History of the site

Lynch’s Prawns was an iconic family business on the Newcastle foreshore for 60 years from the time they started trading in 1935.  The foreshore is now unrecognisable from what has gone before, in those days the waterfront was ugly, dirty and dangerous.  The general public would ordinarily only cross to the waterfront side of the rail tracks for a few reasons: to catch the punt to Stockton, to dangle a line in the harbour or pick-up a pound of prawns for dinner from Lynch’s.  The que at Lynch’s often stretched out of the door, along the side of the building and around the corner.  However, that too was part of the attraction, it was a place to catch up and have a natter, it was a focal point for the urban community in our city.

Newcastle is changing so fast.  Novocastrians have waited a very long time for this and it is sorely deserved.  We do need to be careful in all of this excitement of re-discovering and re-defining Newcastle, that we don’t lose sight of what it means to be Novocastrian.  The Lynch's building and its history in our community is important.  We are enormously proud that we have been able to breathe new life into this landmark on our harbour and to restore it to its role as a focal point for the Novocastrian Urban Community as a physical touch point to the proud human history of that Community.