St Mary's Cathedral - From a distance

Photography can be deceptive, I suspect you might agree. It is all in the framing. This first image was taken from the viaduct that separates The Domain from Wooloomooloo. Not sure why the viaduct is there: it does not carry water, it does not carry cars. It allows pedestrians to cross from Cook+Phillip Park over to The Domain, and hence to the AG-NSW. It is excessively ugly when included.

As you can see from this second image showing the viaduct obliterating the beauty of St Mary's Cathedral. This was taken from the intersection of Riley Street and Sir John Young Crescent, the head of Wooloomooloo Bay, prior to it being retained by a wall, and extensively retained, in the 1860s.

This third image was taken having crossed the viaduct and on my way across the grassy expanse of The Domain sports fields. I looked back, judiciously framed my shot, removing all ugly, and just showing a magnificent contrast of old vs new. The new is the building in which my daughter currently works; on the 22nd floor. Below is a paining by Geoge Lambert in 1849. It shows the ridge upon which St Mary's Cathedral is now located. Actually, the original St Mary's is in the painting, but the new building was swung around to be north-south. The church with the spire is St James.

A stream meandered through it

This is a few hundred metres walk from the Sydney Town Hall, nominally the centre of our historic heart. It is an old water course, but all is not what it seems. The contours are bulldozed into shape, rather than crafted by coursing water from the escarpments behind. Even just 30 years ago, I recall using this area with its double-layers of street parking, as an often-available car spot.

But pretty it looks now. It has the bed of the Yurong Stream "out" by about 100m, too far west. This is very close to the Water Gardens of yesterday, and adjacent to the Cathedral approach I will show you tomorrow.

Yurong Water Gardens

The Yurong Water Garden is an environmental artwork inspired by the Yurong Stream that once ran close to the edge of Cook and Phillip Park through the mangrove mud-flats down into Woolloomooloo Bay. The Yurong Stream itself was sourced up at the head of the Wooloomooloo Valley (the Darlinghurst escarpment), close to the gaol. It meandered down, under William Street via a culvert, and into the increasingly putrid head of Wooloomooloo Bay.

It was joined at the back of St Mary's Cathedral by an unnamed (but steep) tributary. Roughly hewn boulders of sandstone and original pavers and rocks from the landscape have been arranged to form a course for the "stream" which flows down three terraces of gardens retracing the path of the original tributary. The use of sandstone reflects the cultural and natural heritage of the surrounding area. Both the Yuromg Strem and the tributary have ceased to exist since the 1860s, when they were converted into the Wooloomooloo Sewer. It is hard to believe that these shots are in the centre of my city. The serenity of the area nowadays, could be taken as an abject apology for our cavalier approach to their bounty during the 19th century.

The installation was devised by Anita Glesta together with Spackman & Mossop, and installed in July 1999.

Hyde Park - St Marys Cathedral then

What we have in Sydney today, IMO the grandest church in our City, is the third attempt to construct a home for the city's catholic faithful. Although Australia was conquered, and settled, by Britain in 1788, the foundation stone for the first catholic church was not laid until 1821. Britain was wary of the catholics in the First Fleet as they were overwhelmingly Irish, and had been sent to the ends of the earth for political insurrections. For the first 25 years of the colony, catholics met covertly.

Left: Sketch by John Rae, 1840 Right: Sketch by John Rae (1840-1850 Both inages courtesy Dictionary of Sydney

Governor Lachlan Macquarie laid the foundation stone for the first St Marys, in October 1821. This was on the same site as the current Cathedral. It ran east-to-west (whereas the current cathedral runs north-to-south). At the same time, Macquarie was involved with the Anglicans. The Church of England was the "established" church and had a life of its own in the colony. However, its cathedral (St Andrews) got off to a spluttery start, with the first foundation stone laid in 1819, the second in 1837, before being consecrated in 1868.

Left: After the fire Right: After the fire, c. 1870 Both images courtesy Dictionary of Sydney

After a range of alterations, this Macquarie-inspired catholic cathedral was badly-damaged by fire in November, 1865. They rebuilt in stages, with the first service being held in 1882, with more construction work being completed in 1900, 1928, and even as recently as 2000, when the two spires in the original plans, were added. Embiggen the old image on the left to see, that even then, those with drug-addictions made their home in Hyde Park.

There is only a miniscule portion remaining of the cathedral that burnt. This is around the back (east) of the cathedral but easily accessible by the public. There is a plaque on this ruin which reads: This pillar is all that remains of the original St Mary's Chapel, the Foundation Stone of which was laid by Governor Lachlan Macquarie on 29 October, 1821. Father John Joseph Therry celebrated the first Mass in the partly completed chapel on 5 December, 1833. This is the southern forecourt of St Marys. It used to be a lawn bowling club at which my father played. It is now a concrete park with a swimming pool and fitness centre below. At my back as I took this phtotgraph is The Australian Museum, which I will cover next week.

Looping-the-loop around the Archibald Fountain

A friend queried an image I included in a post last week, wanting to know why the gent was facing AWAY from the cathedral rather than facing TOWARD it.

Here are the competing views. In the bird's-eye-view of the fountain, the first image in today's post was taken from the College Street steps of the cathedral. The photo of the gent last week was taken from the garden bench I have labelled 1. Today's view of the cathedral was taken from the garden bench I have labelled 2. The two smaller photos (taken from Sydney Tower in Sept 2013) will both enlarge and are labelled.

Sitting in blissful neutral

He was sitting in the warmth of the day, facing the Archibald Fountain in Hyde Park (North). The glorious sandstone of St Mary's Cathedral was at his back. There were dozens of folk milling, as is invariably the case with this walkway through the park.