Glover cottages, Sydney
The Glover cottages are two semi-detached cottages in Kent Street, Millers Point, a suburb of Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia. The cottages were completed in the Colonial Georgian style between 1820 and 1838.
Recall that the first fleet of white settlers only arrived in Australia in 1788. So the Glover cottages are among the very oldest buildings in Australia. They are a rare surviving example of a vernacular single storey semi-detached stone cottage dating from the 1820s in inner Sydney.
The Glover cottages are located on an artificial rock shelf on the east side of Kent Street. This rock shelf may have been created by quarrying from 1810 to 1830. The cottages were constructed on the site by Edward Ewen, a cooper.
Ewen later sold the property to Thomas Glover, a publican whose activities were centred on Cumberland Street in The Rocks. Glover saw the property primarily as a source of income rather than a primary residence; he duly carried out repairs on the buildings, as well as building two more houses on the site.
Thomas Glover died intestate in 1836; after protracted legal proceedings, the property was transferred in 1840 to James Glover, Thomas’s son. Property and buildings stayed in the Glover family, being used partly for accommodation and partly as a source of income – which included some demolition and development – until 1900.
If you would like to visit Glover cottages, it is very simple. Today, they are occupied by the New South Wales branch of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. The Institute organises many very interesting seminars, which are open to attendance by all comers, albeit for a small fee.
So there are at least two very good reasons to visit Sydney’s Glover Cottages.