Celebrations will be held in the first week of October 2011 to mark the 150th anniversary of the St Kilda Hotel. Called the Freemasons’ Hotel when its foundation stone was laid in October 1861, the two storey building at the corner of Rusden and Marsh Streets opened about June 1863. When Mrs Mary Ann Brady from St Kilda House Sydney took over the Freemasons’ Hotel in July 1870 she changed its name to the St Kilda Hotel. After serving as a boarding house for more than a decade, the building had major renovations in 1912 and 1913 and re-opened as a hotel. This week we continue from where the story ended in No 55 on July 13, 2011.
By July 1875 Mrs Brady had left the St Kilda Hotel and it was taken over by Benjamin Kendall for use as the Armidale Grammar School. Kendall closed his school at the end of 1877, when it again became the St Kilda Hotel with Mary Ann Brady as the licensee. She sold the hotel in 1881 to James Ewen (of the Australian Arms Hotel, Carlisle Gully, near Uralla). The Ewen family would have a decade long association with the St Kilda Hotel.
James Ewen died, aged 86, in 1881, and his relatively younger widow, Mary A. Ewen then ran the hotel until dying, aged 54, in 1886. The hotel was then run jointly by their son Alfred Ewen and his sister, Miss J. Ewen. In 1888 the Ewens advertised that they had purchased a first-class bus, which would “run to meet every train daily, and convey passengers to and from the Railway Station”, and that it would “also be available for hire for weddings or picnic parties.”
Things did not go well with the Ewen family, and in March 1892 the license was transferred to Raymond Brereton. The decade 1892 to 1902 was marked by almost annual transfers of the license of the St Kilda Hotel. The ten successive publicans were: John Hawke, Francis John Huxham, William Henry Stevens, Edward Keightley, Mary Plunkett, John Brackin, William Lynch, John Rutherford Craigie, Stephen Hillier, and William Greenhalgh. The hotel closed in the middle of 1902, and became the St Kilda Boarding House.
In 1912 Mrs Matilda Murray, formerly of the Commercial Hotel, Uralla, planned to restore the St Kilda Hotel building. An application for the new St Kilda Hotel was made at the Licensing Court in Armidale on October 15, 1912. The Licensing Magistrate said there were 13 hotels in a town with a population of 5,000 people, and that was “quite enough”. He said “the only reason for a fresh hotel in Armidale appeared to be for a first class, up-to-date residential hotel”, and “anybody applying should be prepared to spend a big sum of money.” The Bench also refused an application from Timothy Haren for a license for a The Great Northern Hotel, planned to be erected on the north western corner of the intersection of Marsh and Beardy Street.
A week later, on October 22, 1912, the application for the new St Kilda Hotel was considered again by the Bench. Hugh Scott, the architect, said the “old premises would be thoroughly renovated, and brought right up to date, and 20 bedrooms would be available to the public, each having a fanlight and proper window space.” The Bench insisted on two more bedrooms being added, and granted 12 months for the work to be completed.
The old St Kilda Hotel building was almost demolished so the required modifications could be made, and the results were most impressive. The main staircase was cedar, and upstairs corridors led to the bedrooms, dining, smoking and ladies’ sitting room. The bedrooms were “commodious and well ventilated, as well as tastefully furnished.” Gas was connected to every sleeping apartment for heating and lighting, while there was an electric bell in each room to communicate with the office downstairs. There were three bath-rooms upstairs, with hot and cold water. Three bedrooms and the ladies’ sitting-room opened on to the balcony with a Rusden Street frontage.
There were 36 rooms in all, of which 28 were bedrooms. On the ground floor there were bedrooms, a dining room large enough for a ball-room, the kitchen, and five parlours. The double bar was situated at the corner of Rusden and Marsh Streets, well away from the residential portion of the hotel. Accommodation was also provided for five motor cars. The appearance of the hotel was “of scrupulous cleanliness and luxurious comfort”. George Nott was the builder, while the furnishing was carried out by Messrs. J. Richardson & Co., and “their joint labours resulted in a job which is a fine advertisement.”
The application for a license for the new St Kilda Hotel was granted when the Bench met on October 10, 1913. There were other additions after 1913, but their story will be told some other time. Features about glimpses of the hotel’s history ought to end with one. This final glimpse is from an Armidale newspaper in February 1914:
“A frisky bull occasioned some considerable excitement at the St Kilda Hotel on Friday. The animal was being apprehended as a stray by the local Inspector, and was apparently not-over anxious to renew his acquaintance with the local pound. He was being negotiated past the hotel when suddenly he made a dash for the main entrance hall, and caused extreme consternation to the maids and others when he suddenly showed up. The Inspector eventually got him out, but he again made a dash for the hall, and this time started to paw the carpet and snort angrily.”
