Kensington real estate

The Gadigal and the Lachlan swamps

Before European settlement, the Gadigal people lived in the area. The Gadigal were a salt-water clan within the Darug language group. Fishing was a skill they were known for, and they often travelled by canoe. An 1828 count recorded some 50 to 60 Cadigal clans by the Lachlan swamps at Kensington and nearby. Very few Aboriginal people live in Kensington today.

The swamps gave them fruit, nectar, roots and tubers. The land itself was once rugged, with deep gullies, hills and 768 acres of swamps, crossed by the Lachlan Stream. Signs of the old swamps remain in the ponds at Centennial Park and in the south-west corner of Royal Randwick Racecourse. Heavy rain over long spells can leave parts of Kensington at risk of flooding. The hills were later cut down and the hollows filled with the soil taken from them.

From Epsom to Kensington

Before it was Kensington, the suburb had three other names: "Lachlan Mills Estate", "Stannumville", then "Epsom". It took the name Kensington in the late 1880s and began as an industrial suburb. Residential land was released in the late 1880s, and the plan was to make Kensington the equal of the distinguished London suburb of Kensington.

In 1819 a land grant went to Samuel Terry, a convict who later became Australia's first millionaire. In 1825 another ex-convict, Daniel Cooper, bought land here with his partner Solomon Levey, whom Cooper later bought out. Cooper's nephew, also named Daniel, planned to subdivide the land, but in 1865 development was forbidden altogether.

A racecourse, a university and a tobacco factory

Kensington Racecourse opened in 1893, on the ground where the University of New South Wales now stands. It held midweek meetings, pony racing and sports such as polo, and so did not compete with the nearby Randwick Racecourse. Troops and horses were housed there in the Boer War and both world wars, and in 1914 many of the first Anzacs trained there before leaving for Egypt and Gallipoli. In the late 1940s it was a hostel for migrants. In 1950 the land was resumed for the building of Sydney's second university.

A tobacco factory for WD & HO Wills opened in 1902 in Todman Avenue. The site also included the Raleigh Park Social Club, a wide-ranging sports complex that took Sir Walter Raleigh's name; he brought tobacco from North America to Europe. The factory shut in 1989. Over time the Mirvac Group and Westfield turned the site into housing in a joint venture called Raleigh Park. The company's building is a two-storey brick structure in the Georgian Revival style, with Joseland and Gilling as architects, dating from about 1930. It is heritage-listed.

The monastery on the hill

The hill that stands over West Kensington holds the Sacred Heart Monastery, the Australian base for the Catholic order, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Sheerin & Hennessy designed the monastery, built in 1895 as a large Gothic stone building with a prominent central tower and an attic storey. A chapel of brick in Romanesque-Byzantine style, with Mullane as architect, was built in 1939. It links to the monastery through a cloister of matching brick.

The monastery is a landmark visible from various parts of Kensington, and it appears on the Register of the National Estate. During the mid-twentieth century it housed an anti-Communist organiser, a Catholic controversialist, a former athlete, a retired missionary and an editor. It also published a magazine, Annals Australasia, for many years.

Beside the monastery is a convent, a brick building in Federation Gothic style, built in 1897. Primary and secondary colleges were set up there soon after the convent was built, but they outgrew the place. Today it houses OLSH Provincial House. St Joseph's Aged Care Facility is also based there, and a college is next door. Across the road are a church built in 1906, Jubilee Hall and a primary school, together forming a large religious complex. The convent and the church are heritage-listed.

Trams, streets and what remains

Trams ran between Surry Hills and West Kensington from 1881, when the line began as a steam-powered system. It ran along Crown Street to Cleveland Street, then was extended to Phillip Street in 1909 and Todman Avenue in 1912, reaching its final terminus down Todman Avenue at West Kensington in 1937. The Crown Street line closed in 1957, and the rest remained open until 1961 to provide access to the Dowling Street Depot, where the Supa Centa Moore Park shopping centre now stands. Tram services also ran on Anzac Parade, on the Maroubra and La Perouse line.

Tay Park lies between Tay Street, Anzac Parade and Alison Road, the site of a toll bar that collected local maintenance revenue from 1854 to 1894. The toll was one shilling for a four-wheeled wagon drawn by two horses. Heritage-listed places in Kensington include Carthona at 85 Todman Avenue, Kensington Public School on Doncaster Avenue, and the former Wills building on Todman Avenue.

Kensington's streets carry the names of local people, places in London and local plants. Balfour Lane is named for Arthur James Balfour, a British statesman who was Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905 and held the title first earl of Balfour. Doncaster Avenue takes its name from Doncaster Racecourse in England. Boronia Street is named after a flowering shrub that grows widely in the area.

Living in Kensington

Kensington is a residential suburb in Sydney's east, four kilometres south-east of the central business district. The University of New South Wales has its main campus here. The suburb also contains the Australian Golf Club and the National Institute of Dramatic Art. Moore Park is just to its north, and Randwick Racecourse lies to its east. Six parks lie within Kensington's three square kilometres, the largest being Kensington Park, which covers approximately 2.8 hectares and draws galahs, crows, ibises and magpies. Approximately four hundred native plants grow here, among them banksia, bottlebrush, waratah, wattles and eucalypt.

The suburb sits in the Botany Lowlands, where sand beneath Kensington acts as a large water reservoir. The Lachlan Stream and an underground reservoir are its two natural water supplies. With water restrictions and council initiatives, more homes use bore water on their gardens, while others have tanks and use 'grey' water. Randwick City Council records about two hundred and fifty kinds of indigenous native vertebrates, and since 1788, two hundred and six native bird species have been identified.