April 2026

A wander through the city side of Richmond Hill from Bridge Road to Swan – I was surprised there were so many narrow streets lined with pretty small single storey Victorian and Edwardian timber cottages, prettily picturesque in parts.

Also surprised that Lennox Street at the top of the hill has larger lots with typical suburban houses from the 1910s and 20s, and that there were fair numbers of interwar townhouses too, and some postwar flats of course.

Im pretty sure just about all the fences and probably quite a lot of the verandahs date from the 1980s onwards, which explains the sometimes crazy tall picket fences and that matching houses have mismatching verandahs. But still, it probably feels pretty much like it did 100 years ago.

They’re also mostly built close to the front boundary, so it’s pretty densely built up, you get some idea from the google maps 3d image (a new feature I’d just noticed!). There’s not a lot of back lanes so I’d guess many people do without cars. Oh and that meant the ‘nightsoil’ man went down narrow paths beside the houses, which are often in attached pairs, or off a side street if they’re on or near a corner. Many of those paths are now absorbed into the properties.

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