Four in Hand given a hand

BY JOHN MOYLE

Who ever would have thought that Australians would be fighting to save their local pubs, but this is what is happening in Paddington as the Four in Hand comes under threat of being converted into residential premises.

Over the past couple of months the much loved 140 year old pub located on Sutherland Street has been at the centre of a well orchestrated campaign run by local residents including Woollahra councillors, ex-News Ltd boss John Hartigan and actor Rhys Muldoon.

Last Monday night the Woollahra Council voted unanimously for a motion put by Residents First councillors Harriet Price and Luise Elsing that Council undertake an assessment of heritage significance for the hotel and for it to be listed as a local heritage item and to place it on the State Heritage Register.

“It was a fantastic result,” Councillor Harriet Price said.

While this may not ensure that the pub keeps trading as a local it may just be enough to deter any prospective buyer wanting to upsize.

The reason for the recent trend to convert pubs to residential is clear when real estate agent Gavin Rubenstein told Hospitality Directory: “There’s more residential value in the site because it has 700sqm of internal space than there is in its use as a pub”.

The hotel is on the market for $6 million, having sold six poker machines.

Since Paddington’s first wave of gentrification in the ‘70s, the suburb has undergone several make-overs from its working class origins, including the 16 pubs left in the area.

“There is a passion and drive from people who have signed on to this campaign that this pub is not lost for future generations,” Clint McGilvray, savethefour campaigner said.

The demise of the corner pub is state wide with over 100 pubs having closed since 2008, while in that time around 1,000 bottle shop licenses have been granted and recently on-line delivery is growing.

Leichhardt has lost four pubs since 2015 and Paddington has seen the closure of the Windsor Castle for residential and the conversion of the Albury and the Paddington Green into retail spaces

In Bondi Junction the Bull and Bush and the Mill Hill have also been converted to apartment developments.

The corner pub is one of Australia’s most important social institutions where people can come together in some semblance of equality and the only judgement made is on whether or not a person acknowledges their shouts.

American housing industry blogger Michael Hickey puts it more philosophically when he writes “The vaunted ‘third space’ isn’t home, and it isn’t work – it’s more like the living room of society at large. It’s a place of both possibility and comfort, where the unexpected and the mundane transcend and mingle”.

“I think of these pubs in terms of community hubs and areas where people can meet and we are losing these traditions with the busty environment in which we live,” Cr Price said.

“It’s not just the bricks and mortar of these buildings but the social aspects as well.”

Everyone remembers the film ‘Shaun of the Dead” where the corner pub, the Winchester Arms, was the community safe haven from the ravenous zombies outside.

Well, think again, as in 2008 the real pub used in the film, the “Duke of Albany”, was converted into flats.

To ensure the future of the Paddington pub the Woollahra Council is expediting the Paddington Pub Project that will look at various protection and controls for the pubs and how they can be protected.

Clint McGilvray doesn’t see this as the end of the effort to save the Four in Hand as campaigners gear up to keep the pressure on.

“We continue to have a groundswell of people wanting to get on board by buying T-shirts and putting corflutes in the front yards of their neighbours and friends,” he said.

That this campaign has attracted international attention and the support of over 9,500 change.org signatures says that this pub is not going down without a fight.