There are no markers on the streets and promenades. But don't be concerned, the streets of Manly are clearly identified. Be adventurous, take your own diversions, sit and have a coffee if the mood takes you, and rejoin the walk refreshed.

This walk is a part of Manly's heritage strategy. Along the way you will discover our Heritage Plaques which identify and inform you of places of special interest.

The Heart of Manly Heritage Walk begins at Manly Wharf. But you can start the walk at any point. Look for the bold headings in the text to help you find the information that matches your location.

The Heart of Manly Heritage Walk is devised as in a clockwise direction, circumnavigating The Corso. Once you have finished the walk discover one of Sydney's busiest and most colourful places, The Corso.

Enjoy the Heart of Manly Heritage Walk and discover why Manly is unique.

Begin your exploration of Manly at the point at which most people have started their visits over the last 200 years since Europeans settled here. For thousands of years before that Aboriginal people roamed this coastal area hunting, gathering and fishing. There were two local clans, the Cannalgal and the Kayimai. They made huts from bark, branches and driftwood or sheltered in caves and under rock ledges. They shared a close relationship with their surroundings and the creatures of the land and sea, illustrated by rock carvings. Regrettably there is little known evidence about their lives in this area before European settlement.

There was little European settlement in Manly during the first half of the nineteenth century, partly because it was remote from Sydney, but also because the land was unsuitable for agriculture. However, this did not deter Henry Gilbert Smith. In 1853 he bought some land in the area with the vision of Manly, with its splendid ocean beach and sheltered sandy coves, becoming "the favourite resort of the Colonists".

In 1855 Smith built the first Manly wharf, and soon after an intermittent ferry service started, used mainly by day trippers. Four years later he purchased shares in the paddle steamer Phantom, sometimes called Puffing Billy, and the first regular service began. The timetable advertised a 30 minute trip but in rough weather it could take an hour or more. Phantom could carry 166 passengers, whose only protection from the weather was a canvas awning stretched over the single deck.

In the early 1860s if there were sufficient theatre-goers and others wanting to
travel to the city in the evening, Phantom sailed to Sydney about 7pm and waited there to make the return trip. With engineer Robert Grant as super- intendent, those arriving well before the 11pm departure roasted potatoes in Phantom's boiler furnaces. Whisky, coffee and baked potatoes made a supper that everyone could enjoy on the journey home. This gathering was known as the Hot Potato Club.

For nearly a century the Port Jackson Company developed and operated the ferry service. In 1972 it was taken over by Brambles Industries and two years later by the New South Wales Government. Hydrofoils were introduced in the 1960s, halving the time for the trip. They proved to be unreliable and costly to maintain and in 1990 were superseded by jetcats, which could transport many more passengers on each trip. The ferry service continues to be popular and transports commuters and millions of visitors to and from Manly every year across Sydney's magnificent harbour.

Leave the ferry terminal by its front entrance and cross to The Corso

The Corso links Manly Cove with the ocean beach. An existing track was widened by Henry Gilbert Smith in 1855 and named after a major street in Rome. Manly Council's original planting of Norfolk Island and Monterey pines and Moreton Bay and Port Jackson fig trees have been replaced by palms at this end of The Corso.

This building which still stands has been incorporated into a car show room at the junction of Pittwater and Balgowlah Roads. The first trams were steam-powered but replaced by horsedrawn ones when passenger numbers declined. Steam trams were reintroduced in 1907 and later electric trams were used. The line was extended in stages to reach Narrabeen by 1913, but the plan to take the tram to Pittwater was never realised. In 1911 a single tramline was opened between Manly and the Spit. Until the first Spit Bridge was opened in 1924, travellers crossed the water by punt before joining another tram. When buses replaced the trams, a mock funeral service was held to farewell the last tram as it left Manly Wharf about 1.30am Sunday I October 1939. A wreath was placed on the front of the tram which, draped in black, travelled to the depot accompanied by the muffled beat of two drums. However the mood was not sombre as the crowd of passengers and followers sang such songs as 'Pack Up Your Troubles' and 'Auld Lang Syne'.

On the corner of West Esplanade and Belgrave Street once stood the Pier Hotel, one of the first of Henry Gilbert Smith's buildings in Manly, constructed the same year as the wharf. It later became known as the Grand Pier Hotel. The building was demolished to make way for the Hotel Manly, completed in 1926. An Art Deco tower was added to the hotel in 1935. Art Deco was a decorative style of the 1920s and 30s using geometrical shapes and Egyptian and Greek motifs. A statue of Captain Phillip by sculptor Raynor Hoff was set in a niche in the tower facing The Corso. Raynor Hoff also created the sculptures on the Anzac Memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park. In 1989 the Hotel Manly was demolished and the statue will be a feature of the new apartments and shops to be completed in 1995. '

Manly Council was incorporated in 1877. The present Town Hall, designed by local firm Trenchard Smith & Maisey, opened in 1937 to mark Council's 60th anniversary. The columns are decorated in the Egyptian Revival style. The discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 attracted world-wide interest and led to the revival of Egyptian themes in architecture. Another example of this style are the pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge.