little village with a mere 1200 people and only about 300 buildings. Its southern boundary was Liverpool Road, beyond which lay the even more sparsely settled village of Enfield. The railway from Sydney to Parramatta opened in 1855. There were four stations – Newtown, Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush. In 1874 Five Dock station opened and in 1876 changed its name to Croydon. That same year Concord station opened, renamed Redmyre in 1877 and again renamed to Strathfield railway station in 1885. In 1860 the number of daily trains to and from Sydney was six each way. Two level crossings at Burwood Road were replaced by overhead bridges in 1892. The third bridge and set of railway lines were built in 1926. Opening the railway was a momentous event for Burwood as it made the suburb easily accessible to the city and brought a number of wealthy merchants and industrialists who built spacious country houses. The population rose from 7400 in 1900 to over 20000 by 1930. In 1912 steam trams were replaced by electric trams. The tram from Ashfield to Enfield was extended to Burwood and Mortlake in 1899 and Cabarita in 1907. Burwood Post Office In 1869 a post office was situated at the railway station. Postal services were previously conducted through general stores. In 1886, a new building was erected at the railway station and in 1892, the present day post office, designed by W. L. Vernon, was opened. The construction of new post offices continued throughout the Depression years under the leadership of Walter Liberty Vernon who retained office from 1890 to 1911. Although a total of twenty-seven offices were erected between 1892 and 1895, funds available to the new Government Architect's Branch were cut from 1893 to 1895, causing Vernon to postpone many important projects. George Oakeshott was the assistant draughtsman in Vernon's Office and had responsibility for post office designs. He had arrived in NSW from England in 1891 when he joined the Colonial Architect's Branch and was promoted to chief draughtsman in 1897, a position he held until his resignation in 1900. Reynolds (author) notes that he became the first director of the NSW Works Branch of the Department of Home Affairs, later transferring to the Commonwealth. He attributes the stylistic changes in the design of post offices under Vernon in large part to Oakeshott. This assertion is reinforced by the fact that the