Sylvania, New South Wales

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Princes Highway, Sylvania, view towards Tom Uglys Bridge

Southgate Shopping Centre, Sylvania

Sylvania Heights Plaza, Princes Highway

Sylvania is a suburb, in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Sylvania is located 22km south of the Sydney central business district in the Sutherland Shire. The postcode is 2224.

Sylvania is located on Horse Rock Point, where the Tom Uglys Bridge crosses north over the Georges River to Blakehurst, in the St George area.

Sylvania is mostly residential but also contains some commercial developments on the Princes Highway and Port Hacking Road. Sylvania Heights is a locality in the western part of the suburb. Sylvania Waters is a separate suburb, to the east.

1 Commercial Areas
2 History
3 Local involvement
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Commercial Areas

Southgate Shopping Centre is located on the corner of the Princes Highway and Port Hacking Road. It contains two supermarkets, a discount variety store, specialty shops, a bowling alley, a gymnasium, fast food restaurants and a pub. A small group of shops and restaurants is located on Princes Highway near the foot of Tom Uglys Bridge. Another group of shops is located further west along the Princes Highway at Sylvania Heights, which includes Sylvania Heights Plaza.

[edit] History

The naming of the suburb is unclear, but ‘sylvan’ which means inhabiting the woods, relates to the setting of this suburb. The existence of a Sylvan Street, off Princes Highway, seems to confirm this. Thomas Holt (1811-88) owned the land that stretched from Sutherland to Cronulla. This also explains the Sylvanian Street, Holt Rd, which runs off the Princes Hwy near the Sylvania Heights shops and extends as far as Jannali. Holt had built Sutherland House on the foreshore of Gwawley Bay in 1818, on the eastern side of Sylvania. He established the Sutherland Estate Company in 1881 and a village grew here, with a post office opening in 1883. The school opened in 1884 but closed in 1891 and was not reopened until 1925. Sylvania Heights Public School opened in 1955.

Much of the land of Sylvania Waters was reclaimed from Gwawley Bay. Sylvania Waters Estate was developed by L.J.Hooker in the 1960s and land offered had water frontages with boating facilities. Streets were named after Australian rivers to emphasise the association with water, such as Shoalhaven, Tweed, Murrumbidgee, Hawkesbury and Barwon.

Before the subdivision much of the area was farmed. An original farm house still stands today in Chester Street, where the land was used for raising pigs.

[edit] Local involvement

Being apart of the Sutherland Shire, the local council area, many of the people in Sylvania are associated in activities within this area spanning from Sylvania to Cronulla to Taren Point to Sutherland. Many people who do not live in the Sutherland Shire area tend to dislike people from this area as they seem to be very patriotic for their "Shire". Most people in Sylvania will support their local NRL team, The Cronulla Sharks, go to the beaches at Cronulla and shop at Miranda Fair.