Glebe

Glebe traces its name to a 1790 church land grant so unpromising that its first owner, chaplain Richard Johnson, called it worthless and abandoned it within years. The guide follows the estate's 1828 auction into twenty-seven allotments, and the divide it created between the grand villas on Glebe Point's high ground and the workers' cottages and industry crowded around Blackwattle Swamp below. It traces that split as it shaped the neighbourhood's streets over the following century.