I make no secret of the fact that I’m an occasional local history nerd and am completely mad for photographing modern versions of old photos of local scenes when I stumble across them.

So when I heard about the Bernhardt Holtermann photographs of 1870s(ish) Sydney on the most excellent scratching sydney’s surface segment on fbi radio a couple of weeks ago, I was intrigued. I was even more intrigued when I looked at the photos (which are amazing and the quality astonishing) and found some of our suburb!

So I was compelled to seek out the most obvious:

Click for the zoomable version of this photo – I’m not kidding about the seriously amazing quality.

It is interesting to see the ever-so-slight changes to the building over time – the entry is slightly changed, the smallest vertical windows have been removed and the larger changes (of course) as the suburb has developed, the vast expanse of churchyard has been reduced to a small carpark with a wee strip of garden.

Of course I’m dead-keen to track down the other locations in the area, but the descriptions are rather vague and I suspect most of the buildings are long gone.

Now I am in a new suburb, there’s loads to explore and discover!