Verandahs were for hitchin'

The verandah outside the 1886 Soul Pattinson Chemist

Pitt Street Mall is now a pedestrian plaza. I will chance my arm and declare it the retail heart of Sydney. Once upon a time, the streets of Sydney were littered with shop-front verandahs. They were probably a harking back to "the old country", but I prefer to think of them as a protection from the heat, or even a hitching post for the horse'n'buggy.

This is the facade for Eway & Co, a drapery department store established in 1891 and taken over by Farmers in 1955. The verandah is faux.

Showing the detail in the Soul Pattinson wrought iron.

The "Pitt Street Mall" in 1878. First the east side, then the west side.

Nowadays, there appears to be a harking back to the mid-19th-century, with the return of shop-front verandahs (faux, invariably). It is more easily accommodated in a pedestrian mall, than on a busy footpath beside a major street, like Pitt Street. I quite like the mental image they conjure up, of continuity. Make sure you enlarge the two historic images which I found on State Records Archives Investigator.

The detail of The Strand Arcade wrought iron.