G’day, James Sutton here, and today I’m on Victoria Street in Roseville to talk about what was the very first land subdivision here in Roseville. In our last video I spoke about the Roseville Railway Station, or Rossville as it was originally known, being built in 1890, and being the catalyst for growing demand to live in this area. It led to some large subdivisions adjacent to it in the 1900’s, but the very first subdivision was known as the Roseville Park Estate which offered 31 blocks of land, nine of which were on Hill Street of roughly 55 feet by 200 feet which is approximately 1,020 square metres. Also, 22 larger blocks, varying between 1 and 1.3 acres on Victoria and Albert Street were split by what was then known as Park Street. At this stage in 1893, Queen Victoria was still alive though her husband, Prince Albert, had been dead for about two decades. Now if you’re wondering where Albert Street and Park Street are in Roseville, Albert Street was renamed to become Boundary Street and Park Street became Spearman Street.

An unnamed lane at the end of Victoria Street and Albert Street became Wandella Avenue. At that stage in 1893, sorry, the Pacific Highway was referred to as Gordon Road having previously been known as Lane Cove Road. Interestingly, payment turns for the blocks of land in 1893 were 10% cash deposit with the balance paid over four years, quarterly in 16 equal instalments at an interest rate of 6% with a 2.5% discount for cash. The agent handling the auction of the blocks of land organised a special train from Milsons Point to Roseville Station on the day of the sale to bring in prospective buyers which I thought was a really creative way of marketing and getting prospective buyers to the area. Roseville Station had only been completed recently, so at that stage, a suburb of Roseville would’ve been relatively unknown by Sydney’s growing population. The one acre blocks of land were sold for 200 pounds in that original subdivision, but the 1890s were very tough economically causing some blocks to sell at less than half that price.

But by 1902, a cottage on Albert Street changed hands for 600 pounds. The Roseville Park Estate started the ball rolling in establishing Roseville as a residential community. Once the economy had recovered at the turn of this century, many more subdivisions became available. But Victoria Street was where it all began. We now have three great listings for sale at the moment, one at 118 Roseville Avenue and two on Pacific Highway. The story of the Roseville Park Estate is ground zero on the evolution of Roseville, and I feel it’s important that we retain the knowledge of these stories to help our community and show how we’ve evolved over the time. I’m gonna keep digging up these stories over the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned. My name’s James Sutton, I’m the Principal at McGrath Wahroonga and if you’d like to discuss your property I’d be delighted to help you. You can reach me on 0422 704 370, or drop into our office anytime. Bye for now.