NSWPort & river
Gladesville
A river-crossing village named after an emancipist farmer.
1855Gladesville estate auctioned at Bedlam Ferry
WHAT STARTED IT
The Great North Road, surveyed in the 1820s, crossed the Parramatta River by punt at Bedlam Point, and travellers and river steamers made the north bank here a landing place. Emancipist John Glade farmed the land above the crossing, and after his death it was cut up as Gladesville.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
The Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum opened beside the crossing in 1838. In 1855 the Glade land was auctioned in 89 lots with a public wharf, and a village grew where Wharf Road met the main road. The iron bridge of 1881 and the Iron Cove bridge of 1882 gave a direct road to Sydney, and trams crossed the river from 1910, bringing more subdivisions along what became Victoria Road.
TURNING POINTS
1838Tarban Creek Lunatic Asylum, designed by Mortimer Lewis, receives its first patients.
1855‘Gladesville’ is auctioned on the ground on 10 December in 89 lots of one to three acres, with steamers landing buyers at its wharf.
1867The post office moves from the wharf to the village on the main road.
1881The iron bridge over the Parramatta River beside the asylum opens to traffic on 1 February.
1910The tramline from Drummoyne is extended across Gladesville Bridge to Gladesville.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A suburb straddling Victoria Road, split between Ryde and Hunters Hill councils. The asylum’s sandstone buildings still stand above the river.