Glebe Point Road (corner of St Johns Road), circa 1908

The camera is looking south-east towards Parramatta Road. This is the sort of "high street" retail strip that developed in association with the tramway system. The road surface is dirt, stabilised by crushed stone and it appears to have been recently watered, probably to subdue the dust. Most of the buildings seen here remain, although unfortunately many have lost their collonaded awnings. Note the office of W.T. Tate & Dive, estate agents and "valuators", a term which has long ago gone out of commercial parlance!

The Glebe had been reserved as church land in 1789 by Governor Phillip. Beginning in the late 1820s parts of the estate were sold off and some substantial houses were built. Later, a large part of the estate was developed as workers' cottages on 99 year leases. In the 1970s, the Department of Main Roads proposed to cut The Glebe in two with a massive freeway, a move that was, fortunately, defeated.