What happened
The Royal Oak stood at 387 Church Street, on the corner of Ross Street in North Parramatta, and the date it was given was 1829. The New South Wales liquor register dates only the modern licence, from 28 September 1959, but it is what dates the ending, and precisely. In the liquor licence premises list published for March 2020 the hotel holds thirty gaming machines. In the April 2020 list it holds none, while the Albion, the Commercial, the General Bourke, the Collector, the Tollgate and the Rose and Crown all still hold their thirty, so the emptying is this pub's and not the pandemic's. Transport for New South Wales had acquired the corner for the Parramatta Light Rail. The licence outlived the building: it is recorded at 387 Church Street as late as the February 2021 list and at 404-406 Church Street, across the road, by December 2021, where it trades under the same name and the same licensee.
What is there now
The light rail, and the name across the road. OpenStreetMap maps the Parramatta Light Rail along Church Street past the corner; stage one opened on 20 December 2024. The hotel licence and the name trade at 404-406 Church Street, with thirty gaming machines again by the June 2024 list. The site is still a local heritage item in the Parramatta Local Environmental Plan 2023, item I501, "Royal Oak Hotel and stables and potential archaeological site". Time Gents, a pub-history site, reported the hotel demolished in May 2020; we have not traced an official record of the demolition, and one unnamed single-storey building footprint is still mapped on the corner.
Location recorded from New South Wales liquor licence premises list, March 2020, licence LIQH400105401 at 387 Church Street (https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/dataset/liquor-licence-premises-list).
Sources
Knew this pub, or have a photograph of it?Tell us