More Sydney Suburbs: Beaconsfield - Beaumont Hills- Beecroft - Belfield

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Yes, I know that I have been calling it "More Week"  and that today's "More" post makes it longer than a week, but isn't that appropriate when the theme is "More"?

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Beaconsfield:

Location:

• 5 kilometres south of the Sydney CBD.

Name origin:

• The suburb was named after Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, a British prime minister during the reign of Queen Victoria.

About:

• Formerly part of the suburb of Alexandria, the name was gazetted in 1977.

• Primarily a manufacturing suburb with only a small residential component. 

• The 2011 census showed only 906 residents but blocks of flats and apartments re adding to the numbers. 

• Beaconsfield is part of the Green Square district which is currently undergoing gentrification. This involves an urban renewal project that is constructing modern retail, business and residential developments.

• The suburb bears the same name as the town in Tasmania where the famed mine collapse took place, trapping 2 miners.

Gallery:

Some Beaconsfield terrace houses

A Queen Street café

Victoria Street apartments

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Beaumont Hills:

Location:

40 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of The Hills Shire. 

(Don’t feel bad if you had never heard of it before this, I hadn’t either).

Name origin:

Originally a housing estate, it is thought to be named after the birthplace of the wife of property developer and builder A.V. Jennings. The name was assigned as a suburb by the NSW Geographical Names Board in 2003.

About:

• Beaumont Hills was formerly part of the suburb of Kellyville, as was Kellyville Ridge.

• Beaumont Hills became a separate suburb in 2002. 

• It was developed as a low-density residential suburb in a time frame similar to Kellyville.

Gallery:

Some Beaumont Hills houses . . .

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Beecroft:

Location:

22 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government areas of Hornsby Shire and City of Parramatta. Beecroft is considered to be in the Northern Suburbs of Sydney.

Name origin:

• Beecroft was orchard country before its suburban development. 

• The railway arrived in 1886 and Sir Henry Copeland, Minister of Lands, conducted a survey of the area to determine its suitability as a residential area. 

• He named the suburb after the maiden name of his two wives, Hannah and Mary Beecroft, two sisters he married in succession. 

• Their names are also remembered through the respective naming of the suburb's east-west streets; Hannah Street, Copeland Road and Mary Street.

About:

• Due to the strength of the temperance movement in Beecroft at that time there have never been any hotels in Beecroft. 

• The bushland and amenity of Beecroft has been largely preserved due to the efforts of the Beecroft Cheltenham Civic Trust which has been very active since its inception in 1958.

• A residential area with only a small commercial area, there are mixed commercial shops/residential apartment developments recent;y constructed and in development.

Gallery:

Henry Copeland (1839-1904)

Beecroft Railway Station

A walking track in the part of Chilworth Reserve known as "Byles Bush", at the end of York Street.

Beecroft Rd,near Kandy Ave,Epping,north west Sydney (looking north) in 1935.

Beecroft Railway Station 1910 (note the dresses, including at left)

Herring’s Orchard, Beecroft. Date unknown

Beecroft Public School, 1923

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Belfield:

Location:

14 km (9 mi) south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Canterbury-Bankstown Council and partly in the Municipality of Strathfield.

Name origin:

• Land grants were made as early as 1810 for agricultural purposes, on the northern side of Punchbowl Road (towards Strathfield). The "Punch Bowl" was the name that early settlers gave the almost circular valley where the old road to Georges River crossed Cooks River at a ford. This is now where Georges River Road meets Punchbowl Road (the road to "The Punch Bowl") in Belfield.

• The name of the suburb is believed to have been created by combining the names of the two neighbouring suburbs, Belmore and Enfield. 

• From information supplied by the Postmaster General's Department, the name "Belfield" first appeared on their records in 1930 when the Belfield branch of the ALP wrote asking that the Department establish a post office at North Belmore. Although several applications were made over the years, it was not until 1936 that the postal inspector reported in favour of a non-official post office. His report read: "...There is a business centre here consisting of sixteen shops, one garage and one Hotel. It is a prosperous business section. This part of the locality is approximately midway between Belmore and Enfield. It is known as Belfield".

About:

• The majority of houses in Belfield were built after World War II, as public housing. 

• Many of the houses have been turned over to private ownership.

• Australia's first Pizza Hut opened in Belfield in April 1970, but closed in the late 1990s

Gallery:

What was Australia’s first Pizza Hut (1970) is now the Seoul Hoikwan Restaurant.

Which reminds me of the time some years ago when my father in law, Noel, who lives in Canberra, was staying with us in Sydney.  We went to the above restaurant, which these days is a Korean 'cook it yourself' establishment, the burners being set into the tables.  You collect food from the buffet, take it back to your table and cook it . . .

Noel is a gourmet cook himself and he enjoyed the food he was cooking, so much so that he told the Korean proprietor.  The chap was greatly pleased and said "You wait, I get."  He came back with some white meat tubes that looked a bit like calamari.  He told Noel to cook it and eat it, explaining that they saved this for special and honoured persons.  Noel dutifully did as instructed and made polite appreciative comments, even though he later told us it was not very appetising.  Having eaten it, he then asked what it was.  The proprietor had a bit of trouble conveying it in English but eventually made known it was the bull's spinal cord.

Quote for the Day

and another quote for More Week . . .

More Week: More Amazing Buildings

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More Week continues with some more amazing buildings, some of which have previously appeared in Bytes.

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The Crooked House, Poland:

Krzywy Domek (Polish for "crooked little house") is an unusually shaped building in Sopot, Poland. It was built in 2004 and is part of the Rezydent shopping centre. It was designed by Szotyńscy & Zaleski, who were inspired by the fairytale illustrations and drawings of Jan Marcin Szancer and Per Dahlberg.

A Per Dahlberg illustration

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Tiny house, Japan:

Located on a small, triangular shaped piece of land between a river and a road, this tiny house is actually surprisingly large inside and makes optimum use of space. Comprising 55 square metres (594 sq feet), it has 2 floors with the bedroom on the first floor, the kitchen and living room on the second, plus a family playroom on a mezzanine level accessible by ladder. 

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The Torre Galatea Figueras, Spain:

The Dalí Theatre and Museum is a museum of the artist Salvador Dalí in his home town of Figueres, in Catalonia, Spain. Dali is buried there in a crypt below the stage. The museum displays the single largest and most diverse collection of works by Salvador Dalí, the core of which was from the artist's personal collection. In addition to Dalí paintings from all decades of his career, there are Dalí sculptures, 3-dimensional collages, mechanical devices, and other curiosities from Dalí's imagination. A highlight is a 3-dimensional anamorphic living-room installation with custom furniture that looks like the face of Mae West when viewed from a certain spot.

The face of Mae West appears from a certain viewing point.

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The Basket Building, USA:

The Basket Building is the former headquarters of the basket-making Longaberger Company. Located near Columbus, Ohio, the building has been built to look like the company’s best-selling Medium Market Basket. It was completed in 1997 at the behest of founder Dave Longaberger. Longaberger moved out of the building in 2016 and relocated employees to a factory nearby. Attempts to sell the building since then have been unsuccessful despite price reductions from $7.5m to $5m.

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Container City, London:

Container City is the name of a project in London which uses discarded shipping containers to produce flexible accommodation and offices at low cost. The first (Container City I) was installed in 2001, in four days, and fitted out over five months. A second phase (Container City II) was carried out in 2002 and offices were constructed on the same site in the Riverside Building in 2005. The company carrying out the installations have now completed sixteen projects utilising the technique, which is suited to short and medium term land use. When the land becomes required for other uses, the containers can be reused elsewhere.

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The Lloyd’s Building, London:

The Lloyd's building, constructed in 1986, has been called the Inside-Out Building insofar as ducts and lifts, are located on the exterior to maximise space in the interior.

(This style of architecture – where the services for the building, such as ducts, sewage pipes and lifts, are located on the exterior – has been termed “Bowelism”. The style originated in 1957 with a design by Michael Webb. The term was coined by Webb in response to a 1961 lkecture comment on his design by architecture historian and critic Sir Nikolaus Pevsner "within the schools there are some disturbing trends; I saw the other day a design for a building that looked like a series of stomachs sitting on a plate. Or bowels, connected by bits of bristle". Thus this inside-out style was termed 'Bowellism' because of how it recalled the way the human body works.)

The building is the home of the insurance institution Lloyd's of London. It received a Grade I listing in 2011, the youngest structure ever to obtain this status. It is said by Historic England to be "universally recognised as one of the key buildings of the modern epoch".

Interior view

The rostrum where the Lutine Bell hangs.

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Bonus item: The Lutine Bell

The bell is from the frigate HMS Lutine, originally a French ship launched in 1779. 

During the French Revolution, Lutine came under French Royalist control. In 1793 she was one of sixteen ships handed over to a British fleet at the end of the Siege of Toulon, to prevent her being captured by the French Republicans. Rebuilt by the British, HMS Lutine served in the North Sea, where she was part of the blockade of Amsterdam. She sank in the West Frisian Islands in 1799, whilst carrying a large shipment of gold. The majority of the cargo has never been recovered. 

The ship's bell was recovered on 17 July 1858 and now hangs in the building of Lloyd’s of London 

According to Wikipedia:

The bell was traditionally struck when news of an overdue ship arrived - once for the loss of a ship (i.e. bad news), and twice for her return (i.e. good news). The bell was sounded to ensure that all brokers and underwriters were made aware of the news simultaneously. The bell has developed a crack and the traditional practice of ringing news has ended: the last time it was rung to tell of a lost ship was in 1979 and the last time it was rung to herald the return of an overdue ship was in 1989.

During World War II, the Nazi radio propagandist Lord Haw-Haw asserted that the bell was being rung continuously because of allied shipping losses during the Battle of the Atlantic. In fact, the bell was rung once, with one ring, during the war, when the Bismarck was sunk. 

It tolls when a member of the Royal Family dies and was heard after the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. It is now rung for ceremonial purposes to commemorate disasters such as the 9/11 disaster, the Asian Tsunami, and the London Bombings, and is always rung at the start and end of the two minutes silence on Armistice Day.

Quote for the Day

Funny Friday

As More Week continues, I tried to find some humour on the theme of "More" but the only one I could come up with was:

"Always leave them wanting more,” my dad used to say to me, which is why he lost his job in disaster relief.

So, instead, here is a collection of mixed funnies. A lot of them are groaners, worthy of Corn Corner, but funny nonetheless.

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A woman is driving toward home in northern Arizona when she sees a Navajo woman hitchhiking. Because the trip had been long etc, she stops the car and the Navajo woman gets in. During their small talk, the Navajo woman glances surreptitiously at a brown bag on the front seat between them.

"If you're wondering what's in the bag" offers the woman, "it's a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband."

The Navajo woman is silent for a while, nods several times and says, "Good trade."

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A bloke walks into a Glasgow library and says to the prim librarian, "Excuse me Miss, dey ye hiv ony books on suicide?"

To which she stops doing her tasks, looks at him over the top of her glasses and says, "Get lost, ye'll no bring it back!"

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A redhead named Pam is appearing on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" with Eddie Maguire. 

Maguire: "Pam, you're up to $500,000 with one lifeline left: phone a friend. If you get it right, the next question is worth one million dollars. If you get it wrong, you drop back to $32,000. Are you ready?" 

Pam: "Yes."

Maguire: "Which of the following birds does not build its own nest? Is it A) robin, B) sparrow, C) cuckoo, or D) thrush." 

Pam: "I'd like to phone a friend. I'd like to call Carol."

Carol (a blonde) answers the phone: "Hello?" 

Maguire: "Hello Carol, it's Eddie Maguire from Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I have your friend Pam here who needs your help to answer the one million dollar question. The next voice you hear will be Pam's..." 

Pam: "Carol, which of the following birds does not build its own nest? Is it A) robin, B) sparrow, C) cuckoo, or D) thrush." 

Carol: "Oh geez, Pam. That's simple. It's a cuckoo." 

Pam: "Are you sure?"

Carol: "I'm sure." 

Maguire: "Pam, you heard Carol. Do you keep the $500,000 or play for the million?" 

Pam: "I want to play; I'll go with C) cuckoo." 

Maguire: "Is that your final answer?" 

Pam: "Yes." 

Maguire: "Are you confident?" 

Pam: "Yes; I think Carol's pretty smart." 

Maguire: "You said C) cuckoo, and you're right! Congratulations, you have just won one million dollars!"

To celebrate, Pam flies Carol to New York. That night they go out on the town. As they're sipping champagne, Pam looks at Carol and asks her, "Tell me, how did you know that it was the cuckoo that does not build its own nest?"

Carol: "That's easy, everybody knows they live in clocks."

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The Indian Chief thought that it was going to be a bad winter so he sent all the braves out to collect wood. As he watched them return laden with timber from the forest he suddenly felt that he ought to check his forecast so he phoned the local met office.

"Tell me, is it going to be a bad winter?"

"Yes," said the forecaster, "It will be a bad one"

So the Chief told the braves that they didn't have enough wood and sent them back into the forest again. They returned with more wood but once again the Chief had doubts and he called the forecaster to confirm.

"It is going to be a really severe winter," replied the forecaster.

The Chief look at the wood store, decided that more was required and the braves were dispatched back into forest. The Chief called the forecaster.

"Are you sure it's going to be a really severe winter?"

"Look," said the forecaster "It’s definitely going to be the worst winter on record - the Indians are gathering wood like crazy!"

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The English Prime Minister is being shown around a hospital. Towards the end of his visit, he is shown into a ward with a number of people with no obvious signs of injury. He goes to greet the first patient and the chap replies:

"Fair fa' your honest sonsie face, 

Great chieftain o the puddin'-race! 

Aboon them a' ye tak your place, 

Painch, tripe, or thairm: 

Weel are ye wordy of a grace 

As lang 's my arm."

The PM, being somewhat confused, grins and moves on to the next patient and greets him. He replies:

"Some hae meat, and canna eat, 

And some wad eat that want it; 

But we hae meat and we can eat, 

And sae the Lord be thankit."

The third starts rattling off as follows:

"Wee sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, 

0, what a panic's in thy breastie! 

Thou need na start awa sae hasty, 

Wi bickering brattle! 

I wad be laith to rin an chase thee, 

Wi murdering pattle!"

The Prime Minister turns to the doctor accompanying him and asks what sort of ward this is. A mental ward?

"No," replies the doctor. "It's a Burns Unit."

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After a long and serious operation, Lena ended up in a coma. Try as they might, the doctors just couldn't bring her out of it. When her husband Ralph came into the intensive care unit to see her, the doctors gave him the bad news.
"We just can't wake her. It doesn't look good I'm afraid," the doctor told Ralph in a quiet somber voice.
Ralph looked at Lena and, with a soft trembling voice, said "But doctor, she's so young. She's only 45."
"37" came the weak reply from Lena.

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Gallery:

Corn Corner:

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of callouses on his feet.

He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath.

This made him . . . 

a super calloused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis.