Stories

Elizabeth Farm museum at 40

This year Elizabeth Farm celebrates 40 years open to the public as a house museum!

Harbourside Gothic: The convict origins of Vaucluse House

Its architectural style is not all that is gothic about Vaucluse House. Discover the dark history of the house’s first owner, Henry Browne Hayes

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?

A look back at the Sydney 2000 Olympics

Do you remember when Olympic Fever hit Sydney in 2000? The Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in Sydney welcomed and hosted over 11,000 athletes from 199 countries. Together with 50,000 volunteers and millions of spectators Sydney captured the attention of the world - a city of sport, festivals, arts, community, friendship and fun

Convict farmer Antonio Roderigo and a ‘dastardly massacre’

A dispute over potatoes farmed by convict-settler Antonio Roderigo was one of many hostile events between colonists and Wiradyuri people that led to the Bathurst War of 1824

Coomaditchie: The Art of Place

The works of the Coomaditchie artists speak of life in and around the settlement of Coomaditchie, its history, ecology and local Dreaming stories

Coomaditchie: Of place

These works record the extraordinary arc the artists of Coomaditchie have travelled over more than three decades

Coomaditchie: Lagoon stories

These panels detail the ecological life in and around Coomaditchie Lagoon

Convict Sydney

From a struggling convict encampment to a thriving Pacific seaport, a city takes shape.

Hyde Park Barracks – the convict years

In 1788, the penal colony of New South Wales was established on the Country of the Gadigal people

The turning tide

Amidst public outcry, the convict ships stop but the ‘stain’ of Sydney’s convict past is harder to erase

Objects

These convict-era objects and archaeological artefacts found at Hyde Park Barracks and The Mint (Rum Hospital) are among the rarest and most personal artefacts to have survived from Australia’s early convict period

Conserving the archive

Supervising conservator Dominique Moussou talks through her work and some of the projects underway in the MHNSW conservation lab

Susannah Place conservation project

A behind-the-scenes look at some of the complex work that goes into conserving and preserving the fascinating Susannah Place Museum

A strong and simple structure: conserving the woolshed

The second phase of a major conservation project on the woolshed at Rouse Hill Estate has seen the rustic 160-year-old structure strengthened and stabilised

Conserving Harry Seidler’s sofa 

A sofa Harry Seidler designed for Rose Seidler House was conserved and reupholstered, and the process revealed some unexpected findings

A turbulent past

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

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'

Make yourself at home

Meroogal became home to four generations of resilient and resourceful women, whose house was their livelihood as well as their home

Not a lovelier site

‘There is not a lovelier site in the known world’, wrote the Sydney-born barrister and novelist John Lang about the Wentworth family’s estate of Vaucluse

Beautiful bountiful bamboo

One of the most recognisable plants growing at Museums of History NSW today is bamboo. This colourful plant has a long history in colonial gardens

In the pink at Elizabeth Farm

Amid the late summer bounty in the garden at Elizabeth Farm, the crepe myrtle is the undoubted star of the show

Sumptuous cape bulbs light up late summer gardens

Belladonna Lilies and Crinum Lilies are tough bulbs that never say die and can survive years of neglect

Acanthus - an apt symbol for The Mint

Look at any classical building today, anywhere in the world and chances are you will find an acanthus leaf lurking somewhere