If the handsome chap at 7:07 really is Walter Burley Griffin, then it's the first moving picture of him I've ever seen. How exciting after all these years of mere portraits in dusty books.
Love to jump into a time machine and go back to that era, just for a few days and see what life was like. Definitely be a culture shock, but in a good way.
I was a truck driver in the 1980s and I would drive on the old suspension bridge to get to Castlecrag. I loved the old bridge. North Sydney is now over populated and has many narrow streets too.
Where have we gone wrong? That was brilliant watching this old move with Rod Stewart's playing First cut is the deepest " in the background is very moving!! Yeah Time machine anyone Ill go back lol.
I resided in Killarney heights, not far from middle harbour for many years, before moving to NZ. It is wonderful to see what this area looked like before urban development. And the beautiful old bridge in its prime. I left Sydney years ago and that area was quite busy as I recall. Beautiful country.
I have lived here for 30 years and never seen this - what wonderful vintage footage! Until the Harbour Bridge was opened in 1932 this entire region was just scrub land basically and near inaccessible - despite it being only 4 miles from the city as they say in here. Following an international contest of 100s of entries, for the design of the entire Federal Capital Canberra from sheep grazing paddocks. The city's design, a blueprint by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin was selected in 1912, and construction commenced in 1913. The Griffins took all the money they got from designing Canberra (which opened in 1927), and, sunk much of into this Utopian venture it seems, of 270 HECTARES. Soon after this project was launched The Great Depression came long and wiped out that plan. And lost of lot of folks, a lot of money sadly. Walter Burley Griffin went to India mid 1930s, and died there of peritonitis in 1937. He was wildly unappreciated in Australia for his achievements during his lifetime, and he clashed with the Bureaucrats at the time. In 1964, when Canberra's central lake was filled, as Griffin had intended, Prime Minister Robert Menzies declined to have the lake named after himself. Instead Menzies named it Lake Burley Griffin, making it the first "monument" in Canberra dedicated to the city's designer ("Burley" was included in the name because of the misconception, which has continued, that it was part of Griffin's surname!) Castlecrag remains very treed and rocky and "wild" really. He named all the streets here after parts of Edinburgh Castle - again for reasons unknown for a Chicago born American! So my tiny little suburb of Castlecrag was all named (by an American!) near 100 years ago, and more than HALF the street names here are these wacko names starting with the word The - I live in the final one- The Barbette The Barbican The Barricade The Bartizan The Bastion The Battlement The Bulwark The Citadel The High Tor The Lee The Outpost The Palisade The Parapet The Postern The Rampart The Redoubt The Scarp The Tor Walk www.google.com/search?q=castlecrag+street+names&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b Castlecrag - although the only occurrence of Castlecrag as a place name in the British Isles is in the northern English county of Cumbria (spelled Castle Crag), the name of this North Shore suburb appears to have a Scottish connection. Warne (2005, pp. 106-107) states that the renowned architect, Walter Burley Griffin, began building houses at Castlecrag in 1921. She also adds that the suburb was named after a giant outcrop of sandstone resembling a castle and that this outcrop was marked on early maps as Edinburgh Castle. Castlecrag's main road is in fact Edinburgh Road while most of the residential streets are named for features of medieval castles, such as Barbican, Battlement, Bulwark, etc. www.rampantscotland.com/placenames/placename_sydney.htm .
Lucky you yo live in such an unusual suburb! The romantic medieval fortress street names are what I love. Like the faux medieval drawbridge ( The Suspension Bridge) too. Why anyone would design something like that in what was then, the middle of the bush, is beyond me --but the quirkiness of it all is very appealing.
Fascinating. Gotta love the gushing real estate speak --some things haven't changed a bit. Looks like they laid it on thick in those days, just as they do today! The film clearly shows how much of the harbour shores were undeveloped at that time. My grandparents, who were young newly weds in the 1920's, told me how they went looking to buy their first home, and inspected a "brand new housing estate" at Double Bay. It's hard to imagine these days that these places were all once bushland.
Thanks NFSA for uploading all historic images. Not trying to detract from this film itself, but I note key words like 'idyllic country', 'fishing and picnic sites' etc and you can imagine how a 100 years earlier how the indigenous Australians felt by losing this country and never to enjoy its beauty like the new rich in this film. Mick
Agreed.. how beautiful this land was for thousands of years before outsiders arrived to divide, develop, disrespect and destroy its pristine beauty and inhabitants. It hasn't stopped since..
I travelled by tram from the Cammeray shops to the terminus at Northbridge near the primary school not long before the line closed, in addition to walking across the suspension bridge a number of times. I can still clearly remember alighting at the terminus. The rest of the trip would have been fairly routine at the time as it was not yet history.
I'm a former Melbournian b1948 and i delighted in this film - some charm for sure. Actually nice not to have sound albeit i expect the people in it spoke 'well'!! Not strine! Such joyous reminders of free less intruded upon space - mentally and physically. Imagine how the First Australians must have pined; as indeed the North American 'Indians'; the Maori and so many others. But one can't apologise for the past - we can only learn from it and thankfully real truths and accounting of and about the past are seeing sunshine! Love Australia, Terra Australis.
What a fascinating glimpse of the early Castle Craig Estate! The homes & landscape architecture designed by Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin feature prominently, and beginning at minute 2:21 there are images of Mary Mahony Griffin dodging balls and serving tea to her guests! (Incidentally, Walter also appears at around minute 6:51). This film was produced by the Griffins and other investors in 1928 to promote estate sales, but it was also a commentary on the friendly, communal lifestyle encouraged by the Griffins and the Estates inhabitants.
The video description attributes the creation of this suburb to Walter Burley Griffin - 'a residential community designed in the mid 1920s by Walter Burley Griffin' - but Marion Mahony Griffin played an equally important role in the establishment of this community. It would be great if the description can be amended to reflect this.
That is not a "a trolley bus crossing the suspension bridge" - it is a tram (you can see the tracks). this is from www.flickr.com/photos/basalamant/41825720742 - "The Suspension Bridge connecting Cammeray and Northbridge (then called Gordon's Estate) was built in 1889 by the North Sydney Tramway and Development Company to provide access to suburbs in the north....The bridge opened in 1892, initially only open to pedestrian traffic but used as a tramway line onwards from 1909."
Nice in 4K upload version. By the way, if you wants to pick some of my old 35mm Nitrate films, firstly of all, please go and see my discovered 35mm films being uploaded at 'Lost 35mm Nitrate Film FOUND !', just around the corner of this site. Robert.
I don't know how many were built, but according to sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/documenting-nsw-homes/fishwick-house "Of the 13 surviving Griffin houses at Castlecrag, the Fishwick House is regarded as the one which best demonstrates Griffin’s vision for the development..." and www.griffinsociety.org/conserving-griffin-heritage/ says "Willoughby City Council in NSW included all the Griffin houses at Castlecrag as items of state significance in its LEP1995."
Thank god we don't dress like that anymore. Dressed to the nines to hang out in the bushland. Not very practical.Only thing looks the same today is the bush.
Look how the people dressed back than great video. Please keep them coming.
1927 Sydney. What a wonderful historical record. Love seeing the clothes of the day too. Thank you. 👍🏻♥️
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the feedback.
NFSA Films love ❤️ this channel. But 3 weeks is way to long to wait for a video hahaha!
@@danrobinson572 You're right!
If the handsome chap at 7:07 really is Walter Burley Griffin, then it's the first moving picture of him I've ever seen. How exciting after all these years of mere portraits in dusty books.
Love to jump into a time machine and go back to that era, just for a few days and see what life was like. Definitely be a culture shock, but in a good way.
I was a truck driver in the 1980s and I would drive on the old suspension bridge to get to Castlecrag. I loved the old bridge. North Sydney is now over populated and has many narrow streets too.
Where have we gone wrong? That was brilliant watching this old move with Rod Stewart's playing First cut is the deepest " in the background is very moving!! Yeah Time machine anyone Ill go back lol.
My father always told me that my grandfather worked on the Suspension Bridge. I loved it when I was a child and I still love it today.
Love this channel. Thank you! 👏☺💙💯🇦🇺🇦🇺
Our pleasure!
3 weeks is way to king for waiting for a video. Love ❤️ this channel!
i love the afternoon tea the ladies are having ..
I resided in Killarney heights, not far from middle harbour for many years, before moving to NZ. It is wonderful to see what this area looked like before urban development. And the beautiful old bridge in its prime. I left Sydney years ago and that area was quite busy as I recall. Beautiful country.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I have lived here for 30 years and never seen this - what wonderful vintage footage!
Until the Harbour Bridge was opened in 1932 this entire region was just scrub land basically and near inaccessible - despite it being only 4 miles from the city as they say in here.
Following an international contest of 100s of entries, for the design of the entire Federal Capital Canberra from sheep grazing paddocks. The city's design, a blueprint by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin was selected in 1912, and construction commenced in 1913.
The Griffins took all the money they got from designing Canberra (which opened in 1927), and, sunk much of into this Utopian venture it seems, of 270 HECTARES. Soon after this project was launched The Great Depression came long and wiped out that plan. And lost of lot of folks, a lot of money sadly.
Walter Burley Griffin went to India mid 1930s, and died there of peritonitis in 1937.
He was wildly unappreciated in Australia for his achievements during his lifetime, and he clashed with the Bureaucrats at the time. In 1964, when Canberra's central lake was filled, as Griffin had intended, Prime Minister Robert Menzies declined to have the lake named after himself.
Instead Menzies named it Lake Burley Griffin, making it the first "monument" in Canberra dedicated to the city's designer ("Burley" was included in the name because of the misconception, which has continued, that it was part of Griffin's surname!)
Castlecrag remains very treed and rocky and "wild" really.
He named all the streets here after parts of Edinburgh Castle - again for reasons unknown for a Chicago born American!
So my tiny little suburb of Castlecrag was all named (by an American!) near 100 years ago, and more than HALF the street names here are these wacko names starting with the word The - I live in the final one-
The Barbette
The Barbican
The Barricade
The Bartizan
The Bastion
The Battlement
The Bulwark
The Citadel
The High Tor
The Lee
The Outpost
The Palisade
The Parapet
The Postern
The Rampart
The Redoubt
The Scarp
The Tor Walk
www.google.com/search?q=castlecrag+street+names&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b
Castlecrag - although the only occurrence of Castlecrag as a place name in the British Isles is in the northern English county of Cumbria (spelled Castle Crag), the name of this North Shore suburb appears to have a Scottish connection. Warne (2005, pp. 106-107) states that the renowned architect, Walter Burley Griffin, began building houses at Castlecrag in 1921.
She also adds that the suburb was named after a giant outcrop of sandstone resembling a castle and that this outcrop was marked on early maps as Edinburgh Castle. Castlecrag's main road is in fact Edinburgh Road while most of the residential streets are named for features of medieval castles, such as Barbican, Battlement, Bulwark, etc.
www.rampantscotland.com/placenames/placename_sydney.htm
.
Fascinating, thank you for sharing.
Lucky you yo live in such an unusual suburb! The romantic medieval fortress street names are what I love. Like the faux medieval drawbridge ( The Suspension Bridge) too. Why anyone would design something like that in what was then, the middle of the bush, is beyond me --but the quirkiness of it all is very appealing.
Fascinating. Gotta love the gushing real estate speak --some things haven't changed a bit. Looks like they laid it on thick in those days, just as they do today!
The film clearly shows how much of the harbour shores were undeveloped at that time. My grandparents, who were young newly weds in the 1920's, told me how they went looking to buy their first home, and inspected a "brand new housing estate" at Double Bay. It's hard to imagine these days that these places were all once bushland.
Thanks NFSA for uploading all historic images.
Not trying to detract from this film itself, but I note key words like 'idyllic country', 'fishing and picnic sites' etc and you can imagine how a 100 years earlier how the indigenous Australians felt by losing this country and never to enjoy its beauty like the new rich in this film. Mick
Agreed.. how beautiful this land was for thousands of years before outsiders arrived to divide, develop, disrespect and destroy its pristine beauty and inhabitants. It hasn't stopped since..
The past is like a foreign country, they do things differently there.
What a wonderful time capsule.
HavaCrack things changed and not in a good way for the aboriginals, even worse in Tasmania, obliterated within 27 years
Wonderful as always!
Thank you!
I
live in Castlecrag and it's still a wonderful suburb
Middle Cove Here.
Is that Castlecrag shops on Edinburgh Rd or Northbridge shops on Sailors Bay rd I wonder?
I travelled by tram from the Cammeray shops to the terminus at Northbridge near the primary school not long before the line closed, in addition to walking across the suspension bridge a number of times. I can still clearly remember alighting at the terminus. The rest of the trip would have been fairly routine at the time as it was not yet history.
I'm a former Melbournian b1948 and i delighted in this film - some charm for sure. Actually nice not to have sound albeit i expect the people in it spoke 'well'!! Not strine! Such joyous reminders of free less intruded upon space - mentally and physically. Imagine how the First Australians must have pined; as indeed the North American 'Indians'; the Maori and so many others. But one can't apologise for the past - we can only learn from it and thankfully real truths and accounting of and about the past are seeing sunshine! Love Australia, Terra Australis.
What a fascinating glimpse of the early Castle Craig Estate! The homes & landscape architecture designed by Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin feature prominently, and beginning at minute 2:21 there are images of Mary Mahony Griffin dodging balls and serving tea to her guests! (Incidentally, Walter also appears at around minute 6:51). This film was produced by the Griffins and other investors in 1928 to promote estate sales, but it was also a commentary on the friendly, communal lifestyle encouraged by the Griffins and the Estates inhabitants.
Thats a beautiful house even by todays standards. Wonder if its still there
The video description attributes the creation of this suburb to Walter Burley Griffin - 'a residential community designed in the mid 1920s by Walter Burley Griffin' - but Marion Mahony Griffin played an equally important role in the establishment of this community. It would be great if the description can be amended to reflect this.
Agreed. Corrected. Thank you.
Excellent thankyou!
You're very welcome!
That is not a "a trolley bus crossing the suspension bridge" - it is a tram (you can see the tracks).
this is from www.flickr.com/photos/basalamant/41825720742 -
"The Suspension Bridge connecting Cammeray and Northbridge (then called Gordon's Estate) was built in 1889 by the North Sydney Tramway and Development Company to provide access to suburbs in the north....The bridge opened in 1892, initially only open to pedestrian traffic but used as a tramway line onwards from 1909."
Yes, corrected re tram. Thank you for all of the additional information too.
And the frolics of youth ♥️♥️♥️
Love it. How's the sheiks 😄. And such good quality 👍
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for the feedback.
Who built that bridge where are the pictures of that being constructed
Some good info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Gully_Bridge
Nice in 4K upload version. By the way, if you wants to pick some of my old 35mm Nitrate films, firstly of all, please go and see my discovered 35mm films being uploaded at 'Lost 35mm Nitrate Film FOUND !', just around the corner of this site. Robert.
"The outdoor frolics of youth" were a bit sad.
Very reflective of its time I think. I found its naivete rather sweet. 😀
Anybody know if those stone houses are still standing?
I don't know how many were built, but according to sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/documenting-nsw-homes/fishwick-house "Of the 13 surviving Griffin houses at Castlecrag, the Fishwick House is regarded as the one which best demonstrates Griffin’s vision for the development..." and www.griffinsociety.org/conserving-griffin-heritage/ says "Willoughby City Council in NSW included all the Griffin houses at Castlecrag as items of state significance in its LEP1995."
@@ianakagongz4573 They are indeed. I used to live in the area and walked by these houses often. It's so weird seeing them here like this
Thank god we don't dress like that anymore. Dressed to the nines to hang out in the bushland. Not very practical.Only thing looks the same today is the bush.
Might have a lot to do with the fact that they were being filmed.