Wakefield Street, Adelaide


Wakefield Street is a main thoroughfare intersecting the centre of the South Australian capital, Adelaide from east to west.

Location and description

It runs in from east to west between East Terrace and Victoria Square, and is one of the three streets to run through Victoria Square in the middle of the Adelaide city centre. The same three streets are also the widest streets in the city centre, at wide. The western end of Wakefield Street is continued across Victoria Square as Grote Street, which extends to West Terrace. The eastern end of Wakefield Street continues as Wakefield Road across the Adelaide Park Lands to Britannia Roundabout on the City Ring Route, Adelaide. Wakefield Road continues on the eastern side of the roundabout as Kensington Road.
Buildings on Wakefield Street include:
The temporary Adelaide Street Circuit racetrack includes a portion of Wakefield Street. Since 1985, a partial road closure has occurred most years to open the racetrack for motorsport events.

History

The street was named after Daniel Bell Wakefield, the solicitor who drafted the Act which proclaimed Adelaide. Like his brother Edward Gibbon Wakefield, he was also involved in the South Australia Association in London, but never visited Adelaide.
In 1911 the Willard Hall and Willard Guest House were opened by the South Australian branch of the WCTU, named after Frances Willard, United States national president of Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The building, previously St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, was situated on the south side of the road, west of the east side of Gawler Place. In 1928 an old bell was found in the tower, which was probably the first bell cast in Adelaide and made for the church. A 1939 photograph shows the new art deco additions to the building, and the premises of Frank J. Siebert, Funeral Director, on the left.
The Unitarian Christian Church which once stood opposite Francis Xavier's Cathedral was sold to the Public Service Association in 1971. It was replaced with a government building known as the "Wakefield House", a 20-storey building in brutalist style completed in 1980.

Junction list