How to Build a Street

Woodblocking

The appointment of Adrien Mountain as the new City Surveyor in 1879 signalled a change in the method of road building. Mountain was keen to experiment with different methods to supplement or replace macadamised roads. The first experimental woodblocks were laid in King Street, between Pitt and George Streets, in August 1880.

Sydney did not pioneer the building of woodblocked streets, which were first tried experimentally in London in the 1840s, but it did embrace the method with enthusiasm. The method utilised Australian hardwoods which were exceptionally well suited to the task and very long lasting. From today’s perspective the use of so much hardwood for street making seems profligate, but in 1880 it seemed the Australian bush could yield up a cheap and durable source of urban improvement for the foreseeable future, and the roads, which were better than anything previously built, were enormously popular.

George Street (South)

George Street (South), a.k.a. George Street West, c.1890s. Steam trams shunt their way up towards the city and there is a constant flow of traffic along the main thoroughfare. You can see the pattern of the woodblocked road in the foreground. This street was widened in the early twentieth century and renamed Broadway.

Enormous interest was aroused by the question of how best to construct a woodblock road, both within the engineering fraternity and by those interested in sanitary affairs. The continuing problems with jointing, and ongoing public doubts as to what the gaps might harbour, resulted in experiments with ever decreasing size of openings, so that by 1900 the blocks, steeped in a tar solution, were hammered up as close as possible. This minimised rounding at the edges of the blocks. A top surface of tar was added and in many cases the woodblocked road outlasted the hard bluestone cubes which were often laid at busy intersections.

(image: City of Sydney Archives, SRC photographic files)

 

George Street (South), now Broadway
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Pitt Street

Pitt Street, corner of Market Street, c.1900. The streets are wet from either watering down the dust or from a typical Sydney shower of rain. Woodblocks could become slippery under certain weather conditions, a problem which was initially dealt with by distributing sand when required, but finally removed by the practice of top dressing with a tar, or tar and sand, mixture.

(image: City of Sydney Archives, SRC 110)

Bent Street, c.1880
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A lesson in woodblocking

Woodblocking Macquarie Street, 1925. There are many descriptions of the process of woodblocking, but perhaps the most revealing is that of L. C. Rodd, as it provides a sound economic motive for the interest, as well as insight into the relationship between residents and Council workers. Written in the early twentieth century, it could just as easily relate to the nineteenth:

The tarring machine slowly moved its way up Bourke Street. The woodblocks were passed by hand along an assembly line of men, fed into the hot tar, to slide out on a sloping tray. Other men with rough canvas gloves on their hands picked up the tar-dripping blocks, passed them to men in the lines that dropped the blocks into rows. A couple of men walked along the top of the laid blocks to give each new row a few deft taps with a sledge hammer. Several rows were laid at the same time, the men working from both sides of the street and leaving a broad triangle in the centre for the key man. He judged accurately the size of the block needed to fit the last place. With a sharp hatchet he cut a block to the exact size, fitted it and checked that the whole row was in alignment before he completed the next. I stood by with a sugar-bag, waiting for his nod. Those pieces of woodblock spiced with tar were a useful contribution to our fire. Wood was an expensive item.
(L.C. Rodd, The Gentle Shipwreck, Nelson, Melbourne, 1975, p.80)

(image: SPF, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales)

A lesson in woodblocking
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World leader

By 1912 the City Surveyor thought that the city had ‘the largest woodblocked area in the world owned by one municipality’. Although this method of road building was not used after 1932, repairs and relaying of woodblocks continued until after World War II, for it was a durable form of road. In 1934 the City Engineer presented graphically the types of roadway pavements and the relative amounts laid on Sydney streets. Dusty dry macadam roads dominated Sydney streets well into the twentieth century.

(image:City of Sydney Archives, CRS 42/4, City Engineer’s Annual Report, 1934)

World leader
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Past their use-by date

Deteriorating woodblocked road surface in Castlereagh Street, between Goulburn and Liverpool Streets, 1932. The holes have been spot filled with bitumen, but the uneven road surface remained a hazard. The Council reconstructed parts of Castlereagh Street in 1932, replacing the woodblocks with sheet asphalt on a concrete base.

(image: City of Sydney Archives, CRS 57/314)

Past their use-by date
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Beyond repair

Parramatta Road, Camperdown 1931. Detail of woodpaved surface showing subsidence from heavy traffic.

(image: City of Sydney Archives, CRS 42/4, City Engineers Annual Report, 1931)

Beyond repair
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Superseded

The City Engineer records the newest road-making technique being laid and tested in Park Street 1929 by the Neuchatel Asphalte Company. Woodblocked roads were gradually upgraded with asphalt from the late 1920s.

(image: City of Sydney Archives, CRS 57/111)

Superseded
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