ASN Co Building
1-5 Hickson Road, The Rocks
William Wardell, with Walter Liberty Vernon. 1884 to 1885; water tower 1892 to 1894. Victorian and Federation.
- Size
- About 56 m long, five storeys
- Material
- Polychrome brick over a stone lowest storey, sandstone dressings, timber posts and beams with cast iron capitals, slate roof
- Status
- State Heritage Register, 2002. Galleries, shops and offices
Robert Campbell built Sydney’s first private wharf on this shore in 1800. The Australasian Steam Navigation Company, formed in 1851, bought part of his land in 1876 and engaged William Wardell, the architect of St Mary’s Cathedral, to design its head office and warehouse. It opened in July 1885: five storeys, the first of stone and the rest of brick.
The site’s shape governed the design. A four-storey office bay stands at the north end under its spire, with a boardroom for shareholders, and four warehouse bays of different lengths step down the shore. The style is Pre-Federation Anglo-Dutch. It was among the last large warehouses in Sydney with a timber frame, and no later store of this construction was built in the area. The water tower came in 1892 to 1894 and fed one of the first sprinkler systems in Sydney, parts of which remain.
The company merged in 1887, and the Crown bought the building that year. It became the Government Ordnance Stores, passed to the Department of Defence in 1906, and from 1950 served as Commonwealth offices, with plywood and fibrous plaster partitions over the old structure. The Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority acquired it in 1989 and restored it to its 1880s appearance in the early 1990s at a cost of $5.7 million. One bay was gutted in 1990 for a cinema attraction, The Story of Sydney, which closed the next year.
Sources
- ASN Co building, Wikipedia
- ASN Co Building CMP, 1-5 Hickson Road, The Rocks, GML Heritage