Pinch Gut Island - Fort Denison - Sydney Harbour - Port Jackson - New South Wales 

That stubby Martello tower off the Botanic Garden isn’t a postcard prop — it’s Fort Denison, still better known to many Sydneysiders as Pinchgut. Colonial sources record Aboriginal names Mat-te-wan-ye / Muttewai and related spellings; NPWS today also uses Muddawahnyuh. Governor Phillip called the rock Rock Island soon after 1788, but “Pinchgut” won: usually tied to convicts left out here on bread and water, and sometimes to the harbour’s narrow pinch itself.

American warships sailed into the harbour unchallenged in 1839, which concentrated minds. Levelling for a fort began in 1841, then stalled. Crimean War jitters about a Russian attack restarted the work in the mid-1850s. Colonial engineer George Barney oversaw the battery and Australia’s only Martello tower, finished in 1857 with stone from Neutral Bay and named for Governor Sir William Denison. It never fired in anger. The design was already half out of date when the paint was still wet.

From the late nineteenth century the island earned its keep as a light and tide station. A time gun — moved from Dawes Point in 1906 — fired daily at 1 pm so ships could set chronometers; tide measurement has run from here for well over a century. In World War II a shell from USS Chicago, firing during the Japanese midget-submarine attack, damaged the tower. Since 1995 the fort has sat in Sydney Harbour National Park. Check NPWS alerts before you plan lunch on the bastion — conservation closures are not rare.

Fort Denison (Pinchgut) from the water, c.1885 Martello tower and battery already a harbour landmark.

Pinchgut Island - Fort Dension - Sydney Cove

Reverend John Dunmore Lang Remembered As He Said - 

"An Island Called Pinchgut, Consisting Of One SolitAry

Governor Phillip Island at farm Cove, a conical peak on a perfect stunted bush have one function – as a dump until he had time to build a jail for convicts who committed crimes after reaching the colony. Maroon convicts who is Russian of bread and water was Road to them once a week changed its name from rock island to pinch gap.

Sometimes the hangman went out on the third boat for years the remnants of a man’s bones hung in chains on a giblet on the island Francis Morgan convicted with others of the murder of a man on the North Shore, with strung up as a warning. There’s a legend I asked if he wished to make any last remark he looked about him and said well you have yeah indeed a beautiful harbour

Early 1940 after two American warships had sneaked into the harbour at night without a pilot Governor gipps decided to rets how many gipps decided to arrange a battery on the island

He said gangs of convicts to level the rock and almost had the job done when he ran out of funds. The ruining of what had once been a lovely if sinister spot sent Dr Dunmore Lang into a rage and he denounce the official golf or Hun.

Military minds however could not resist the law of the island. When there was a Russian invasion scared during the Crimean war I thought was built on it – a Martello tower without buildings for power to magazines and quarters for a small permanent garrison foundations were quarry deep into the island rock. Stone for the 12 foot thick walls was brought from Carrabba point. The fort completed in 1957 was named after the governor so William Denison. The island is now used to the tide gauge in light and fog signal station. It’s 1 o’clock gun was discontinued in 1942

Military minds however could not resist the law of the island. When there was a Russian invasion scared during the Crimean war I thought was built on it – a Martello tower without buildings for power to magazines and quarters for a small permanent garrison foundations were quarry deep into the island rock. Stone for the 12 foot thick walls was brought from Carrabba point. The fort completed in 1957 was named after the governor so William Denison. The island is now used to the tide gauge in light and fog signal station. It’s 1 o’clock gun was discontinued in 1942

  

*+****** FRANCIS MORGAN. Was Strung Up on A Gibbet 

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