Old Government House - Parramatta - New South Wales
Before Sydney’s Domain got its Gothic Government House, the governors’ “country” seat was out at Parramatta — on Burramatta Dharug Country, inside what is now Parramatta Park. Governor Phillip had a timber cottage here about 1790 beside the government farm at Rose Hill. Governor Hunter replaced a decayed earlier house with a brick Georgian building in 1799; those front rooms still sit inside today’s house. Under Lachlan Macquarie the residence was greatly enlarged (works associated with Lieutenant John Watts from about 1815, central portico attributed to Francis Greenway), producing the Palladian form recognised as the oldest surviving public building on the Australian mainland.
Ten early governors used Parramatta as primary or secondary residence before the Domain house was occupied in 1845. The house later passed through park trust and institutional uses; a 1967 Act vested it in the National Trust of Australia (NSW). Restored as a house museum, it was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1970. Old Government House and Domains sit on the Australian Convict Sites UNESCO World Heritage list (2010) and on National and NSW State Heritage registers.
Do not compress the chronology to “1817–1819 only” — and keep this house clearly distinct from Government House in Sydney’s Domain.
