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Pulteney Street

South Australia
Pulteney Street, looking south from near North Terrace
Map
Pulteney Street is located in City of Adelaide
North end
North end
South end
South end
Coordinates
General information
TypeStreet
LocationAdelaide city centre
Length1.6 km (1.0 mi)[1]
Opened1837
Major junctions
North endNorth Terrace
Adelaide
 
South end Unley Road
Adelaide
Location(s)
LGA(s)City of Adelaide
Foy and Gibson's department store (formerly the Grand Central Hotel), decorated for the centenary of Adelaide in 1936
The plaque commemorating the former Hanson Street
Ruthven Mansions

Pulteney Street is a main road which runs north-south through the middle of the eastern half of the Adelaide city centre, in Adelaide, South Australia. It runs north-south from North Terrace, through Hindmarsh and Hurtle Squares, to South Terrace, where it becomes Unley Road. It is the only one of the city centre's major north-south thoroughfares that does not continue northwards over North Terrace.

History

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Pulteney Street was named after Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm on 23 May 1837, at the behest of Governor Hindmarsh.[2][3]

On the south-east corner of Pulteney and Rundle streets was the elegant York Hotel, built by entrepreneur and publican C. A. Hornabrook[4] in 1849.[5] This was replaced in 1911 by the palatial Grand Central Hotel, owned by Foy & Gibson.[6] By 1924 the hotel had gone bankrupt, and was converted into Foy & Gibson's department store. After Foy & Gibson moved into Rundle Street as Cox Foys in the mid-1950s, the building was used as government offices, and eventually demolished to make way for a multi-storey car park in 1975–76.[7]

The southern portion of Pulteney Street, between Wakefield Street and South Terrace, was originally named Hanson Street, after Richard Hanson (later Sir Richard), a London solicitor and journalist, and founding member of the South Australian Literary Society[8] in August 1834. In 1846, nearly a decade after the naming, Hanson moved to South Australia, where he served as Premier (1857-1860), Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (from 1861) and as acting Governor (1872-1873).[9] Hanson Street was subsumed into the expanded Pulteney Street in August 1967.[10] The Hanson Street Memorial in Hurtle Square maintains the commemoration of Sir Richard.[citation needed]

Pulteney Street is the only one of the city centre's major north-south thoroughfares that does not continue north from North Terrace. This is due to Sir John Langdon Bonython[11] donating over £50,000 to the University of Adelaide for it to build its Great Hall, (named Bonython Hall). One of the conditions of Bonython's bequest was that the hall be built on North Terrace opposite Pulteney Street, thus ensuring that the thoroughfare could not continue north through the parklands and divide the already small campus.[12][13][14]

Location

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Pulteney Street runs north-south through the middle of the eastern half of the Adelaide city centre, from North Terrace, through Hindmarsh and Hurtle Squares, to South Terrace, where it becomes Unley Road, and subsequently, (at Cross Road), becomes Belair Road.[15][1]

Significant buildings

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"The Mansions"

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Ruthven Mansions, at 15−17 Pulteney Street (and occupying 1−7 Austin Street), is a large residential building, with commercial premises on the ground floor. It was built in two stages, in 1911–12 and 1915, for London investor Ruthven Frederic Ruthven-Smith, with the first stage designed by local architects Black and Fuller and built by A. R. Maddern and Son. Built as luxury apartments, it included automated vacuum cleaning, automated doors, mechanical ventilation, electric light and an electric lift. Stage one comprised 12 apartments, with an additional five storeys, comprising 28 apartments, added by builders W. C. Torode in 1915. The building is considered a good example of residential Gothic Revivalist and Art Nouveau architecture. Prominent inhabitants included members of the Kyffin Thomas family, proprietors of the South Australian Register, and William Alfred Webb, Commissioner of the South Australian Railways[16][17] from 1922 to 1930.[18]

The building was sold to the South Australian Government in 1954 and became neglected. By 1976, the building's balconettes had been removed, the interior was deemed unsafe, and the former occupants of the ground floor, the Chest Clinic, had moved out. One long-term and much-loved occupant through the middle of the 20th century was Adelaide bookseller Harry Muir's Beck Book Company (also known as Beck's Bookshop), which later became Wakefield Press.[19][20][21][22][23]

After some time, the building was extensively renovated, including partial rebuilding of the exterior.[17] The building was heritage-listed by the South Australian Heritage Register on 11 September 1986, recognised as an historically and architecturally important building.[16] As of 2022 the building, known as "Mansions on Pulteney", is owned by La Loft, which lets the residences (all studio or one-bedroom size) as serviced apartments.[24][25] The Mansions Tavern[26] is in the Mansions Arcade, which has its entrance on Pulteney Street and runs through the middle of the building.[17]

Astor Hotel

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The Astor Hotel ("The Astor") is located[27] on the north west corner of Gilles and Pulteney Streets.[28] The first hotel on the site was the Labour in Vain in 1858, which was renamed Perseverance in 1862. In 1952 the Hanson Hotel was established, and after refurbishment became the Astor Hotel in 1991.[29]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Pulteney Street" (Map). Google Maps. Retrieved 1 June 2022.
  2. ^ Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm had made the recommendation that Hindmarsh be appointed Governor of South Australia.
  3. ^ "History of Adelaide Through Street Names - Streets Named on the 23rd May, 1837". 4 March 2005. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
  4. ^ "Comments from the City". Northern Argus. Vol. XXX, no. 2, 471. South Australia. 25 November 1898. p. 2. Retrieved 22 May 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ^ "Comments from the City". Northern Argus. Vol. XXX, no. 2, 471. South Australia. 25 November 1898. p. 2. Retrieved 16 March 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ^ "Grand Central Hotel". The Register (Adelaide). South Australia. 3 June 1911. p. 8. Retrieved 16 March 2022 – via Trove.
  7. ^ Byrne, Bob (26 November 2014). "Adelaide's Lost Buildings". Adelaide Remember When. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
  8. ^ "Nomenclature of the Streets of Adelaide and North Adelaide" (PDF). State Library of South Australia.
  9. ^ "Hanson, Sir Richard Davies (1805–1876)". Australian Dictionary of Biography . 1 January 1972. Retrieved 16 March 2022. This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 4, (Melbourne University Press), 1972. (Published online 2006.)
  10. ^ Elton, Jude (1 June 2017). "South Terrace". SA History Hub. History Trust of South Australia. Retrieved 16 March 2022. Uploaded 20 February 2014; Revised 1 June 2017 to update Kaurna place name spelling
  11. ^ "Bonython, Sir John Langdon (1848–1939)". Sir John Langdon Bonython. Australian National University. Retrieved 12 March 2009. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  12. ^ "Heritage hall is green and cool". University of Adelaide. 15 December 2005. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
  13. ^ Salkow, Howard (September 2005). "Helping a University treasure keep its cool". Adelaidean. University of Adelaide. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
  14. ^ "University Heritage Walk: Keith takes a walk in the Adelaide City region of South Australia". Postcards SA. NWS Nine. Archived from the original on 12 March 2011. Retrieved 13 March 2009.
  15. ^ 2003 Adelaide Street Directory, 41st Edition. UBD. 2003. ISBN 0-7319-1441-4.
  16. ^ a b "Ruthven Mansions - 15-27 Pulteney Street: State Heritage Place". Experience Adelaide. Heritage Places of Adelaide. 16 September 2019. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  17. ^ a b c City of Adelaide. "Ruthven Mansions" (PDF). Heritage of the City of Adelaide. The text in this Information Sheet was copied from the Heritage of the City of Adelaide: An Illustrated Guide, (1996)
  18. ^ Jennings, R. I. (Reece Ian) (1973), W.A. Webb, South Australian Railways Commissioner, 1922-1930 : a political, economic and social biography (2nd ed.), Nesfield Press, ISBN 978-0-9599230-0-1
  19. ^ Marsh, Walter (April 2019). "Turning the page (online title "Wakefield Press turns the page on 30 years")". Adelaide Review (470): 10.
  20. ^ Prichard, Maureen (2003). "Christine Macgregor's Illustrated Private Press Books" (PDF). BSANZ Bulletin. 27 (1–2): 43. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  21. ^ Bollen, Michael (18 June 2014). "The Book is dead. Long live the Book". The Lead South Australia. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  22. ^ "Somerton Man Mystery: Beck's Bookstore". Adelaide City Explorer. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  23. ^ Roe, Jill (2013). "Adelaide and the Country: The Literary Dimension". In Butterss, Philip (ed.). A Literary City. University of Adelaide Press. p. 115. ISBN 978-1-922064-64-6. JSTOR 10.20851/j.ctt1sq5x41.11. Retrieved 15 March 2022. PDF
  24. ^ "Rundle Mall • Ruthven Mansions". Rundle Mall. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
  25. ^ "Mansions on Pulteney". La Loft. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
  26. ^ "Mansions Tavern, Adelaide, SA". Publocation. Retrieved 16 March 2022.
  27. ^ "Home". The Astor Hotel. 16 April 2021. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
  28. ^ "The Astor, Pulteney Street, Adelaide". State Library of South Australia. 25 January 2019. Retrieved 20 February 2024.
  29. ^ "9 Interesting Finds in Gilles Street". WeekendNotes. 9 April 2017. Retrieved 20 February 2024.

See also

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icon Australian Roads portal

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