Welcome, it’s Adrian Bo from Ray White Park Coast East and this week as part of my local history series I’m on Waltham Street in Coogee to relate some interesting local stories to continue my passion about our local community history as to preserve and not cancel our colourful local legends. Firstly, 1A Waltham Street, an impressive two story Victorian mansion, originally named “Maidstone”, was built over 130 years ago between 1887 and 1889 by a local watchmaker named Thomas Alcock, and features a metal rounded dome ceiling and cedar fittings inside. At the time Waltham Street was called Francis Street. It was renamed due to Thomas Alcock’s business which sold watches and jewellery from a store in the Haymarket at 673 George Street. Alcock sold a wide range of watches, but his favourite brand was Waltham, hence the street was renamed to Waltham Street, as it is today. The Waltham Street Watch Company produced around 40 million watches in the United States of America, including clocks, speedometers, compasses, and other precision instruments between about 1850 and 1957.

And in fact, despite the company closing in 1957, the Waltham brand is still made under licence in Switzerland producing mechanical wrist watches and mechanical pocket watches. The Waltham Watch Brand has an extraordinary following of devotees because a group of volunteers banded together to create a database of all Waltham serial numbers, given each watch has a unique serial number engraved within it. I personally find this fascinating given personally I’m a collector of antique watches and a very keen observer of time keeping masterpieces. In fact, would you believe at least two passengers on the Titanic went down wearing a Waltham watch in 1922. One was a gold plated Waltham Bond Street worn by Carl Asplund. The watch’s hands were frozen in time at 2:19 AM, one minute before the Titanic officially sank. The other known Waltham watch from the sinking of the Titanic was a solid gold Waltham Riverside which is still intact, and part of the collection of John Miottel at the Miottel Museum in Berkeley, California, in America. Thomas Alcock became a leading figure in the Sydney horse racing scene, being a director of the Rosehill and Kensington race courses, as well as the official timekeeper, in fact, at a range of tracks. He passed away, unfortunately, in 1902 from complications due to pneumonia leaving an estate valued at 24,000 pounds.

In 1922 the property was purchased by the Catholic church as it borders St Brigid’s Church and later was restored by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. St Brigid’s Catholic Church is close to my heart, which you can see behind me, given I am a local parishioner, and it’s where I got married to my beautiful wife, Megan, in 2008. Another significant landmark that is no longer visible was the ambulance station that was once on the corner of Waltham Street and Arden Street, very close to us here. It was built in 1921 by a local builder named Sutton to accommodate six ambulances, as well as numerous offices and facilities, including a repair garage. The ambulance station was removed in the 1950s to a brand new state-of-the-art facility on High Street at Randwick. The original building here on Waltham Street now houses a local popular Vietnamese restaurant called Banana Palm on the corner of Arden Street there. Now, I’ve sold many properties on Waltham Street during my 34 year career, and most recently the street had four sales last year, being units 8, 10 and 11 at 1-3 Waltham Street, as well as number 3 at 5 Waltham Street. Prices have ranged anywhere between $1.14 million for a one bedroom apartment all the way up to $1.689 million for a two bedroom apartment. I’ve also sold many properties personally close by including unit 1 at 291 Arden Street, 5 at 3 Alexander Street, 6 at 4 Edgecumbe Avenue, 7 at 137 Brook Street, 16 at 178 Beach Street, 28 at 14 Kidman Street in Coogee, and many, many more. So Waltham Street has some interesting history, and it’s my passion to keep stories like these alive about the area I’ve been living in and selling real estate for over three decades. Please enjoy the end of summer, and hopefully the wet weather is behind us as we move into autumn, and always remember, your home is worth more with Adrian Bo.