Historic Sydney Mansions, Manors, Villas & Houses : Demolished

Lyons Terrace – Liverpool Street (opposite Hyde Park) – Sydney CBD – NSW

Built 1841 · Designs begun by John Verge (1837), completed by John Bibb · Demolished in stages 1910–c.1923/1925

Facing Hyde Park on Liverpool Street — opposite where the Anzac Memorial now stands — emancipist auctioneer Samuel Lyons built a row of five elegant townhouses in 1841. Contemporary praise called them “without exception the best in the city.” Cleared in stages for Wentworth Avenue, a picture palace, and the YWCA. Welcome to Lyons Terrace — not a surviving terrace in Darlinghurst; not Lyons’ other city ventures under one roof.

At a glance

Address / site: Liverpool Street, Sydney, opposite Hyde Park (DoS ~−33.8771, 151.2116); footprint opposite the later Anzac Memorial frontage
Built: 1841 (DoS; SLNSW); initial designs 1837 by John Verge, completed by John Bibb (DoS)
Builder / client: emancipist trader and auctioneer Samuel Lyons; each house said to cost £5,000 in SLNSW interpretive notes
Style: substantial Regency / early Victorian terrace row of five houses — Peacock 1849 oil and later photographs show the full run facing the park
Notable occupants: senior colonial officials; Chief Justice Sir Alfred Stephen listed at Lyons Terrace in Sands 1858–59 (SLNSW catalogue note)
Fate: westernmost house demolished 1910 for Wentworth Avenue; next two became the Australian Picture Palace; remaining fabric cleared for YWCA headquarters (1923 in SLNSW interpretive text; DoS last demolition 1925 — conflict left visible)
Surviving fragment lore: cast-iron Ionic columns reused by William Hardy Wilson at Eryldene, Gordon (SLNSW note)

Site & setting

Liverpool Street’s park frontage was prestige CBD residential before the twentieth-century civic and commercial remake. Lyons Terrace read as a London Regent’s Park–class terrace facing the open Domain/Hyde Park common. RAHS Green Plaque 99 later marked the site (DoS). Keep this post off Darlinghurst Liverpool Street cottages and off Samuel Lyons’s auction-room biography except as client context.

Timeline

1837 – Verge initial designs for the terrace row (DoS).
1841 – Five houses built for Samuel Lyons; Bibb completes the Verge scheme (DoS).
1849 – George Edwards Peacock paints the terrace facing Hyde Park (SLNSW DG 218).
1858–59 – Sir Alfred Stephen at Lyons Terrace (Sands / SLNSW).
c.1875–1885 – Albumen photographs record the mature street front (SLNSW SPF/406).
1910 – Westernmost house demolished for Wentworth Avenue / Central access improvements.
1910s–20s – Two houses become Australian Picture Palace.
1923 / 1925 – Remaining terraces cleared for YWCA headquarters (SLNSW vs DoS dates).
1984–88 – RAHS Green Plaque 99 commemorates the site (DoS).
Today – Civic / commercial Liverpool Street frontage opposite Hyde Park; no terrace fabric.

Architecture & interiors

A row of five elegant townhouses, Verge begun and Bibb finished — among the colony’s finest urban terraces. Peacock’s 1849 view and the later albumen print are the visual evidence. The Eryldene column reuse is the only widely cited fabric survival after demolition.

People & anecdotes

Samuel Lyons — emancipist auctioneer — built for senior government and professional tenants, not as a single family palace. Sir Alfred Stephen’s occupancy links the terrace to the same judicial elite who lived on the Heights (Dowling at Brougham; Forbes circle). Hardy Wilson’s salvage of Ionic columns for Eryldene is the architectural afterlife.

What stands today

Lyons Terrace is gone. Stand on Liverpool Street opposite Hyde Park near the Anzac Memorial axis; the terrace row is civic memory and Green Plaque territory, not standing houses.

Map pin: Liverpool Street, south side of Hyde Park, Sydney CBD.
Do not confuse with Darlinghurst Liverpool Street cottages.
Demolition spanned 1910–c.1925 in stages.

Sources & further reading

Dictionary of Sydney — Lyons Terrace: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/lyons_terrace
SLNSW — View of Lyons Terrace, Hyde Park (Peacock, 1849): collection interpretive text
SLNSW — [Lyons Terrace, Liverpool Street, Sydney] albumen SPF/406 (catalogue notes: Stephen; Demolished houses of Sydney / Joy Hughes)
RAHS Green Plaque 99 — Lyons Terrace (via DoS)
Joy Hughes (ed.), Demolished Houses of Sydney (Historic Houses Trust, 1999) — cited in SLNSW catalogue
Existing scrapbook post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2017/08/lyons-terrace-sydney-demolished.html