User:Mattinbgn/Pubs of Newtown

King Street in Newtown, Sydney, Australia features numerous pubs many with a long history.

Perhaps the finest example of the high Victorian style pub is the Newtown Hotel on King St. Also of note are the Courthouse Hotel in Australia St, the Carlisle Castle Hotel in Albemarle St, which features a beautiful marble bar imported from Italy in the early 1900s and Kelly's On King (formerly the Cricketers Arms), which housed a McDonalds outlet for some years in the 1980s before being converted back into a pub in the mid-1990, when the licence from the former Royal Edward Hotel was transferred there.

The heritage listed Golden Barley Hotel on Edgeware Rd and the Union Hotel on King St south are among the best extant examples of Art Deco pub design in Sydney. Other notable Art Deco pubs in the area include the Marlborough Hotel at the corner of King St and Missenden Rd, ZanziBar (formerly the Oxford Tavern) on King St and the former Royal Edward Hotel, which was closed and converted to private apartments in the mid-1990s.

Over the years, a number of pubs have closed and been converted to commercial, residential or other uses, including the Glass Works Hotel, King St, the Kingston Hotel, Probert St, the Royal Edward Hotel, and the Victory Hotel, King St south. The former  White Horse Hotel on King St north, for many years a favourite watering hole for university students ) is now part of the Anglican Church's Moore Theological College and the former public bar now houses a Christian bookshop.

Many pubs in the Newtown area have been redeveloped or renovated in recent years. These include the Sandringham Hotel, the Bank Hotel, the Cooper's Arms Hotel, the former Oxford Tavern, the Union Hotel, the Duke Of Edinburgh Hotel on Enmore Road and the Golden Barley Hotel. Whilst these changes have enabled the licencees/owners to adapt their premises to modern uses -- e.g. by renovating former beer gardens into large family-friendly bistro dining areas -- all of these renovations have significantly altered the fabric of the buildings.

In almost every case, the original public bars have been gutted and totally rebuilt and the original fittings removed. Several (e.g. the Bank Hotel) have been redecorated in a modernist style; its near neighbour, the former Oxford Tavern -- now renamed "Zanzi-Bar" -- was subjected to an Arabian-themed makeover that bears little relation to the pub's original Art Deco design and character. The recent re-development of the Cooper's Arms Hotel saw the entire upper floor gutted, the roof removed, and the area converted into an open-air bar/bistro area.