A walk with Ian Tyrrell
When: Saturday 28 March 10.00 for 10.30 am
Where: Meet at the Sugar Works, Sugar House Road, Canterbury. Parking is available in surrounding areas. A 428 bus will get you to Canterbury Station, then cross Canterbury Road and walk easterly for about 200 metres.
Bookings: Richard 0413 335 897 or marrickvilleheritagesociety@outlook.com
MHS member Ian Tyrrell will lead a tour of the ‘middle’ section of Cooks River. Ian will look at the natural environment of the river and surrounds, the historical built environment, and some of the people who have lived here, including 19th century market gardeners.
Image: Domain.com.au
The tour starts at one of the most significant heritage buildings in the inner west, the old sugar refinery of the Canterbury Sugarworks. Built around 1841, it is one of very few surviving pre-1850 industrial buildings. It has a very interesting story, including as the site of the creation of the large Australian company CSR, and its present function as a residential building complex.
You will then cross Cooks River to the site of the former market gardens and to Cup and Saucer Creek and it’s wetland for a look at the wetland remediation ponds. This was as far as was navigable for the first Europeans to visit the area from 1788 to 1798.
Image: Cooks River Valley Association.
Further along you will visit Saint Mary MacKillop Reserve which besides honouring Australia’s first saint also acknowledges members of the Cooks River Valley Association. This organisation has been instrumental in attempts to revitalise Cooks River and its environs.
If time remains, you will visit ‘Bethungra’, a single-story sandstone house at 9 Fore Street, Canterbury. Besides being designed by Varney Parkes (son of Sir Henry) this house is most famous for belonging to Mary MacKillop who converted it to a convent for the nuns of the Sisters of St. Joseph, the order she founded.
Ian Tyrrell joined the committee of Marrickville Heritage Society in June 2023. He retired as Scientia Professor of History at the University of New South Wales in 2012 and is now an Emeritus Professor of History. Ian‘s teaching and research interests include American history, environmental history, and historiography.
His work is widely published, both in his own books, specific chapters for others, and international journal articles. These include River dreams: the people and landscape of the Cooks River (2018).
Marrickville Heritage Society 