Lilyfield Suburb Review

Gorgeous parks, greenery & waterfront are offset somewhat by price and noise.

Summary: Lovely Lilyfield is one of the greener suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West, with a pleasant abundance of spacious public parklands, ovals and other outdoor spaces dotted throughout. Its waterfront portion on the Parramatta River is particularly gorgeous, and abuzz with families and singles alike. Its location is also convenient, with the city not far away, and large homes and schools make it family-friendly. Prices are high, it’s a little lacking in amenities, and plane noise are its main cons.

Key stats

Situated alongside the lively Leichhardt and the picturesque Annandale, Lilyfield includes elements of both – with the added benefit of a wonderful slice of waterfront thrown in for good measure.

Perhaps more than any other suburb in the Inner West, Lilyfield is the one where most of its joy to be had comes from simply being outdoors. It’s one of the most surprisingly nature-rich suburbs in the region; while viewed from the traffic-heavy hecticness of the City West Link Road it might look like an average and bland slice of suburbia, deeper inside Lilyfield is anything but.

Lilyfield’s home to a huge array of great green spaces, mixing together excellent public park lands, ovals, sporting fields and more into a fairly compact package. Add in its tree-heavy streets, and you can’t walk for five minutes in the suburb without encountering something visually pleasing.

Its location alongside the Parramatta River provides an extra dose of colour and activity to the proceedings, as well. While other suburbs nearby are mostly landlocked, the waterway offers opportunities for kayaking, rowing, or simply sitting and admiring the views. There’s a reason the Leichhardt Rowing Club sits here; sitting along the waterfront and looking back over towards Rodd Island and Drummoyne is wonderful, for example.

Outdoor Living

Its track from Callan Park and the oval around to popular wedding and event venue Le Montage is particularly scenic, particularly on a sunny day.

This abundance of green space has obvious crossover benefits for those with kids and pets as well, as even those who opt to save money with an apartment will have plenty of play-space. It’s no surprise to see the quantity of strollers being pushed along Lilyfield’s array of well-planned walking/running/cycling tracks – families of all sizes can find pretty appealing living accommodations here.

Lilyfield features ample open public green spaces for play & relaxation

Despite its working class origins, Lilyfield is now pretty thoroughly gentrified, and there’s an aura of money here. Much of the suburb is either quite high-end terraces mixed in with upmarket, renovated large old homes that are impressive in both design and size.

A lot of these sit on blocks that, while fairly narrow, run back a deep distance and provide a deceptive amount of living space. Driveways are a bit of a luxury in much of the Inner West; not so here, as they’re fairly standard. As a result, even larger families (with money to spend) can find space mixed in with its convenient location.

And that location is quite appealing, as well. Lilyfield sits around a 20 minute bike ride from the Sydney CBD, and although it lacks a heavy rail station, light rail offers a ~25 minute trip to Central to make up for things.

Traffic here isn’t great; the City West Link is packed most of the time, and its cross-section with Balmain Road is a bottleneck in particular. There’s regular bus services to the city, but the traffic along it’s route can blow out what should be a 30+ minute commute time to far longer, so sticking to the tram if possible is ideal.

“Perhaps more than any other suburb in the Inner West, Lilyfield is the one where most of its joy to be had comes from simply being outdoors.”

Amenity-wise, Lilyfield’s not amazing but has enough to get by. There’s small-scale grocery stores, several boutique homewares and furniture shops, a small assortment of cafes and restaurants, a bowls club, and a semi-large IGA near the tram station.

It’s got nothing on Leichhardt in terms of dining options, however all of those are just a short drive or walk away depending on where in the suburb you live. There’s almost nothing to offer younger partygoers; most of the rest of the Inner West does that much better than Lilyfield.

For fresh produce and other tasty goodies, the Orange Grove Market should be your stop of choice at the similarly-named primary school on Saturdays. This is an excellent spot to grab fruit and veg that won’t immediately go off like supermarket equivalents.

The school itself is no slouch in terms of a place for the kids to attend, and Lilyfield itself is quite surprisingly well-equipped in terms of education in general. The University of Tasmania campus here is pleasant, and offers higher-education courses as well.

In terms of the suburb’s few negatives, well… they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and few images sum up Lilyfield as well as this:

Pictured: a lovely, spacious, safe and highly green suburban street… with a plane flying low overhead. The flight path here is always going to be a factor, as airplane noise is fairly substantial.

Also, unlike some of its neighbouring suburbs with air noise, Lilyfield’s property hasn’t dropped in price unlike some neighbouring suburbs in a similar situation. Whether you believe this is due to its waterfront aspect adding extra desirability, or the fact that it’s simply more pleasant, it’s something to consider.

Lilyfield ranks as one of the more expensive options in the area for housing. $1.6 million or so is the going price for a mid-level house, and given how many of Lilyfield’s homes are quite a lot bigger (and impressive to behold), that can jump up to the $2+ million mark very quickly.

It’s also not as high-density apartment-rich as many of the Inner West’s other suburbs, and there’s not as much new construction around for supply either outside of some modern townhouse developments along Balmain Road. The apartments that are on offer for rent aren’t too bad; $500 per week is enough for a decent 2-bedder.

The Verdict

Few other suburbs in this part of Sydney can match Lilyfield’s public green spaces, its larger housing blocks, and its overall “outdoor” aesthetic. If you’re looking for a place to live that’s near the city but still offers plenty of space to kick a ball around, or have a decent sized backyard to play with the dog or kids, then this is the place to be – assuming you’ve got the coin for it.

While Lilyfield’s a little lacking in the “man-made” things to do department – there’s virtually no big shops – and its dining and drinking scene is quite small-scale, its proximity to others nearby and the city itself helps alleviate this somewhat.

Plane noise is its other main issue – some may be able to easily tune it out, but light sleepers should consider it as a potential factor before committing.

Overall, however, this is quite a classy suburb that’s up-and-coming in terms of image and is very nice to simply “be” in. It’s not quite Balmain or perhaps even Rozelle just yet, but Lilyfield also offers enough of its own that both of those do not to stand proudly on its own.