Durham Hall, Heritage building in Surry Hills, Australia.
Durham Hall is a two-storey Colonial Georgian brick residence on a stone foundation with a slate roof and a verandah along the front and two sides. An 1899 description records a hall, eight rooms, dining room, pantry, kitchen, servant's room above, bathroom, a detached brick laundry and stabling with three stalls, a man's room and two coach houses. Unsympathetic additions made it almost unrecognisable by the 1950s; renovations in 1983 removed many of them.
Durham Hall was built in 1834–35 for George Hill, a wealthy butcher and later Mayor of Sydney, on land subdivided from John Palmer's 1794 grant. After Hill's death in 1883 it served as a boarding house from 1889 to 1899, then passed to Charles Anderson. Unsympathetic additions left it almost unrecognisable by the 1950s; major renovations in 1983 removed many of them. It was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
The house carries several names from its past uses: the Concordia Club, the Booker T. Washington Club, and a Servicemens' Club. From 1889 to 1899 it ran as a boarding house, first under Mrs Cecilia Anderson, then Mrs Mary Parker, who advertised rooms and a tennis court in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Durham Hall stands at 207 Albion Street, near the corner of Nichols Street, where George Hill built a pair of cottages at 203-205 Albion Street between 1840 and 1850. The building is occupied by the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, so the interior is not open; the Colonial Georgian brick facade and slate roof are seen from the street.
George Hill, who built Durham Hall in 1835, was the son of two convicts; his father gained a pardon in 1813 and worked as a butcher. Hill himself ran his own abattoir, bought inns on Pitt Street and became Mayor of Sydney in 1850. He died in 1883, aged 81, after his buggy collided with a tram.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,673 contributors worldwide.