FOR many years I was intrigued while driving past a mystery house in the swamp near Minmi.
Framed by tall trees, the local landmark even seemed to be encircled by a moat when the low-lying land was flooded. Little wonder really, as the solid, two-storey 19th century brick structure sits on the edge of the Hexham wetlands.
With its quaint timber shutters, like sleepy eyelids, it was somehow romantic, like a forgotten old coaching inn from an Emily Bronte novel, like Wuthering Heights, out on the moors. Yet, here it was, brooding in isolation as winter fog swirled around it off Lenaghans Drive, just north of historic Minmi township and parallel to the freeway.
This was about 1987, just before Australia's last commercial steam train relics were phased out at Minmi. The locos, huffing and puffing and hauling scores of dingy red timber coal hoppers, would clank and rattle daily along a raised embankment across the swamp.
Now they're gone. Yet, the house remains, even surviving a fire in May 2018.
The building, now 137 years old, was once licensed premises, but it was short-lived, lasting three years from 1886, the date uncovered on a lintel over the main door a few years ago during restoration.
The building was known as Lenaghans Family Hotel, or the Old Lenaghan Hotel. Retired teacher, prolific author and guest speaker Ed Tonks outlined the old hotel's history during a recent speech at Merewether Historical Society. His subject was his latest book on the lost hotels of Newcastle suburbia from Merewether to Wickham. Entitled More Dry Lines and Empty Cellars ($40), it is a sequel to a work listing lost pubs from Adamstown to Mayfield. Two more, but different, hotel books are promised.
According to Tonks' research, the Minmi hotel was renamed as Winston Court and associated with the Hardes family of Wallsend. Sid Hardes was an icon of night trotting in Newcastle in the 1950s and 1960s. He had quite a few good pacers, some carrying the 'Winston' name. The house was apparently locked up after Sid Hardes and his wife died, but has since had a new owner with the fire-damaged building being restored.
Tonks said thirsty local coal miners meant that historic, if tiny, Minmi, the "place of the giant lily", surprisingly had 15 different hotels listed operating there between 1865 and 1921.
"But to settle a long argument, the greatest number of hotels operating there concurrently was nine in 1890," he said.
"This was then down to one pub in 1935 with the Great Depression and mines closed down."
Besides Lenaghans, these now lost pubs had names such as Bonnie Doon, the Colliers Arms, the Sons of Freedom, the Help Me Through The World pub (possibly later rebadged as Duckenfield), the Northumberland, the Railway Hotel, the Hand of Friendship and the Travellers Rest Inn.
This was also one of Minmi's short-lived hotels, lasting from 1865 until 1893. According to Tonks, besides Minmi and Hexham, the popular licence name has been associated with 12 Hunter sites ranging from Branxton, to Cassilis, Glebe/Merewether, Kingdom Ponds near Muswellbrook, Laguna, Limeburners Creek in Port Stephens, Merriwa, Scone, Cooranbong and Young Wallsend (Edgeworth).
Tonks also reveals Wallsend/Plattsburg tops the list as the area once with the biggest number of lost pubs (37). The thirsty miners drank at pubs with names like the Figtree Hotel, the Beehive Hotel, the Empire Hotel, the Terminus, the Bridge Hotel, the Earl of Jersey Hotel, the Grapes Inn and the Fox and Hounds.
Other odd pub snippets Tonks has come across include that Waratah's Red, White and Blue Hotel (1866-1881) was named after a British patriotic song popular in the 19th century, and that after the sudden closure of the Tarro Hotel in 2015, its licence went to Warren in central west NSW. Or that, on Hannell Street, Wickham, the ground floor of the former Royal Hotel once there is now occupied by the Sticky Rice Thai restaurant.
In Tonks' book we also discover the likely origin of an oddly name lost Tighes Hill hotel on the corner of Henry and Union streets. It was the Rock of Hope Hotel, which could well be a reference to the mineral - coal - extracted at the nearby Ferndale Colliery (1877-1886).
Meanwhile, let's shift our focus to The Junction, near Merewether, where there could have once been four hotels, like the Britannia and Newcastle Rifles pub (later renamed as The Junction Hotel).
My interest, however, was in one particular pub, the long-gone Duke of Edinburgh hotel (1870-1921) on the corner on the corner of Corlette Street and Lake Macquarie Road, later known as Glebe Road.
Look today at the building directly behind The Junction's war memorial, where the bones of the old hotel are immediately visible. The site is now the Talulah restaurant.
As for the fate of the Duke's hotel licence, well, it was removed to the edge of Newcastle's steelmaking industry, a new growth area in the 1920s. It was the beginning of Mayfield's Beauford Hotel on the corner of Maitland Road and Fawcett Street.
Overall, Tonks' 140-page superbly illustrated book is a great production.
Interestingly, the lost Hunter hotels written about in the latest book closed for a variety of reasons. These ranged from agitation by the temperance movement, to changing economic circumstances (mines closing), to pubs being forced to shut because there were simply too many serving the demon drink to be profitable. An official body called the Licences Reduction Board closed about 23 hotels alone in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie in May 1921.
It also seems hard to believe now, but Merewether once had 10 licensed premises. The name of one, the Brickmakers Arms Hotel (1877-1910) in Mary Street, seems to have reflected the occupation linked to that locality. Today, only four hotels survive.
Strangely though, as Tonks reports, the lake suburb of Redhead never had a pub because of the temperance movement, while two hotels (near a former mine) still survive at nearby Dudley. While mentioning this anomaly during his recent talk at Merewether Historical Society, an audience member piped up: "Dudley? That's a fair uphill walk for Redhead people to get a drink, isn't it?"
At this, Tonks replied, smiling: "Ah yes, but they could then roll back down home afterwards."
