Cammeray

Cammeray is a residential suburb located five kilometres north of the Sydney Central Business District (CBD) and is part of the North Sydney Council local government area.

Cammeray is a residential suburb located five kilometres north of the Sydney Central Business District (CBD) and is part of the North Sydney Council local government area. Cammeray is part of the Lower North Shore region of Northern Sydney.

Cammeray takes its name from the Cammeraygal people, an Aboriginal clan who once occupied the Lower North Shore. Radiometric dating (carbon dating) indicates that indigenous peoples lived in the Cammeray area at least 5,800 years ago and Aboriginal shell middens have been discovered at Folly Point and cave paintings in Primrose Park.Prior to the 1920s, the suburb was known as Suspension Bridge reflecting the now Long Gully Bridge that joined Northbridge to Cammeray. Cammeray was slow to develop mainly due to its steep topography and remoteness from transport.

Despite the land boom of the 1880s and plans for a suspension bridge across Flat Rock Creek, development in the Cammeray area was mostly confined to the south of the suburbwith some boatmen?s houses on Folly Point. The rest of the district was very rural consisting of bushland, dairies and market gardens. Cammeray was also the site of Sydney's first quarry, with sandstone blocks from the quarry making many of the first buildings in Sydney town.An Australian politician and solicitor, Joseph Palmer Abbott, built Tarella, a two-storey Italianate mansion in Amherst Street, c. 1886, on land he had acquired in 1881. Palmer Street in Cammeray was named after him. Tarella includes a coachhouse at the rear, with a distinctive clock tower. It is listed with the Heritage Council of New South Wales.

In 1892, a suspension bridge was built as a private initiative by the North Sydney Investment and Tramway Company, to attract buyers for new residential allotments on the north side of Long Bay. In 1914, the first tram crossed the bridge, conveniently linking the new suburb and beautiful Middle Harbour peninsulas to the more developed parts of North Sydney. Land sales revived in 1909 when the tramway along Miller Street was built, with a string of subdivisions opening up, including the Bell's Estate (1909). In the mid 1930s faults were discovered in the bridge's steel cables and anchorages in the rock below so public transport was interrupted with passengers having to walk across the bridge as trams waited on either side.

Estates established in the 1920s and 30s included the Morning Glow Estate (1921), Cammeray Estate (1932) and Green's Estate (1935).By the 1940s motor transport made the area more accessible and many waterfront houses were built. The last substantial subdivision in Cammeray was of the "Three Oaks Dairy? in 1942. It is recorded, however, that as late as 1958 dairy cattle still grazed at Cammeray.

In the 1960s Cammeray's residential progress was interrupted when the Warringah Expressway cut through most of North Sydney including Cammeray. Portions of St Thomas' Cemetery and Cammeray Park were resumed, as well as numerous houses, particularly in the area between Falcon and Amherst Streets. The Warringah Expressway also divides Cammeray, with the only crossing points being at West, Miller, Ernest and Falcon Streets.

Amherst Street was named after William Pitt Amherst, who was Governor-General of India from 1823-28. Heritage s include Tarella at 3 Amherst Street and the Cammeray Substation at 143 Bellevue Street.