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Museum stories

Large 2 storey building with deep verandahs, steps leading to lower verandah and bushes and driveway in the foreground.
Museum stories

A rum deal

When Lachlan Macquarie began his term as governor of NSW in 1810, Sydney was in desperate need of a new hospital

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Museum stories

A short history of the Hyde Park Barracks

In the early 19th century, the Hyde Park Barracks was the central convict institution and crossroads for tens of thousands of convicts shuffled back and forth throughout the colony. It's now on the World Heritage list, recognised among the world’s most important cultural heritage places linked to forced migration, colony building and convict culture.

Joseph Lycett, 'The residence of John McArthur Esq. near Parramatta, New South Wales'. Aquatint. Published London, John Souter, 1825. Elizabeth Farm collection, Museums of History New South Wales.
Museum stories

A turbulent past

With its deep, shady verandahs and elegant symmetry, Elizabeth Farm is an iconic early colonial bungalow

View of lowslung colonial era house across gravel and lawn, house framed by trees.
Museum stories

Abundance & curiosity at Elizabeth Farm

One of the great pleasures of visiting Elizabeth Farm is strolling from the drawing room onto the winding paths of the pleasure garden, just as the original occupants, the Macarthur family, did two centuries ago

Series of brass cogs and wheels.
Museum stories

Conserving Australia’s oldest public clock

On its 200th anniversary, Australia’s oldest surviving public clock received some much-needed conservation and care

Painting of first Government House created by Jacob Janssen, 1850.
Museum stories

Demolished: first Government House

Built on a prominent rise overlooking Sydney Cove, first Government House served as the official residence and administrative office for the first nine governors of New South Wales

View of the archaeological dig on the site of the first Government House from the rooftop of Colonial Secretary’s building, photographer Lindy Kerr for the NSW Department of Planning, 28 October 1983.
Museum stories

Excavating Australia’s first Government House

Did you know that when you walk into the Museum of Sydney, you’re walking over the remains of one of the most significant buildings in Australia’s history?

[First Government House, Sydney] / watercolour drawing by John Eyre
Museum stories

First encounters

The Museum of Sydney is built on and around a site that links us to the very beginnings of modern Australia

Black and white image of a sandstone building. A man can be seen in the foreground.
Museum stories

Gritty business

Immerse yourself in Sydney's chilling criminal past in this unique water-front museum of policing, law and disorder – with its grizzly collection of underworld weapons along with tales of mayhem and lawlessness, aptly described as an educational resource befitting a 'professor in crime'