McElhone Place, Surry Hills

G’day, Charles Touma here. And today I’m at one of the most visually attractive lanes in Surry Hills, McElhone Place, known by the locals as “cat alley”. The magnificent streetscape started in the late 1970s and has won many gardening awards since then. In the 1970s, these properties were changing hands for under $30,000 but the story almost begins 200 years before that. McElhone Place is one of the older developed areas of Surry Hills. Originally part of the 70 acres granted to John Palmer in 1794, a purser on the first fleet. The current McElhone Place, was then part of a purchase of eight acres by James Chisolm from Palmer in 1814. A small parcel of the eight acres was then sold to Arthur Little which was then sold to Terence McElhone in 1833. Now Terence McElhone had been facing the noose in Ireland, but instead was sent on a convict ship in 1819, which proved to be a massive change in fortune for him and his family.

Within a few years, McElhone had established a dairy business, a hotel and property development business. This led him to acquiring the parcel of land where he started to build workers cottages on what is now known as McElhone Place. Initially, he built 14 sandstone cottages by the early 1840s, which he rented to local workers. His son John, later built two-storey workers’ houses on the north side of the road, between number one and 23 in 1871. And then two-storey brick houses on the south side of the streets, between numbers 22 and 28. And that happened between 1877 and 1880. He also built some stables that later became 30 McElhone Place. John McElhone sounds a bit of a character, because despite becoming an elected representative, he was reportedly very useful with his fists in the debating chamber.

Now, next week I’m going to continue the story about how McElhone Place evolved after John passed away. And believe me, you couldn’t make this up. It’s pure gold. Now I’ve been selling in the Surry Hills area for over 20 years and some of my very recent sales, close to McElhone Place, was number 51 Marshall Street, which was a two bedroom house, which sold for circa $1.5m. And we had the luxury of selling 36 Prospect Street in Surry Hills, for 1.3, just to my left. In the upcoming weeks, we’ve got 477 Riley Street, a three bedroom terrace hitting the market, which has got rear lane access and it’s going to sell for circa $2m. And we’ve also got 118 Reservoir, hitting the market in the upcoming weeks as well. I hope you found this first part of the story of McElhone Place, interesting. My name’s Charles Touma and my office on Thurlow Street is always open for you to come in and have a chat.