Northbridge – Excerpt from Jean Miller’s Oral History Interview (1930

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Well I lived through the war years at Northbridge, which of course is part of the Willoughby Municipality, and from my sister’s house in Tenilba Rd we looked across a green valley which then had no houses on it. There were Chinese gardens down in the hollow adjacent to the Willoughby Paddocks and there was a haunted house up on the hill at Castlecrag. Very little building had been done at Castlecrag until the end of the war.

The Burley Griffin houses were there, and there were some boatsheds down on the point and that was all. The Edinburgh Rd group of cottages hadn’t been built. The road had been opened from Eric St. It was a World War I soldiers group of houses I believe. The Suspension Bridge had been rebuilt before the war, so Northbridge was an isolated point with a big valley on either side. I had very little contact with Chatswood area because I worked on the other side of the harbour and my interests were there.

The road went through Eastern Valley Way and when this was completed the bus route went through this area. Before this, the tram ran across the Suspension Bridge, and in the rebuilding years people had to walk across the bridge and a bus or tram took them across the other side. Northbridge was the area I knew then and buildings around Northbridge Baths, and that area was going ahead.

Willoughby itself I wasn’t in very much, until I moved across to Second Avenue in 1948. In 1948, with big blocks of land, everyone kept fowls and had big gardens. The milkman delivered milk and the baker called; even the clothes prop man and Rabbito.

For more about Jean Miller, you can view the full oral history transcript at Chatswood Library.