Cadman’s Cottage is a small, solitary stone building in The Rocks that holds a strange secret about the geography of early Sydney. When it was built in eighteen sixteen, the house sat right on the edge of the harbor, with high tides coming…
Old Rocks Convict History
This walk takes you through the rugged sandstone laneways and foundational sites where Sydney’s colonial story began. You'll see the houses, pubs, and hand-carved cuts where early convicts lived, worked, and helped build the city from the ground up.
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1. Cadman's Cottage
2. Campbell's Stores
Campbell's Stores is a row of eleven gabled sandstone bays standing along the waterfront of Campbells Cove. Built between eighteen fifty and eighteen sixty-one, these Victorian Georgian warehouses once housed imported goods like tea,…
3. Dawes Point Reserve
Dawes Point Reserve is a grassy headland that sits directly beneath the massive southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. You can identify this site by the sight of the bridge’s steel latticework looming immediately overhead and the…
4. The Hero of Waterloo Hotel
The Hero of Waterloo Hotel is a three-story building constructed from rough-hewn sandstone, situated at the corner of Lower Fort and Windmill streets. Built between eighteen forty-three and eighteen forty-four by the stonemason George…
5. The Garrison Church
The Garrison Church sits at the corner of Argyle and Lower Fort streets, distinguishable by its heavy, locally quarried sandstone walls and the series of pointed Gothic arches that line its exterior. Officially named the Holy Trinity…
6. Argyle Cut
The Argyle Cut is a deep, narrow road passage carved directly through the sandstone ridge that once acted as a barrier between Sydney Cove and the maritime hubs of Millers Point and Darling Harbour. Its most striking characteristic is the…
7. Susannah Place
Susannah Place is a cluster of four narrow terrace houses and a corner shop built directly into the sandstone bedrock of Gloucester Street. Constructed in eighteen forty-four by Irish immigrant Edward Riley, these buildings feature…
8. The Big Dig Archaeology Education Centre
The Big Dig Archaeology Education Centre sits beneath an elevated youth hostel, identifiable by the structural steel trusses that lift the entire building above the ground. This site, located between Cumberland and Gloucester Streets in…