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The home where Sydney’s Queen of the Underworld sold drugs and illegal booze for decades sold on Saturday for $1.7million – nearly double its listed price.

The dilapidated Victorian terrace home in Surry Hills, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, is where Kate Leigh sold illegal substances to an assortment of character from politicians and upper class businessmen to thieves and prostitutes.

The four bedroom, one bathroom property is where she lived and ran her criminal empire until she died.  

Kate Leigh’s residence (pictured, centre) sits on a trendy Sydney street and has operated as a flower shop and now a cafe called Sly, which nods to Leigh’s illegal groggery, but the interior of the residence is run-down

Ms Leigh’s house was sold on Saturday for $700,000 more than the initial $1 million price

If walls could talk: In the kitchen of 212 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, where Kate Leigh ran a drug den, sly grog empire and standover operation for three decades

Kate Leigh, or Kathleen Barry as she was known during her marriage to small time crim and sly grog dealer Teddy Barry, sold cocaine, other opiates and operated a brothel. She was best know for her sly grog shops, which thrived when Sydney’s pubs were closed down after 6pm following a riot

The cafe called ‘Sly’ has leased the bottom floor of the three-floor terrace until July

The home at 212 Devonshire Street – one of 20 properties she operated as sly grog shops, including three on the same Surry Hills street – was purchased during an auction on Saturday afternoon for more than the initial asking price of around $1 million.

The bottom floor of the building houses a café called ‘Sly’ that has leased the space until July and the remaining floors of the three-floor terrace are prime for renovation, according to the realtors First national Spencer and Servi.

Known as ‘Mum’s’, Ms Leigh’s largest home was protected by a team of bashers and gunmen, and her own fearsome reputation. 

The kitchen of the crime queen’s old house is in dire need of renovation, but real estate agents selling the property say it is a golden opportunity for buyers to renovate the historic property

Although she never drank alcohol or took drugs, Ms Leigh (pictured) happily dealt in both, acted as a standover merchant, sold stolen property and occasionally shoplifted

Ms Leigh was a flamboyant and sometimes vicious character who by the mid-1920s was dubbed ‘the most evil woman in Sydney.’

Although she never drank alcohol or took drugs, Ms Leigh happily dealt in both and acted as a stand over merchant, sold stolen property and occasionally shoplifted.

From the early 1920s to the 1940s, men crowded the streets outside her establishments at nightfall on Friday and Saturday nights to gain entry and purchase alcohol.

The home got its nickname ‘mum’s’ from the pass code of calling around ‘to see Mum.’ 

The outdoor toilet at the back of the property (pictured) where thieves and prostitutes bought illegal alcohol after it was banned, allowing a flourishing trade in sly grog

Ms Leigh, pictured as a younger woman in her prison record when she served time at the Long Bay women’s reformatory in Sydney

The kitchen inside Ms Leigh’s old house has been left to fall into disrepair despite the front of the dwelling being renovated several times to house a flower shop and then a cafe

By the 1940s, Leigh was known as a larger than life character – wealthy, greedy, funny and generous to those she felt sorry for – whose name as a female criminal was rivalled only by another, Leigh’s bitter foe, brothel queen Tilly Devine.

Ms Leigh was then in her late fifties and 212 Devonshire Street was one of her rougher establishments, while another Surry Hills house at 2 Landsowne Street was her largest grog shop.

Ms Leigh and Ms Devine are characters in the true crime book Razor by Larry Writer, which dramatizes the criminal gang rivalry in Sydney’s inner suburbs in the early 20th century when gang members slashed their opponents with cut throat razors. 

The house known as ‘Mum’s’ (pictured) has fallen into a dilapidated state. Some of its ground floor interiors resembling the original terrace which Kate Leigh inhabited until 1964 when her fortune had dwindled and she died

Graffiti on the walls and an old poker machine in the living area at the back of 212 Devonshire Street

Mug shot: Pictured at Central Police Station after one of her many arrests, Ms Liegh still cut a stylish figure

A number of musicians have lived or visited the home in the decades since Ms Leigh’s 1964

The Nine network dramatized the book in the series Underbelly Razor, portraying Ms Leigh and Ms Devine as glamorous figures.

Ms Leigh was well-known among politicians and police officers, and well-liked by some, although she was called ‘a sinister, shadowy character,’ in the NSW Police Force Archives, according to an extract in Larry Writer’s book.

She had originally come from the central western NSW town of Dubbo where, as Kathleen Beahan, one of eight children of a Catholic bootmaker, she had been put in a girls’ home at the age of 12 and gave birth to her first child, Eileen, the following year, in 1900.

By the age of 15, Kate married her first husband, Jack Lee, a half Chinese illegal bookmaker and petty criminal. 

Kate Leigh, pictured at her 2 Landsdowne Street,Surry Hills house with her second husband, sly grog dealer Teddy Barry dressed as Santa Claus for one of their generous Christmas gift givings

The walls of Kate Leigh’s old house have been adorned with graffiti for many years now 

Real estate agents say the house is ready for a complete renovation and is an opportunity for someone to tunr the old sly grog shop into a stunning property

In 1905, Lee was imprisoned for assault and robbery and Kate was accused of lying under oath to protect her husband and convicted of perjury and for being an accomplice to the assault.

Her conviction was overturned on appeal, but the marriage was over. She anglicised her name to Leigh and by 1922 she was married to sly grog dealer Teddy Barry.

They separated, and she lived with one of her bodyguards Wally Tomlinson, who had a reputation as a tough stand over criminal in the 1920s, the razor war years.

Ms Leigh had established her lucrative sly grog business well before then, capitalising on the 1916 edict by the then NSW Premier, who following a riot of pub crawling World War I soldiers, called a state of emergency and closed Sydney’s pubs after 6pm.

Anybody thirsty after then would come to her home, and Ms Leigh’s fleet of illegal grog shops throughout the inner suburbs. When cocaine was outlawed in 1927, Ms Leigh sold both, at huge profits. 

Another view of thre makeshift kitchen inside 212 Devonshire Street Surry Hills, the Sydney property that was a sly grog shop and drug den in the 1940s

Bitter lifelong rivals Kate Leigh (above, left) and brothel madam Tilly Devine (above right) made up in later years when the two crime queens were nearing the end of their careers

Kate Leigh was living in 212 Devonshire Street, Surry Hils (pictured from the 1950s right up until her death from a stroke in 1964, when she was 82 years old

After alcohol sales in pubs were banned in 1916, drinkers would come to 212 Devonshire Street (pictured) and Leigh’s fleet of illegal grog shops throughout the inner suburbs. When cocaine was outlawed in 1927, Leigh sold both, at at huge profits.

Occasionally she was arrested for robbery, theft or, like in 1943 when police found 1,001 bottles of beer, 84 bottles of whisky and one bottle of gin underneath the floorboards of her Surry Hills house.

Two years later she appeared at Central Police Court in Sydney charged with having phenobarbitone in her possession.

Ms Leigh was by then in a de facto relationship with her business partner, Jack Baker, but in 1950, she married convicted West Australian criminal, Ernest ‘Shiner ‘ Ryan – the first Australian to use a motor vehicle in a payroll hold-up.

It was her final marriage and it lasted six months. 

Kate Leigh the sly grog queen and her criminal rival, brothel madam Tilly Devine pretend to be friendly but theirs was a bitter relationship

A 1950 magazine article described Kate Leigh, who lived at 212 Devonshire Street (pictured) for many years as ‘ tougher than most men, can punch, bite and gouge with the fierce courage of an animal’

Kate Leigh’s old house in Sydney’s inner suburbs had been operating as a cafe called Sly, a nod to her old sly grog business which operated after dark on the premises in the 1920s-1940s

A People Magazine article in the 1950s described her and Ms Devine as ‘the queens of Sydney’s slumland’ with ‘an empire of brothels, gambling joints, verminous flop-houses, sly groggeries and gin mills.’

The article described Ms Leigh – then aged 63 – as ‘stooped, fat and blowsy’ but with ‘little piercing eyes’ which ‘indicate her tremendous vitality.’

It said she had once been the ‘best looking girl’ in Surry Hills and had become tremendously wealthy through being a tough businesswoman.

‘She is tougher than most men, can punch, bite and gouge with the fierce courage of an animal,’ the magazine wrote.

”She is popular with the kids, particularly with her Christmas gifts. Every school lunch hour they cram her shop, laughing at her jokes.’ 

A newspaper report from May 1943 reports that police have raided Kate Leigh’s Surry Hills house, finding 1001 bottles of beer and 84 bottles of whisky under the floorboards

Underbelly Razor cast beautiful actresses in the roles of Tillt Devine (in the red hat ) and Kate Leigh (in the black) hat in a glamourised version of the razor gang era

The article said Ms Leigh’s ‘official’ occupation was shop keeper of a mixed business from the Surry Hills house and that ‘she gives money to the Salvation Army and to church charities. She gives parties.’

It quoted her saying she and Ms Devine had buried their rivalry in their old age. She said she had been to prison 13 times, but ‘never for prostitution’ and that the police left her alone now because everything was legitimate.

In Larry Writer’s book Razor, he writes that in the 1960s, Ms Leigh was still living at the Devonshire home but was impoverished because after hours grog had been legalised. 

One of the walls in the dilapidatedhouse once occupied by the queen of the underworld, Kate Leigh

Sydney criminal Frank Green, whose prison file is pictured (above) was an associate of Kate Leigh’s during her long criminal career as a drug and sly grog dealer

Her nephew, William Beahan, was operating the fruit and vegetable shop out of the ground level room at the front of the house.

‘Broke and embattled, Kate did her best to earn a little money, selling illegal alcohol from friends’ homes and rented rooms,’ the book says, but the NSW Government had put her out of business in 1955 by extending hotel trading hours to 10pm. 

The house at Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, as pictured in the real estate advertisement for its sale

At the age of only 13, Kate Leigh gave birth to a daughter, Eileen, who is believed to be the woman in the white hat (pictured, above) in a group shot of criminals at Central Police station early last century

‘Kate’s only income was what she could scrounge occasionally hiring out hand-carts to vegetable and fruit hawkers for two shillings and sixpence a day.’

On January 31, 1964, Ms Leigh suffered a stroke at her home and was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital where she died on February 4, aged 82.

Her funeral at St Peter’s Catholic Church in Devonshire Street, just up the road from her home, was attended by 700 people, including the police and politicians she had known during her career. 

A judge in 1933 (above, left) says that criminal Kate Leigh ‘has a good side’ when she appeared in court on a charge of receiving stolen goods, whereas in 1953 (above, right) a magistrate declares Leigh’s Surry Hills residence’ a disorderly house’