March 5, 2026 will go down in history as a pretty good day for local history In Campbelltown.
Just after 11am in the morning, Campbelltown Mayor Darcy Lound unveiled a photographic “mural’’ titled Living History in the Downtown Plaza.
The photo collage is a tribute to the Downes family and their contribution to Campbelltown and Queen Street in particular.
In 1951, the three Downes brothers, Rex, Clive and Bryce (pictured below), all accountants from the lower North Shore of Sydney, started what turned out to be the oldest continuously run shopping centre in Campbelltown.
The mural board is located opposite the entrance to the latest major tenant in Downtown Plaza, the Campbelltown City Library, which like Spotlight before it occupies two floors of the premises.
A member of the second generation of Downes, Derek, represented the family at yesterday’s celebration – 75 years after the three Downes brothers opened the first shopping mall in Campbelltown.
Which was decades before Campbelltown Mall and Macarthur Square came to town.
Downes in Campbelltown was one of several such Downes shopping centres across regional NSW.
“The family wanted to open stores in regional NSW, and in those days that pretty much what Campbelltown was – even though things started to change in the 1970s,’’ Derek Downes tells the South West Voice when we sit down for a quick chat before the official proceedings got under way yesterday.
“We were synonymous with Campbelltown,’’ he says.
“Queen Street was the hub of Campbelltown, until the 1980s, and we were the focal point of Campbelltown.
“Everybody would come to us – we had a supermarket downstairs as well, before Coles and Macarthur Square came into town,’’ Mr Downes said.
“I met Darren Zammit (LJ Hooker] four years ago, he put me in touch with Michael Chalker and it’s great we’ve been able to talk about where we’re going and there’s someone who can continue the tradition , the family name in Campbelltown, because a lot of people still recognise the name of Downes.’’
That new owner, Jamie Zois, who bought the Downes building with his father around 10 years ago, also attended yesterday’s historic event.
Michael Chalker – who ran Chalker’s Music in Downes Plaza for decades, played a key role in bringing yesterday’s event together.
Mr Chalker, who was also there representing the Campbelltown historical society, went back in time, metaphorically, to describe the timeline of Downes, all the way back to 1951.
As a big fan of TV time traveller Dr Who, he brought a small Tardis along to proceedings, which was rather amusing.
Real estate agent Darren Zammit also attended, along with veteran Councillor Meg Oates, and one of the newest members of council, Cr Khaled Halabi, who also happens to be a long time tenant of Downtown Plaza.
Once the photo mural unveiling was completed, VIPs and guests headed upstairs for a cake cutting ceremony in front of another history-laden display that include front page stories of Downes in the local newspapers – which are sadly now no longer with us.
But that’s another chapter of history in Campbelltown waiting to be written.
