Cremorne property

The Cammeraygal and the north shore

Before the First Fleet arrived, the land where Cremorne now stands was home to the Cammeraygal, a group of the Kuringgai Aboriginal nation. The group lived along the north shore of Port Jackson and was among the largest in the Sydney area. The suburb of Cremorne lies on the Lower North Shore, six kilometres north-east of the central business district.

Where the name comes from

The name Cremorne comes from the Cremorne Gardens in London, a pleasure ground that was popular in England. That name in turn came from the Old Irish words Crích Mugdornd, which are given as meaning 'boundary' or 'chieftain' of Mugdornd. Críoch Mhúrn, the Gaelic name that Cremorne anglicises, means roughly the 'Bounds of Mourne'; Cremorne was a barony in County Monaghan.

The 1st Viscount Cremorne, an Irish peer, took his title from that barony in County Monaghan, and his name went to a London residence that later became the Cremorne Gardens. Other accounts say the name referred instead to the land of an ancient tribe in County Monaghan.

Cremorne Gardens in Sydney

In 1856 the Cremorne Gardens in Sydney were established on the peninsula that leads to Robertson Point. They followed the Cremorne Gardens in Melbourne, which date to 1853. The Sydney and Melbourne gardens were two of many pleasure grounds of this kind laid out across Australia between the middle of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth. The Sydney gardens closed in 1862, and their name stayed with two places: the suburb at the site of the gardens, Cremorne Point, and the suburb of Cremorne itself to the north.

Heritage places today

A number of places in Cremorne appear on heritage lists, including the New South Wales State Heritage Register and the North Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2013. Dalkeith in Bannerman Street, and Belvedere and Egglemont, both on Cranbrook Avenue, are on the state register and in the council's plan. The council's plan also names the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace and the SCEGGS Redlands site, both on Military Road, and the former Cremorne Girls High School in Murdoch Street.

Living in Cremorne

Cremorne is a suburb on Sydney's Lower North Shore, six kilometres north-east of the central business district, between Mosman and Neutral Bay. One locality inside the suburb is Cremorne Junction, and Cremorne Point, a small residential suburb, lies immediately to its south.

Heritage places in the suburb include sites on Cranbrook Avenue and Bannerman Street, and the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace on Military Road. Both Cremorne Point and Cremorne take their name from the Cremorne Gardens, which stood on the peninsula leading to Robertson Point.