Fairlight, New South Wales

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Fairlight
Sydney, New South Wales

Postcode:

2094

Location:

13 km (8 mi) north-east of Sydney CBD

LGA:

Manly Council

State District:

Manly

Federal Division:

Warringah

Suburbs around Fairlight:
Manly Vale	Manly Vale	Queenscliff
Balgowlah	Fairlight	Manly
Balgowlah Heights	North Harbour	Manly

Fairlight is a suburb of northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Fairlight is located 13 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of Manly Council and is part of the Northern Beaches region.

Fairlight lies between Balgowlah and Manly on both sides of Sydney Road, which is one of the gateways into the Northern Beaches. It reaches north past Balgowlah Road and the western boundary is Hill Street.

1 Landmarks
2 Sport and Recreation
3 History
4 Events
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Landmarks

Fairlight's most notable attraction is Fairlight Beach. Fairlight Beach is located on the Manly Scenic Pathway on Sydney Harbour, which can be followed for some kilometres to the Spit Bridge. Fairlight Beach experiences light harbour swells and southerly winds but is unsurfable, though swells were recorded up to 2m high after Hurricane Larry. It is not a surfing beach, as the shore is rocky and the break unpredictable.

The beach is notable for the shell grit that makes up most of the sand (largely missing from the beaches on either side and for a small rock pool that usually has 1.8 metres of water in it. At high tide, waves break over the walls and refresh the pool.

Fairlight is also home to a cemetery in Griffiths Street. The Manly Fire Station is located in Sydney Road, Fairlight.

[edit] Sport and Recreation

Fairlight Beach is a swimming and snorkelling spot for visitors and tourists alike and is visited by hundreds of people per day during the Christmas-New Year holiday. Fairlight Beach is also a vantage point to view harbour yacht races. Fairlight is home to the Manly Golf Club and Golf Course. Various shops and cafes are clusted in a small shopping centre in Sydney Road.

[edit] History

Fairlight takes its name from a house built by Henry Gilbert Smith (1802-1886) on land he bought in 1853 from John Parker who had received a land grant in 1837. Fairlight House was named after Fairlight, East Sussex, a historic village in Hastings, on the south coast of England.

Fairlight was originally only the area near the beach where Fairlight House once stood, and the suburb at the top of the hill was called Red Hill, due to the red gravel surface that Sydney Road had before World War II (it has long since been concreted). Fairlight was adopted because Red Hill is a common name that is used in many other places.

Shortly after World War II, a submarine moored at Manly was carried around to Fairlight by a storm, and wrecked off the beach.^{[citation needed]} Most of the parts were salvaged by the 1960s.