Clovelly

Clovelly is a small beach-side suburb in Sydney's eastern suburbs, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Clovelly is a small beach-side suburb in Sydney's eastern suburbs, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Clovelly is located 8 kilometres south-east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Randwick, within the Federal Division of Wentworth.

Clovelly is a mainly residential suburb on Clovelly Bay. Clovelly Beach is a small beach that sits on the end of the narrow bay. Clovelly Beach was closed in March 2020 because of COVID-19. The bay is popular with swimmers. The bay is home to one of the first surf lifesaving clubs in the world, Clovelly Surf Life Saving Club, which was founded in 1906. Clovelly is surrounded by the suburbs of Bronte in the north, Waverley in the northwest, Randwick in the west and Coogee in the south.

Originally known as Little Coogee, the name was changed to Clovelly in 1913. When the search for a new name began, the English seaside town Eastbourne was suggested. The president of the local progress association, Mr. F. H. Howe, suggested Clovelly, the name of a local estate owned by Sir John Robertson, which was named after the village of Clovelly on the north Devon coast, England.William C. Greville bought 8 hectares (20 acres), which included the whole bay frontage, for 40 pounds in 1834. The area was dominated during the nineteenth century by the grand estate of Mundarrah Towers.

Mundarrah Towers was built for Dr Dickson in the 1860s. Samuel Bennett, who owned Australian Town and Country Journal, one of the most influential newspapers of the day, bought the property and made further grand additions. The Towers was demolished in 1926, to make way for suburban development. The Mundarrah Towers estate occupied the land around Burnie Street overlooking the western end of Clovelly Bay. Mundarrah Street honours this once grand part of Clovelly's heritage. Between Coogee and Clovelly, on the shores of Gordon's Bay, stood Cliffbrook, the home built for John Thompson. By the early twentieth century the first governor of the Commonwealth Bank owned this grand mansion which was substantially demolished in 1976. Some of the buildings of the Cliffbrook estate survive today at the corner of Beach and Battery streets. Now controlled by the University of New South Wales, these buildings were until the early 2000s occupied by the Australian Atomic Energy Commission.

Between 1871 and 1874, the northern cliff-face of Clovelly Beach, known as Shark Point, was the site of a coastal defence facility excavated from the sandstone to include barracks, a powder magazine and eventually in 1893, a 9.2-inch Mark VI British Armstrong "disappearing" gun. The subterranean barracks and gun emplacement were gradually demolished in the 1960s. This emplacement formed part of three gun emplacements originally designed to protect Sydney Harbour from a supposed Russian seaboard assault. Steel Point Battery

A public infants school was operating in Little Coogee as early as 1897, in the Mission Hall of the Church of England in Varna Street. Eliza McDonnell was the teacher with an average attendance of 76 pupils. Clovelly Public School officially dates from 1913 when the Department of Education provided permanent accommodation for a public school in Arden Street, Clovelly.

Major subdivisions for domestic housing commenced in earnest in Clovelly in 1909. The local progress association argued that there were 717 houses constructed within metres of the proposed tram route that had not yet been completed. Due to these lobbying efforts, the tram-line to Clovelly was completed between 1912–1913. This allowed Clovelly to continue developing throughout the 1920s. During the Great Depression Randwick Council instituted a scheme to keep unemployed men employed by building concrete foreshores for Clovelly in an attempt to make access to the bay's foreshores easier for bathers. The Council envisaged an Olympic size swimming pool in the bay, a facility that would also keep local men employed in the worst financial times. It was also planned to build a causeway/scenic road across the entrance to the Bay but wild storms in 1938 dashed hopes of this. The remains of the causeway are still visible at low tide, forming a protective reef. The plans were controversial; the merits of this work are still debated today.

In 1907, a surf life saving brigade was formed at Clovelly, inaugurating the surf life saving tradition in this suburb that has seen numerous heroic rescues, including "the rescue off Schnapper" or "the big rescue" of Sunday 4 December 1927. Surf Life Saving has been a predominate part of the culture and heritage of this scenic coastal suburb. Competitive swimming is also a dominant part of life in this idyllic coastal location.

Today the suburb is affectionately referred to as "Cloey" by many residents and locals.

The Clovelly tram line began at Alison Road to the intersection of Clovelly and Carrington Roads in 1912, then extending to Clovelly in 1913 helping to popularise the area. This line branched from Anzac Parade at Alison Road, and ran on its own tram reservation beside Centennial Park as far as Darley Road. Here it diverged from services to Coogee, to run north along Darley Road, then turned right into Clovelly Road to run down to its terminus at Clovelly Beach. Though services ran from Circular Quay and from Railway Square (from 1923), the line closed in 1957. The tram line followed the current route of bus 339.