The Cumberland Place and Steps are heritage-listed steps and a laneway located at Cumberland Place, in the inner city Sydney suburb of The Rocks in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1807. It is also known as Suffolk Lane; Stubbs Lane; Gloucester Lane; and Cribb's Lane. The property is owned by Property NSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 10 May 2002.
The top steps lead to Cumberland Street. A set of steps at the lower end of the place leads to Harrington Street. Cumberland Place gives access to the rear of Susannah Place, a heritage-listed building, formerly cottages and a store and now a museum.
History
The 1994 archaeological investigation on the Cumberland and Gloucester Streets site confirmed that Cribbs Lane was in existence, between Cumberland and Gloucester Streets, by at least 1811. However the laneway may have existed earlier as early maps and plans show a footpath or track between Cambridge and Cumberland Streets on the alignment of Cumberland Place by 1807, and the convict butcher, George Cribb, purchased a house in 1809 that lay along the alignment of the laneway. Cribb set about purchasing properties around this house, and all this land was on the southern side of the laneway alignment. By 1811 he owned almost half of the land on the area today included in the Cumberland and Gloucester Streets archaeological site, including along Gloucester Street.
Cumberland Place between Cambridge and Gloucester Street is on the same alignment as Cribbs Lane between Gloucester and Cumberland Streets, so this could indicate that Cribbs lane extended from Cumberland Street to Harrington Street. The section between Cambridge Street and Cumberland Street was called Cribb's Lane by 1823
Harper's Plan of Sydney 1823 shows Cribbs Lane labelled as 'Stubb's Lane', with name crossed out. Between Harrington Street and Cambridge Street the thoroughfare is not shown but there is a clear area in the exact location of the lane, between building lines. Inspection of a copy of the original shows that a laneway may have been drawn in this location, but it wasn't labelled and is very faint. It appears that in 1973 the overlay map made use of knowledge of the area and filled in the blanks. By 1825, similar through lanes (e.g. Longs Lane), were well established, and their names recorded on contemporary maps. Gloucester Street itself did not have a regular alignment.
One of the boundaries to Cumberland Place at the eastern side of Gloucester Street is Susannah Place, a row of four terrace houses (one serving as shop), constructed in 1844. Harpers map of 1823 indicates structures here by that date facing Cambridge Street and this could be interpreted to mean that the boundary of Cumberland Place was already set by the time Harper's map was surveyed in the early 1820s. A public house was in operation on this site from c.1824. A building application dated 20 October 1830 for a two-storey stone building included a provision for Cribbs Lane to remain.
The first original depiction of a thoroughfare between Harrington and Gloucester Streets in the location of Cumberland Place appears in the 1832 NSW General Post Office (GPO) Directory. An 1838 plan of Sydney is the earliest known official plan that shows the name of the "Cribbs Lane" between Cumberland and Gloucester Streets.
In the 1840s, the gaol moved from its site on George Street to Darlinghurst, and the original gaol building was demolished. A plan was drawn up to show the land of the gaol and the "Proposed Realignment of Harrington Street". The plan shows a "Proposed Lane" where Cumberland Place is now. This laneway was already in existence by that date, so this plan could be the instrument used to formalise the thoroughfare. Similarly, Globe Street, which was also depicted in some earlier maps and plans, is here marked as a "Proposed Street", indicating that in 1848 it had not been officially recognised.