Balcony

A first-floor balcony at the Terminus Hotel runs along the John Street side of the upper storey, the cast-iron lacework balustrade carrying the line of the facade between two posts. The decking is timber, painted in the institutional dark green of the pub's exterior trim, weathered to grey at the centre. The lacework is original cast-iron, the pattern intact in most sections, with one panel missing where it has rusted through and dropped away. The brick wall at the back of the balcony has lost some of its render. Ivy has climbed onto the balcony at one end. The light reaches the space from the open sky above. The wider street is visible through the lacework.

Cast-iron lacework balconies were the standard upper-floor decoration of Federation-era hotels across inner Sydney, often used by the upstairs guests in the cooler hours of the evening. The visible balcony is part of the 1917 Tooth and Co. demolition and rebuild of the Terminus, with the lacework consistent with the kind of foundry-cast detail the period favoured. The pub closed in 1983 and the balcony was left to itself for the 33 years that followed. The 2018 restoration involved structural and cosmetic work on the upstairs verandah. The balcony in this photograph is the pre-restoration state, made in 2016.