Petersham, NSW 2049

Love Petersham. Great family suburb.

Petersham has it all, and is such a great place to live for all ages. We have owned and lived in an apartment on Stanmore Road for close to 5 years, and it so conveniently located to all local amenities, including great cafes, pubs, parks, grocers, schools and public transport.

Everything is walking distance. However, it you do need to hope into the car, we find that is very centrally located to all areas in greater Sydney.

There is a hidden beauty about Petersham, with so many classic heritage facades and iconic buildings and spaces. Everyone we have met also seems super friendly, I've never been greeted many so many smiles and hello's whilst walking down the street!

Get in whilst you can, as Petersham is definitely an underrated gem.

We bought an apartment here just over 12 months ago and have loved every second of living in Petersham.

We moved here because Marrickville became so busy and gentrified that it just felt suffocating. Plus we could get a nicer, bigger apartment for about 100k less here. So we moved to Petersham - knowing nothing about the suburb - and are so happy we did. The shops have the charm of the smaller Inner West villages, there are two beautiful parks within 2 minutes of our house to walk our dog.

Also - the fruit shop has changed owners and is now call Mayfair Fresh. The produce is awesome and the staff are lovely. It’s a little pricey but better than the generic bland Woolworths fruit and veg.

Petersham is an underrated gem. Wouldn’t leave, even when we are ready to upsize in 5 years we’ll be looking to stay here!

We do get some airplane noise, but no worse than when we were in Marrickville. I would also just like to say that I’ve also noticed people commenting on “unsavoury characters”. To me this just seems a bit paranoid and snobbish - the kind of behaviour you’d expect from someone who moves next door to a pub, then complains about the noise. We love the colourful characters of Petersham, we often people watch from our balcony - there’s a great array of characters here!

There will be good and bad people no matter where you live and I reckon a lot of the people here are labelling others as “unsavoury” based on the practice of judging a book by its cover. Chill out and enjoy this amazing suburb!

I think that the location here is seeing a lot of change but retaining its old charm. It really is going to depend on where you decide to stay, but the amount of amenities here are quite commendable from the sounds of things. You might just be able to find a nice place to set up your family. I'd be a bit worried about the seedy characters that some of the reviewers say they've seen, but I'm sure that it's not rampant in the area is it?

Petersham offers great food, transport and friendly people.

i love petersham

Old world charm with modern conveniences, great family feel, community driven with proximity to CBD just too easy.

Made the mistake of renting here, high price, under flight path, cockroaches, only good thing about the suburb is the kebab shop and gas station. Had a small 1 bed apartment , no direct sun, impossible to get the net connected , not in walking distance too supermarkets , generally dirty, worst suburb in Sydney, if I could I'd ask for my rent back. Horrible.

I live on Crystal Street. We have planes overhead, often 90 seconds apart and we can't watch TV without headphones without missing half of what is said. Lots of traffic, even in the quiet streets because many cars take back streets to avoid congested Parramatta Road. We moved here in 2011 and it wasn't that bad - planes were only frequent in wet weather. Now they seem to be all the time. Lots of people walking about too and you have a lot of street noise. Small yards but everyone seems to have 2-3 dogs so lots of additional noise too. It's not fun
On the positive side, houses are old and beautiful and public transport is among the best in Sydney

Petersham was not on the top of my list of Inner West suburbs to live in but we could not be too picky when house hunting. I now love living in Petersham and love supporting the local businesses. The place is very friendly with a great community vibe. The shops are great and the area is continuously improving.

Quiet (except planes), short stroll to Newtown and City.

We've rented a unit in Petersham for nearly a year now and we honestly can't wait until our lease is up. If you simply must live here, stay as far away from Trafalgar Street as you can. Not only is it absolutely filthy, but you've got the train noise, the bus noise, and the planes flying overhead as well as a constant influx of inconsiderate people who like to yell at the top of their lungs in residential areas. There are also frequent trackworks which means you have buses replacing trains throughout the entire night on the weekends, and Sydney Trains always use the oldest, noisiest buses for this purpose, so you can forget about getting any sleep on these nights.

Let me elaborate on the yelling you get to hear in this neighbourhood. When we first moved in, we were quite entertained by the amount of loud bogan couples having expletive-laden arguments, but it got old really quickly. A couple of weeks ago I actually witnessed a woman being punched in the face by what appeared to be her boyfriend. They then carried on into the night, screaming and swearing at each other and leaving me honestly fearing for my safety.

Oh! Speaking of safety, I forgot to mention the junkie that one of our neighbours caught shooting up in our communal laundry room. Then there was the time that yet another junkie tried to break into our unit while we were INSIDE it and then after he was caught, just went downstairs and tried the same thing with one of our neighbours. We had a great time watching him get searched and arrested by police directly outside our window (this all happened at around 11am on a Sunday - we're not talking about the middle of the night here). So there's one positive I can bring to this: The police in Petersham are quick to respond to the copious amount of junkie crime that seems to exist in this suburb.

Finally - the shops. I hope you like dingy convenience store-style supermarkets, because Foodworks (the only supermarket here) leaves a lot to be desired. You'll more than likely end up having to drive to Leichhardt or Marrickville to get food to cook. You can pretty much forget about dining out unless you want to live on a diet of Portuguese chicken burgers (Silva's is great, but not every night). We always hop on the train and go to Newtown if we actually want to eat out, so the transport out of here is a plus. There are maybe two nice cafes, but neither of them open on Sunday, so good luck getting any Sunday brunch here. We were pretty excited about the new Oxford Tavern opening and thought this might spice the suburb up a bit and encourage some cool new businesses to move in, but to be quite honest i'm not sure if Petersham is going anywhere in that regard. Counting down the days until we're out of here!

Petersham is fantsatic. We're close to shops, restaurants, parks, schools and nightlife. The community spirit is great - it makes a big difference!! Shops are close and transports is easy. This is an excellent suburb that should not be missed!!!

Petersham is part of old school Inner West Sydney. It is only a twenty minutes' drive west out of Sydney City. You can still find many heritage terraces and houses here. The train station is really old and somehow does not look like it will get a revamp any time soon. A lot of the students from Fort Street High School use the train station so during the mornings you will have to tolerate a lot of school children getting off the train. The train service is infrequent and sometimes, train services do get cancelled. The Livingstone Road side of Petersham has lots of Portugese restaurants that are nice and hearty as well as pubs and other restaurants.