community reveals its secrets to city explorers

John Dunn & Margaret Bishop
 Lower Fort Street

When they bought a Millers Point home for a city “adventure”, John Dunn and Margaret Bishop wondered how they would be received by long-time locals. But they found a warm, neighbourly community with the “best of everything”.

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“You've got the arts, theatre, galleries; there is a very vibrant city life right around it, but we are in this tiny little village that is separated from the rest of Sydney," John, 60, says.

“Plus the extraordinary houses, and the community. It’s a wonderful living history, there are some really strong, feisty characters around here … they are great to have as part of our community.”

The former teachers run an art publishing business from their 1830s home on the Dawes Point side of Millers Point. They are painstakingly restoring the building, which has slowly “revealed itself”, including the discovery of secret passages, John says.

He laments the “appalling” neglect of maintenance on many properties, which the government says are too expensive to restore using public money, and questions why every home must be sold into private hands.

“There are great long stretches that are very liveable, that are very suitable for public housing … that we think we should be allowed to hang on to,” he says.

“It’s really nice to live in a mixed neighbourhood … where you have all sorts of people, rather than one sort of group from society. We do want to conserve our community; it’s really being torn in two.”