Rhodes, New South Wales

Infobox Australian Place | type = suburb
name = Rhodes
city = Sydney
state = nsw


caption = Rhodes, view to Homebush Bay
lga = City of Canada Bay
postcode = 2136
est =
pop =
area =
propval =
stategov = Drummoyne
fedgov = Lowe
near-nw = Meadowbank
near-n = Ryde
near-ne = Putney
near-w = Homebush Bay
near-e = Concord West
near-sw = Homebush Bay
near-s = Liberty Grove
near-se = Concord West
dist1 = 16
dir1 = west
location1= Sydney CBD

Rhodes is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Rhodes is located 16 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Canada Bay.

Rhodes sits on a peninsula between Bray Bay and Homebush Bay, on the southern bank of the Parramatta River and is located about 3 kilometres from the Telstra Stadium, Olympic Park (home of the 2000 Summer Olympics), Sydney International Aquatic Centre, Bicentennial Park and Millennium Parklands.

The suburb has three sections with distinct characteristics:
# The eastern section, east of Concord Road, is predominantly single dwelling residential and parkland. It features two residential streets, Cropley Street and Llewellyn Street, which front the Parramatta River.
# The central section, between Concord Road and the Main Northern railway line, is mixed commercial, single dwelling residential, warehouse/office developments and community facilities. It includes Rhodes Corporate Park, built on the site of the former Tullochs Phoenix Iron Works, two office blocks with some retail opposite the station, the Rhodes NSW Fire Brigades station (staffed by retained volunteers), single dwelling residences, the former Rhodes Public School (now a community centre), a Coptic Orthodox church and facilities, the Masonic Aged Care Hostel, warehouse/office development along the river and the First Yaralla Sea Scouts.
# The western section, west of the railway line, features new developments on the former chemical works site and includes the Rhodes Waterside Shopping Centre, many new (2007) apartment blocks and a public foreshore walkway with two small parks.

The western section is sometimes called "new Rhodes", with the central and eastern sections called "old Rhodes".

Notable Residents

* Muriel Dickinson, Medal of the Order of Australia (for Community service), 14 June 1982
* 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown
* Nina Gray, Order of the British Empire - Medal (Civil) (for Community Service), 03 June 1972
* Will Thomas, former judo champion of Oceania

Transport

Rhodes railway station is on the Northern line of the CityRail network. The station is about 30 minutes from the Sydney CBD, by rail.

The Ryde Bridge links Rhodes to Ryde, across the Parramatta River. Rhodes is on a major North/South road, Ring Road 3, which consists of Mona Vale Road, Lane Cove Road, Concord Road, Homebush Bay Drive, Centenary Drive, Roberts Road and King Georges Road. It is close to two main East/West links, Victoria Road to the North and the F4/Parramatta Road/City West Link to the South.

Buses service Rhodes along Concord Road.

There are ferries from Meadowbank to the City and Parramatta. They can be accessed by walking across the former John Whitton bridge, a railway bridge now replaced.

History

Rhodes was named after the home of an early resident, Thomas Walker (1791–1861), which was built on the north-eastern side of the peninsula. Walker named his property Rhodes after his grandmother's home, Rhodes Hall, in Leeds, England. The house was demolished in 1919, when the land was purchased by the John Darling Flour Mills, later owned by Allied Feeds Limited.

Community

Rhodes has one of the last Volunteer Fire Brigades in metropolitan Sydney. It was established on land owned by the McIlwaine family (for whom McIlwaine Park is named). Three generations of the McIlwaine family have been Captain of the Brigade.

Rhodes Public School was a 2 teacher school in Blaxland Road, now closed and turned into a community centre.

First Yaralla Sea Scouts has a hall near Ryde Bridge. The hall was rebuilt in brick after the original hall was destroyed by fire. Dragon boat paddling also takes place from this site.

The Concord Rhodes Open Sailing Club (now Concord Ryde Sailing Club) operated from King George V park until relocated to Putney to allow for the building of the duplication of Ryde Bridge.

Rhodes Residents Association has represented the community for over 20 years, greatly supported by the Kendall and Nicholl families.

Development

Industry invaded the once picturesque and heavily forested isthmus in 1911 when Messrs. G & C. Hoskins established a large foundry specialising in the manufacture of cast iron pipes for gas and city water reticulation purposes. In 1930, their operations moved to Port Kembla and in 1935 the site was taken over by CSR ["The Former Hoskins Sidings at Rhodes" Eardley, Gifford Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, November, 1971 pp255-260] . During the period from about 1930 to the mid-1980s the western part of the suburb, between Homebush Bay and the railway line, was taken up by chemical manufacturing. The main manufacturers were Berger Paints, CSR Chemicals (Australia's major manufacturer of phthalates later taken over by Orica Chemicals, then a subsidiary of ICI), Union Carbide now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company which made Agent Orange, used as a defoliant during the Vietnam War at its Rhodes plant, and Allied Feeds, a grain and stock feeds company which sat on a site which had been substantially reclaimed from the Parramatta River by Union Carbide who used the reclamation area as a dumping ground for its contaminated industrial waste, contaminating land and sediments with dioxin. The remediation of the former Union Carbide site, the former Allied Feeds site and a strip of heavily dioxin contaminated sediments in Homebush Bay have been the subject of extensive analysis, investigations and community activism, including by the Rhodes Peninsula Group (http://rhodesnsw.org).

Commercial Area

Rhodes features a mixture of single dwelling residential, high density residential, major retail developments such as the Rhodes Shopping Centre (including IKEA), commercial, warehouse/office developments and community facilities.

The Rhodes Corporate Park developed by Australand is located at the corner of Concord Road and Homebush Bay Drive and includes businesses such as National Australia Bank, and Nestle.

Parks

Rhodes features a foreshore path and cycleway, which will eventually link to an extensive network of foreshore parks in Sydney.

There are a number of foreshore parks in the eastern part of the suburb, including McIlwaine Park, King George V Park, Brays Bay Reserve (which contains the Oliveto restaurant), and Rhodes/Rotary Park. There is also the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway, which connects Brays Bay Reserve with Concord Hospital, a memorial to those killed in Papua New Guinea on the Kokoda Track during World War II. Concord & Ryde Sailing club was located in King George V Park until construction of the second Ryde Bridge required its demolition with the club re-establishing at Kissing Point in Ryde.

References

* "The Book of Sydney Suburbs", Compiled by Frances Pollen, Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1990, Published in Australia ISBN 0-207-14495-8

Notes

External links

* Rhodes Peninsula Group http://rhodesnsw.org
* The Stanley Hall Collection of photographs of railway rolling stock produced at Tulloch Limiteds Phoenix Iron Works, Rhodes http://www.ozsite.com.au/files/hallcollection2.htm