Toxteth Estate was large, and there was a long curving carriageway from the nearest road. The gatehouse was an opportunity to build something small but picturesque.
Follow the curve of Avenue Road to the corner of Toxteth Rd, and on the corner is a Victorian Gothic stone gatehouse (c.1878). Like the gatehouses at Sydney University, the stonework is elaborate out of all proportion to its size, especially the columned porch and tall, angled chimneys. It is presumed this was the gatehouse for Toxteth Park, which we will see later. The hedges, carefully trimmed, match the picturesque architecture.
On the opposite corner is Emslee(1850), an early Victorian cottage with a shingle roof. At the rear is the earliest type of chimney – four pointed pieces of iron or slate arranged to form a funnel.
Turn left into Toxteth Road and left again into Allen Street. George Allen (1800-77) was born in England and brought to Australia by his widowed mother and became the first locally trained solicitor. He acquired immense wealth, and bought 95 acres of land in Glebe in 1828. The family name is preserved in this modest street, perhaps the most perfectly intact in Glebe. The dwellings are uniformly single storey, with substantial front gardens behind footpaths lined predominantly with Chinese elms.