you, the worst it'll get here is maybe 5 during the day (41F). Australia is not a cold country.


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The old School of Arts. Directly opposite the Art Deco funeral parlour. The funeral parlour is Creighton's and the original School of Arts was built by R. H. Creighton's father (funeral director), Jack Sohier, Sid James and Reg Young. The Creighton's were carpenters before they got into the funeral parlouring trade.

It's a teachers' "resource centre" now. Knowing teachers (I am one) it's used mainly for swotting for promotion exams, slagging off the government over cups of tea and hiding from students.

My notes from the library tell me the original building was built in 1888 and served as library and Municipal Chambers (town hall) and had a 250 seat hall. It burnt down in 1927. This building was rebuilt on the old foundations and the brick front was added in 1929. The teatowel drying in the right hand window is a nice touch.

The NSW Heritage Office has the style at "Stripped Classical" and my architecture book (Apperly Irving Reynolds' Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian rchitecture) agrees. "Inter-War Stripped Classical c. 1915 -c. 1940" says the book and "tends to look like an Inter-War Academic Classical building from which the columns, entablatures and pediments have been peeled off". Entablatures turn out to be all those fancy bits at the tops of columns.


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When it burnt down in 1927 the foundations remained. That's them in sandstone, the lower half of the building.

This view is from Georgiana Terrace. It's a bloody steep street but it doesn't help that I was standing on one leg on the gutter.


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You can still see part of the words "Council Chambers" painted on the side from when it was the 1888 building. I doubt if the blackened stones are still sooty from the fire. It looked more like some sort of lichen or whatever.

Tell you what I don't like about the cold weather. It makes me bloody hungry. I have a big breakfast and by 11 o'clock I'm so hungry I'm gnawing the bloody carpet. Thank Christ for cuppa-soup.