The Hunter Street Precinct offers accommodation for visitors to the city as well as to residents at the Cove Apartments. These developments have been the catalyst for revitalisation in Newcastle’s City West and a community health centre, now in construction, will consolidate this culture change, with the Hunter Street Precinct becoming a convenient and colourful mix of commercial, retail and residential uses.

Back in Time

From Bank Corner to the Civic

Hunter Street was largely under water when Lieutenant John Shortland discovered the estuary of the Hunter River in 1797. During Newcastle’s period as a convict settlement from 1804 to 1822 a government farm was established on the eastern side of Cottage Creek and by 1812 a cottage stood on the site of the present Palais. This structure formed part of the Newcastle Meat Preserving Works, one of the earliest in Australia, which operated from 1848 until 1855.

In 1840 The Church of England acquired a large area of land at Honeysuckle Point for the establishment and support of a grammar school. The Bishop’s Settlement, as it was called, was considered to be unsuitable for a school but it was divided into leases and by 1855 when it was resumed for railway purposes, there were about 70 houses on it. Some of this land was released by the Railway after the railway terminus was moved to Watt Street in 1858 but this section was reclaimed for the expansion of the Honeysuckle Point Workshops in 1869.

By 1869 the Railways Department controlled all the land bounded by Merewether Street on the east, Hunter Street on the south and Hannell Street on the west, with the exception of two small cemeteries which had been dedicated for Catholic and Presbyterian use about 1840. There were closed in 1883 when Sandgate General Cemetery was opened but the human remains and memorials were not removed until about 1916. A mortuary station was built near the present Worth Place to serve the Sandgate Cemetery.

The Railways Department kept a tight hold on this valuable land, only yielding to public demands for sites for a technical college, police station, a post office and a trades hall. However, in accordance with its general policy on land use, it did issue leases to private interests and this lead to a variety of private enterprises being opened on the north side of Hunter Street: these included the Western Markets (later the Palais), the Bellevue Hotel, a bank and a stadium / picture show. Temporary use of undeveloped land in this strip was also allowed for circuses visiting Newcastle.

For their own purposes, the Railway Commissioners also developed the second Honeysuckle Point Railway Station in 1872, built a stationmaster’s residence in 1880 and constructed the Railways Institute in 1935.

Source: summary from Honeysuckle Historical study by Dr J W Turner, 1994.