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Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney
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Eastern view of Sydney 1797

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Eastern view of Sydney 1797

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National Library of Australia

[PIC Solander Box A28 #R286]

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Colonial architecture

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Bennelong Point Sydney Cove Tank Stream

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First Government House

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Dayes, Edward

National Library of Australia

Colonial architecture

Sydney Cove

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Small bay on the southern shore of Port Jackson, which became the site for the European settlement in Sydney.

First Government House

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Residence for the first nine Governors of NSW, which was the first major building in the colony. The first permanent building in the colony, it had two storeys built of bricks and stone comprising six rooms, two cellars and a rear staircase. In front of the house was a garden where many imported plant species were grown and the first orchard planted. The Museum of Sydney, on the corner of Bridge and Phillip Streets, was built on its site.

Tank Stream

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The fresh water course which supplied the fledgling colony, emptying into Sydney Cove. It was named for three storage tanks which were constructed in the sandstone beside the stream during a drought in 1790. By 1828 the stream had been polluted to such an extent that it could no longer be used as a source of water and was diverted into a sewer, and by the 1870s it had been completely covered. The Tank Stream still flows in a covered storm water drain.

Bennelong Point

Rocky outcrop to the east of Sydney Cove, which was a tidal island when Europeans arrived, but was joined to the mainland with rocky rubble in 1818 to provide a basis for Fort Macquarie to be built there. The point is named for Bennelong, who lived in a house on the point in the 1790s.

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The Rocks

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Suburb located north of the central business district on the western shore of Sydney Cove. Characterised by a precinct of restored nineteenth-century buildings which are a major tourist attraction, it was recognised as a separate suburb in 1993.