First Government House
Featured exhibition
Dig It!
Head to our dig site, grab your tools and become an archaeologist at the Museum of Sydney
Friday 5 December
Featured exhibition
Unearthed
Even the most ordinary object has many stories to tell, depending on how you look at it
Friday 5 December
A closer look at bricks
A high-tech research collaboration is giving us new insights into some very familiar objects from our vast archaeological collection
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](https://api.mhnsw.au/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.slm.com.au%2Ffotoweb%2Fembed%2F2022%2F11%2F8b76679c68c649dbb0ab45cfb954e5fb.jpg&w=1920&h=400&fit=inside&format=webp)
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
Museum stories
Life at Government House in the Macquarie era
Historian Jane Kelso describes a busy schedule of social gatherings and official events at Sydney's Government House during the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie
First Government House foundation plate
When the foundation plate was rediscovered in 1899 the site of first Government House was a distant memory
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
Up in smoke: clay tobacco pipes
From the earliest days of the colony, Sydney-siders smoked them, broke them, and discarded them into drains, rubbish piles, work sites and hidden cracks and crevices of buildings