Thomas Playfair

Thomas Playfair

Play

Thomas Playfair, butcher, alderman, and for one good year Mayor of this city — and yes, that street down the hill wears my family's name. Someone has been busy since I died: they cut my name into eight pieces and scattered them through The Rocks, into stone walls and shopfronts and a cottage with half a number. I can talk you to each piece, but I cannot read a sign for you; I have no eyes left for it. Walk with me, look hard at what's actually there, and give me my name back.

The walk

An hour's loop through the tightest, oldest streets in Sydney: a convict-cut canyon, an 1826 bond store, a garage that became a shopping arcade, and a cottage with half a number in its address. Your guide is Thomas Playfair, the Rocks butcher who became Mayor of Sydney and left his name on a street here. Every stop asks you to read, count or identify something that is genuinely in front of you, and hands back one letter of a name. Short walking, dense history, no backtracking.

Where Thomas Playfair takes you

1. 1

   Argyle Cut

   “The Cut”

   A man-made canyon along Argyle Street, hacked out over 25 years by convict and paid labour with hand tools, its walls still tool-marked.

2. 2

   Argyle Bridge

   “Over Your Head”

   A 1911–12 bridge above the Argyle Cut, joined to the Argyle Stairs, reconnecting a neighbourhood the cutting had sliced in two.

3. 3

   Glenmore Hotel

   “The Corner House”

   A corner pub of 1921 on Cumberland Street, built by brewers Tooth and Co. to catch every thirsty man off the wharves.

4. 4

   Argyle Stores

   “The Bond Store Yard”

   The Argyle Stores courtyard, a custom house and bond store of 1826–1878 where tea, spirits, tobacco and wool waited on duty.

5. 5

   Owen Magee

   “The Plaque in Playfair Street”

   A small memorial plaque in Playfair Street recording the 1970s fight that saved this quarter from demolition and office towers.

6. 6

   Penrhyn House

   “Playfair's Garage”

   A three-storey building of 1924 at 22–26 Playfair Street, once a motor garage, replacing terraces, and later a shopping centre.

7. 7

   Samson's Cottage

   “Seventy-Five and a Half”

   A modest George Street cottage built from 1883 for William Cormack, later a Chinese laundry, an art gallery and an antique shop.

8. 8

   Orient Hotel, The Rocks

   “The Orient”

   A George Street corner hotel of 1843–44, serving sailors, wharfies and butchers' boys while convicts chipped at the Cut nearby.

Who was Thomas Playfair?

Playfair was a Rocks butcher and later Mayor of Sydney whose name is on Playfair Street, who had Argyle Terrace built for him in 1883–84, and whose family firm ran Playfair's Garage in what is now Penrhyn House.

1832–1893

Thomas Playfair was a butcher who built a large meat business in Sydney in the second half of the nineteenth century, with premises and interests in The Rocks. He served as an alderman of the City of Sydney and was Mayor of Sydney in 1885, and later sat in the New South Wales Parliament. Argyle Terrace at 13–15 Playfair Street was built for him in 1883–84, and Playfair Street in The Rocks carries his family name; the later Playfair's Garage occupied the building now known as Penrhyn House. He died in 1893. His words here are imagined; the facts of his life and buildings are not.

Thomas Playfair's words in this game are an AI performance written from the historical record; the facts above are documented. Read more on Wikipedia.