Fort Macquarie – Eastern Point of Sydney Cove / Western Point of Farm Cove – Bennelong Point

Fort Macquarie - Bennelong Point - Eastern Side Sydney Cove - Western Side Of Farm Cove

             

It would be hard to even believe that there was once a full operating Fort, like you’d see in medieval England. Very Soon After Lachlan Macquarie Was Appointed And Constituted As The New Governor In Chief Of The Colony Of New South Wales He Became Quite Aware Of The Threat Of Invasion.
 Early to his time and to greet you South Wales can quite clear that Sydney was a penguin colony is giving no naval forces within about 5000 Miles.
 It was on the night of August 7 around is either 1813 or 1814 and American fleet sailed into Sydney unnoticed by anyone in the colony until the next morning.
If you clean quite clear that Sydney was available target for the French or the Dutch to attack on all the Americans at one stage I was at fleet arrived in Sydney harbour and are there everybody in the colony realise the time they could’ve been burnt down and destroyed overnight the reasons for having a fort and the battle placements around the harbour became more important.
 Therefore Governor Macquarie made one of the most important things in his time is governor to make sure that replacements were placed in strategic parts around Sydney in the first point of call was Bennelong point.
By that stage Bennelong had died over alcohol abuse and the lonely washed up man got accepted by the aboriginals not accepted by the colony.
Barangaroo had also died giving birth previously and so there was no link then I’ve been on point being anyone’s property apart from the colonies.
Going to McQuarrie decided to build a sandstone for it on the little bay outcrop of rock that test it out in low tide from Bendalong point are the sandstone quarry it from the top he on way.

 
Governor Macquarie decided to build a sandstone foot on the little bay outcrop of rocks it’s a straight out in Lowtide from Bendalong point are the sandstone quarry at from the top in way.

 On the other side of the semi circular key is as it was cold in those days are Caedmon‘s cottage girls proximately 1815 for John Cadman who was about Stuart at that stage.
You have to imagine that the actual semi circular key was 150 m further back before 1845 when Governor darling are filled filled in through convert work and all the fence XS sandstone and rubble used from the government buildings.
 Next point of call for governor McQuarrie was to set a site on the other side on another point new doors point call Port Phillip which had been set aside back in the 1790s by Governor Philip for that purpose
 The land was set for Fort Philip on the northern side of the key which happened to be the most perfect semi circular key for shipping anywhere in the modern world.

 Between 26 January 1788 on 6 February 1788 to 12 the ships were unloaded at Bendalong point which was called cattle point to that stage where they unloaded the forecast and six sheep as well as blacksmith animals and other equipment the governor of the Philip had made sure that they had on the ships when I first got here to be able to set up our small colony and I keep going without any supplies for 3 to 5 years







 It was in the third you I’m going to the 50th at the convicts and the Marines as Wellers the party started to give up hope that Sydney was going to be a place that they could inhabit.
Ground around Sydney was very rocky and very sandy and not suitable for cropping the first farm was built for created in what is now the government botanical Gardens are and that took nearly a year to get up and running in the first crop was destroyed by marsupial mice.
Also in that they could’ve been rats from the ship ships that when they first start in to Sydney harbour. The rap population grew rapidly as there were no way







It was on the Site Of Where The Sydney opera House Is Located At Bennelong Point. 


To think they pulled down such a grand building built By Governor Macquarie in 1816 to Build a Tram Shed, and then later The Opera House. 

Although governor Macquarie was a military man, there is little evidence to suggest that he made any contribution towards the defence of Sydney other than upgrading the fort on Dawes Point and building Fort Macquarie on Bennelong Point which replaced a small fort established by First Fleeter William Dawes in 1788
Francis Greenwaydesigned The Fort which came into use in January 1821, just before Macquarie departed. Fort Macquarie was a large, impressive structure built of stone hewn frmo an outcrop of rock near the construction site known as the Tarpien Precinct. In 1902, it was replaced by the Fort Macqaurie Tram Depot. 

The Original Building Was Designed By Francis Greenway, But As For Being A Fort....... Apparently it was terrible 

The Site Was Used As A Tram Depot For Many Years Before The Thpught ofThe Opera  House Came To Mind 

Fort Macquarie, Bennelong Point, Sydney (1820-21): Though Governor Macquarie was a military man, there is little evidence to suggest he made any major contribution towards the defence of Sydney other than upgrading the fort on Dawes Point and building Fort Macquarie on Bennelong Point which replaced a small fort established by First Fleeter William Dawes in 1788. Francis Greenway, Macquarie's buddy in arms when it came to the erection of public buildings in Sydney, designed the fort which came into use in January 1821, just a short while before Macquarie's departure from NSW. Fort Macquarie was a large, impressive structure built of stone hewn from an outcrop of rock near the construction site now known as the Tarpeian Precinct. By the turn of the 20th century, Fort Macquarie had outlived its usefulness. In 1902, it was replaced by the Fort Macquarie Tram Depot, a terminus and workshops for the Belmore to Circular Quay electric tram service. The site is today occupied by the Sydney Opera House





Man O'War Steps, Farm Cove Crescent5, Sydney (1810-20): The steps are the only known remains of harbour works from the Macquarie era still in existence in Sydney Harbour. They are in what appears to be their original configuration, and still in daily use. The Man O'War Steps recall a bygone era when Navy ships anchored in Farm Cove, and the soldiers came ashore to Fort Macquarie, Sydney's main military base which once stood where the Opera House is today. The Man O'War Steps were the embarking and disembarking point for this function for over a century. The original construction dating from 1810-20 became part of Fort Macquarie (Governor Macquarie laid the foundation stone of the fort on 17 December, 1817) and has been improved and/or replaced over subsequent years. The majority of the existing structure appears to have been put in place as part of Farm Cove seawall constructed in the 1860s. 










The TARPEAN WAY 

The site of one of Sydney's oldest sandstone quarries, it provided the building materials for some of Sydney's early stone buildings, particuly those built by the Government for its own use, that were constructed around the turn of the 19th century. Unfortunately, of these, only the Man O'War Steps survive today. The biggest of these buildings was Fort Macquarie, which was the first building to occupy the site of the Sydney Opera House. The seawalls of Farm Cove (built between 1848 - 1878) and the eastern shore of Circular Quay (completed in 1847) were also built in part out of the rock excavated from this quarry. The hole left by quarrying became known as the Tarpeian Way, after the resemblance of the escarpment to the Tarpeian Rock, a steep cliff of the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Roman Forum in Ancient Rome. In the time of the Caesars, criminals were hurled to their deaths from it. 
Cut off from the rest of the Domain by the Cahill Expressway, the Tarpeian Precinct is a narrow strip of open parkland in the vicinity of the quarry site running along the eastern side of Macquarie Street above the old quarry face. This relatively small elevated green space dotted with large trees has views to parts of Circular Quay, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Government House is immediately to the south-east of this area.

George Street 1890 Sydney heritage walk

Wagon laden with wool heads for Circular Quay 

passengers sit sideways on top of a horse drawn bus.

The roadway would've been ringing to the sound of hooves on the wood blocks used to make the surface.

The  elevated step was an experimental attempt to disguise overhead wires, believed far too expensive to use.

Outside what is dispensary, a sparrow Stieber goes about his job of sweeping and collecting manual from the roadway.

The Kirk – Cleveland Street – Surry Hills – NSW

At the Crown–Baptist–Cleveland corner of Surry Hills sits a Victorian Gothic former church everyone still calls The Kirk. Scots for “church,” sure — but do not let the nickname fool you. This one was Wesleyan Methodist, built about 1879 at 422–424 Cleveland Street, and it stayed a place of worship until it was deconsecrated around 1970.

After worship ended, the building became one of those Surry Hills cultural magnets — concerts, exhibitions, community use, then nightlife. AC/DC filmed the “Let There Be Rock” video inside in 1977. In 1986 artist and socialite Gretel Pinniger (Madame Lash) acquired it. Regular use faded after about 2010. It contributes to the High Holborn Street Heritage Conservation Area without being individually State-listed. Adaptive-reuse for restaurant and commercial space has been approved, keeping the Gothic church volume.

Correct any live text that leans Presbyterian: the nickname is Scots, the denomination was Methodist.

Alfred And Albert Streets - Semi Circular Quay

 Alfred & Albert Street's - Circular Quay East - 

Proclaimed January 7, 1845

 We must establish the perspective of today's Broadway roadway was in the beginning, the mud for tank stream Estuary. At the Western end with the overhead railway slips across Pete Street and George Street,  we are near enough to the location of the first, the Kings wharf, and afterwards, in the time of Queen Victoria, the Queens wharf.

Skinny pants artistic statement of 1842 holds a glimpse of and I'm getting the gateway to a future metropolis yet manages to convey some of the romance in a worthy way.

Around the south west corner of Sydney Cove Smugglers found that they could float contraband the tide before sunup or late in the climbing what's the builder of the little ships could launch his hopes up as far as Underwood Street and see them safely born to the bosom of Sydney Cove.

However, in 1845 Albert Street had crept hesitantly down to Phillip Street, and Alfred Street struggled to establish its personality in front of the-year-old Customs House. Those streets must've been very insignificant because the directory of 1851 speaks of Circular Quay, 

By 1855 in circular key could've been more accurate accurately describe the semi circular key, the two Street lights lined up to acceptable brokers in their stores it suitable neighbours for the customs, particularly as were was acting as vice Council for Denmark and Portugal and also looking after the concealer interests of Chile, Spain, Norway and Sweden. Might have him self in Australia more in mind.

About this time, when the stone wall is nearly completion to make the art of semi circular key self evident, the Halfpenny bridge - The Bon Accord, which has been made between what is now at the paragon in Pitt Street, became superseded by the filament. Pete Street flooded in the wake of the receding  tank stream below Hunter Street and made ready to gain access to the old Commiseriat stores and the western side of Sydney Cove.


However those only assisted Circular Quay to create a fame & fortune, and a great clippers instead of anchoring off Moore's Wharf as well for Millers Point now filled the canvas and lay at ease  in the Semi circular key. The figureheads peered into the dark and dank  of the Woolstore's and sought out the valuable cargo is which rolled from shore to  ship side along great spars of iron bark and turpentine

Buckingham’s Department Store – Oxford Street, Darlinghurst

Stand on the Oxford and Riley corner today — Oxford Square / Oxford Village — and you are standing on the ghost of Buckingham’s, one of Darlinghurst’s big department stores. Draper William Buckingham opened the business in 1878; after several moves the firm was established in Riley Street by the mid-1890s and occupied the Oxford–Riley corner by the early twentieth century (City of Sydney notes a store presence from 1894; the Dictionary of Sydney dates the department-store building’s “opened” milestone to 1908).

Buckingham’s made its name serving the “respectable working class” of nearby suburbs and was among the earliest Sydney retailers to push an easy-credit / hire-purchase style system — later a model for competitors. The family company (Buckingham’s Ltd from 1920) kept the Oxford Street flagship until the business was sold in 1967 and the building was emptied for redevelopment. On Anzac Day, 25 April 1968, the partly cleared structure went up in a spectacular fire visible across much of Sydney. The site was later redeveloped as a shopping complex. The store no longer stands — this post is site memory.

Photographs here record Buckingham’s as a lost Oxford Street retail landmark.

Buckingham’s was a major Darlinghurst department store on the corner of Oxford and Riley Streets (today’s Oxford Square / Oxford Village area). Draper William Buckingham opened his business in 1878; after several moves the firm was established in Riley Street by the mid-1890s and occupied the Oxford–Riley corner by the early twentieth century (City of Sydney notes a store presence from 1894; the Dictionary of Sydney dates the department-store building’s “opened” milestone to 1908).

Buckingham’s became known for serving the “respectable working class” of nearby suburbs and was among the earliest Sydney retailers to promote an easy-credit / hire-purchase style system, later a model for competitors. The family company (Buckingham’s Ltd from 1920) retained the Oxford Street flagship until the business was sold in 1967 and the building was prepared for redevelopment. On Anzac Day, 25 April 1968, the partly emptied structure was destroyed in a spectacular fire visible across much of Sydney. The cleared site was later redeveloped as a shopping complex.

Photographs here record Buckingham’s as a lost Oxford Street retail landmark.

Its presence reflected the rise of large-scale retailing along Oxford Street, a major commercial thoroughfare in inner Sydney. The store’s history illustrates how local department stores shaped everyday shopping in the city.

BUCKINGHAMS DEPARTMENT STORE 

Buckingham’s Department Store once stood as a prominent retail landmark on Oxford Street in Darlinghurst, capturing the scale and ambition of Sydney’s department-store era.

The Sydney Suburban & City Underground Railway - Sydney - New South Wales 

Sydney’s suburban railways multiplied in the later nineteenth century, but steam trains still dumped you at the city fringe and left you to the trams. John Job Crew Bradfield spent years arguing for the other idea: electrify the metropolitan lines, take them under the park, loop the city, and throw a harbour crossing. War delayed the dig. Then cut-and-cover through Hyde Park produced Australia’s first underground passenger stations.

The first City Railway section — new electric platforms at Central, plus Museum and St James — opened to passengers on 20 December 1926. (A trial train with Bradfield aboard had run on 9 December; the public date is the 20th.) Town Hall and Wynyard followed on the western arm as the Harbour Bridge approaches advanced; those stations and the bridge railway opened with the Bridge in 1932. St James sat as a stub terminus for three decades until Circular Quay station closed the City Circle on 22 January 1956. This is not the Eastern Suburbs Railway (Bondi Junction, 1979) and it is not the Metro.

Sydney Garden Palace Photos

Sydney Garden Palace

If you mention fireworks at midnight on New Year’s Eve, or the 2000 Olympics, most people would agree that Sydney knows how to host a party.  But back in 1879, when it was decided to hold an international exhibition, we were not quite so sure of ourselves.

The fashion for holding exhibitions, where countries could show off their industrial and manufacturing might, as well as their agricultural riches and artistic skills, began in 1851 with the London exhibition.

It was housed in the purpose-built Crystal Palace. Exhibitions followed,  & other  European cities, & in Philadelphia in the United States. Paris was particularly fond of holding them. In Sydney, a place not noted for its advanced industrial sector, and very far away from other places that were, decided to have a go.

A PALACE IN THE GARDENS 

A fine set of gates leading into the botanical Gardens on Macquarie Street announces the venue, the garden palace, home of the international exhibition. Beyond the gates, a circular garden bed recalls the former location of the time of the palace building. Everything about this building was flamboyant. Viewed from farm Cove and measured against today’s landmarks, the building stretched from the Conservatorium of music, across to cahill Expressway and in front of the State library.

It’s four towers & spectacular wooden central Dane dominated the skyline, dwarfing all other buildings. 

One of the great attractions of the exhibition was to attend to the North Tower in City‘s first hydraulic lift to enjoy rare elevated views of the harbour.

Part of the gardens & most of the domain became a vast Fairground covered with machinery, halls, an art gallery, temporary buildings for livestock, band stands, stalls & eateries.

Approximately 49 acres & 20 ha of the gardens were handed over for the exhibition, was 600 ha covered in buildings. This was not what was originally intended.

DIFFICULT BEGINNINGS

When members of the agricultural society decided to stage ab exhibition in 1877, perhaps as much because Melbourne was organising one as for any other reason, they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for.

The societies exhibition building in Prince Alfred Park was picked to be the venue, and previous annual agricultural exhibitions would be the model. The colonial government agreed to the idea, and provided that no pecuniary liability was to be incurred by them.

But when the proposal was made public, there was far more interested and had been anticipated. The society got cold feet. Clearly their vision has not been large enough, and neither of their funds know their building would be adequate. A rift developed in between those supporting societies real Charter and what was now being branded as a Sydney exhibition. Fearing bankruptcy, they cancelled the whole thing, only to have the governor, so Hercules Robinson, step in and assist that it must go ahead, with a public subscription to fund it. The money did not pouring in the colonial government voted against the Subcity.

But were going out, and exhibitors were planning to come. According to the Sydney morning Herald,

The world was forced upon us and unexpected expansion.

We objected to this thing initially, but he’s gone too far.

We must take a favouring tied on the flow citation one

Building the palace

When our whole year has been lost in squabbling and the exhibition was due to open in August. The contract thought December might be possible. The government settled for September. Building begin before plans have been finalised, and the colonial architect, James Barnett, modified his drawings on the run, as the contract are, John Young, discovered what building materials would be available, and when.

No tenders were that, proper processes were ignored and as confirmation of entries came in from around the world, more more buildings were hastily added to the complex.

At the time of the building, there was a high unemployment rate in Sydney. As soon as approval for the building was given, men began together around the domain gates in the hope. i’ll finding work. There was no need to advertise for workers, although sometimes there were 2000 on site. They were employed around the clock, using electric light for the work for the first time in Sydney. New like you

In the early stages, the lightning the lighting flickered and cast shadows, and was widely considered unsafe. The unions protested at the long shift and dangerous work, but when the Carpenters struck for what amounted to danger money they were unsuccessful, with the Herald cheerfully reporting that;

The firm and commendable action of the government has completely disheartened the men, and crushed the spirit of rebellion in them

At least one man was killed on site and others were injured.

As preparations progressed, the newspapers were full of doubts. Where would the visitors stay? What is the cities water supply gave out, as it sometimes did?

What would they think of a crooked streets and I badly repaired Street pavements?

We didn’t even have a completed Townhall, what on earth did we think we were doing?

How would people get to the site?

The last problem was sold by five sold by fast tracking the installation of a line for a steam tram, another first for Sydney. Built in 16 weeks, it ran from Redfern terminus, along Elizabeth Street to Hunter Street. This expedient piece of urban infrastructure turned out to be one of the main attractions of the exhibition, with 1 million passengers riding the tram by the time the exhibition closed. It’s construction has been approved only on the basis that it was removed after the show was over, but Sydneysiders to Took it with enthusiasm, and it became the first permanent line of Sydneys ad hoc tram system.

But the two biggest worries were what if the buildings were not completed on time? And what if it rained? They weren’t, and it did.

The official opening had to be postponed, and despite the best efforts of Charleze more, the director of the gardens, the plantings drowned at the gardens of the garden palace were more correctly described as bugs in the opening weeks of the exhibition.

The exhibition

But everything everything eventually came together. There was ongoing criticism of exhibits not in place on time, of the entrance fee, of the quality of the food and salon. Yet Sydneysiders enjoyed the holiday atmosphere. And the many supporting musical events, and overall they were mightily impressed with the building. Of the grand opening, in the rain, one commentator said;-

Cigno yours they arrange the music, and able assisted by chorus of 700 voices, 50 instrumentalists and the ground organ, he succeeded in conducting the entire ceremony to a brilliant and most enjoyable conclusion to the platitudes of the assembled thousands.

Much of the ambivalence over the wisdom of staging the exhibition arose from the realisation that manufacturing industry was not really a local strength. The London Times understood this to, reporting that;-

The eyes of the. World sent it for once in Australia, and it sing a lively competition between American, European and British manufacturers.

Although they were fine local exhibits, it was clear to many that the local role was primarily to foot the bill.

There were 724 classes of goods and produce an exhibition, from huge pieces of machinery to find porcelain. When the idea of holding an exhibition was first proposed, one member of Parliament who complained that exhibitors would use it to voiced on Sydney the Richard rubbish they could not dispose of at Paris, but in the event there was a lot of interest in the new and exciting things on show.

Today one of the most valuable pieces in the Sydney town hall collection is a Severus vase, one of a pair that was exhibited in the French court at the exhibition. It was subsequently presented as a gift to the citizens of Sydney by the French Republic.

Because of the long distances involved, some of the exhibits had to be in the form of models, rather than the genuine article. Was it perhaps room for a little poetic license in the models of German turnips and beats sent by some London seat merchants in order to show the great size of the produce growing under their stock?

Poetry was the order of the day, and from the official Cantata written by Henry Kendall to the ravings of the more aesthetic scribblers to the daily newspapers, everyone expanded on the garden motive for all it was worth. There may have been a cultural cringe over how Sydney is a city would stand up to the worlds guys. But as a civilisation, there was no doubt to the British way of life that Sydney symbolised was making a fine contribution in the southern land, the wilderness a garden made that this garden was British, to Riverton if and useful to easily with most participants and the fact that they were astrological displays about the Australian aborigines, creating the illusion that they were not present, did not seem out of place – although any visitor to the exhibition had only to walk down McQuarrie Street beyond the palace to meet some of them.

The fire

When one in Susies pen the hope that the exhibition would lead to a universal brotherhood, to universal,’s,’s to better times, and better men, and things were going further than most, but if you want dissipated at the end would be quite as inflating deflating as it was.

At dawn on 22 September 1882, the garden palace spectacularly burnt down, with reports of black and die in peace is landing as far as Waze Rushcutters bay.

But this time the building was being used for occasional events and as an office space for the various government departments. Records including those of land occupations, the 1881 Sensis details, and railway surveys, all went up in flames. So did the 300 uninsured canvases from the art society‘s annual exhibition, the grand organ and the foundation collection of the technological and mining Museum.

No one was have a charged, although arson was generally suspected. Mini more and the lost of the building, and a fresh outpouring of eulogistic poems appeared in the press, along with a new round of self-criticism over the waist of it all. And more than a few people expressed some satisfaction that at least the people of Sydney now had the botanical Gardens back.

References

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