The Sir William Wallace Hotel is an historic pub

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 in the suburb of Birchgrove

Birchgrove, New South Wales

Birchgrove is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Birchgrove is located 5 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt....

 on the Balmain Peninsula

Balmain

Balmain can refer to:Places:* Balmain, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia* Electoral district of Balmain, an electoral division in New South Wales, Australia* Balmain East, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia...

 in the inner-west of Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, in the state of New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

The pub is one of a number of buildings which formed an integral part of the shipbuilding and industrial history of the local area.

History

The pub is named after Sir William Wallace

William Wallace

Sir William Wallace was a Scottish knight and landowner who became one of the main leaders during the Wars of Scottish Independence....

, the famous 13th century knight

Knight

A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

 and Scottish patriot, although the reasons for choosing the name are not known. The close proximity to Mort's Dock and later Balmain Colliery ensured early patronage. The pub is now frequented by locals to whom it is affectionately known as the "Willie Wallace" or "Willie Wallie".

A mural depicting pub life, complete with regular patrons, was painted on an internal wall in 1995. The mural contains an image of actor Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...

 who provided perhaps the best known account of the life of William Wallace in the 1995 film Braveheart

Braveheart

Braveheart is a 1995 epic historical drama war film directed by and starring Mel Gibson. The film was written for the screen and then novelized by Randall Wallace...

. A signed poster from the film also hangs on the wall in the main bar.

Architecture

The pub is a heritage-listed building of local significance built in the Victorian Filligree style. It is a two storeyed corner hotel with a panelled lace upper verandah, timber posts to street and iron lace ballustrades. It is a rare example of a hotel still in its original state.

Use as a filming location

• The pub was used as the location for the 1975 Australian film Caddie
  Caddie (film)
  Caddie is an Australian film, directed by Donald Crombie, released in 1976, and belonging to the Australian film renaissance which occurred during that decade....
  
  , starring Helen Morse
  Helen Morse
  Helen Morse is an Australian actress who has appeared in films, on television, and on stage.-Biography:Morse was born in Harrow on the Hill, Middlesex, England. She was the oldest of four children; her parents were a doctor and nurse...
  
   and Jack Thompson
  Jack Thompson (actor)
  Jack Thompson, AM is an Australian actor and one of the major figures of Australian cinema. He was educated at University of Queensland, before embarking on his acting career. In 2002, he was made an honorary member of the Australian Cinematographers Society...
  
  .

• The hotel was featured in the opening scenes of the 1994 film The Sum of Us
  The Sum of Us
  The Sum of Us is a play by David Stevens.The plot revolves around the comfortable relationship between widower Harry and his gay son Jeff and their individual searches for the right mate. Harry unconditionally loves his Rugby-playing son, and even takes an active part in Jeff's search for Mr. Right...
  
  .

• In 2001, the hotel was used as a location for an episode of the UK series The Bill
  The Bill
  The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
  
  .