Fanny Place, Surry Hills on Friday 15 January 2021

It’s a small lane, lined by neat, freshly painted houses. People who live here meet for a glass of wine outside on Sunday evenings, as I discovered one day when coming past by coincidence. Today a plaque in the small playground tells me that the area became a desired address in the 1830s. In the 1860s mechanics, shopkeepers and skilled artisans moved in. And by the turn of the 20th century, it was an overcrowded slum. Now Fanny Place looks gentrified and rather wealthy.

The plaque doesn’t tell me that this was and always will be Gadigal land.