1890s Block Plan Maps of North Sydney

The North Sydney Detail Sheets Series were drawn to provide the Public Works Department, and later the Board of Water Supply and Sewerage with the details of land ownership and building positions necessary to plan the location, capacity, etc for projected sewers. The maps also include

These plans were made under the direction of the NSW Surveyor General and are true plans drawn from surveys made by Licensed Surveyors. This North Sydney set was drawn between 1890-1896 and surveys only those parts of the then Municipality which had been subdivided and built upon. Large areas of the Council area are therefore not represented including the present day suburbs of Cammeray, Wollstonecraft, Cremorne Point and North Cremorne.

The Borough of North Sydney (now North Sydney Council) acquired a set for Municipal planning purposes at the time of the survey, and this was transferred to Stanton Library in the 1970s for inclusion in the David Earle Local Studies Collection. The following sheets are missing from the series and copies on aperture cards obtained from Sydney Water in 1983: 3,4,17,20,30,36,46,56,59. Sheet 37 is missing entirely from the series. There are additional markings and notations on these maps.

Each sheet has an entry in the bottom right corner “Traced by [initials of surveyor plus date], Examined by [initials of surveyor], Additions by [initials of surveyor plus date]”. This indicates the date of the original plan and subsequent date of additions made to the plans and by whom.

On the plans substituted from the collection at Sydney Water, each sheet has an entry in the following terms; “Transmitted to the Surveyor General with field notes and my letter 5 May 90 No. 3” and this is followed by the signature of the surveyor and which indicates the date of the original plan. Other plans note; “Drawn in Detail Survey Branch from Field Notes of Sur: [name].”

The half and full size images have been scanned from the hardcopy (aperture card when original missing) at a resolution of 300DPI and the high-resolution download image has been scanned at approximately 4000pixels per inch.

This is designed as a reference database with each sheet being indexed by suburb, streets (present name followed in brackets by former name as it appears on sheet), landmarks (e.g. topographical and physical features) and building names. Date or survey and additions to maps are also noted in the relevant fields of each record.