Skip to main content
  1. The Dictionary of Sydney
  2. Multimedia
  3. The first government windmill 1797

The first government windmill 1797

By
Edward Dayes
Contributed By
National Library of Australia
[PIC Solander Box A28 #R284 (detail)]
(Detail from 'Western view of Sydney Cove 1797')

Browse

  • Browse
    • Artefacts
    • Buildings
    • Events
    • Natural Features
    • Organisations
    • People
    • Places
    • Structures
    • Entries
    • Multimedia
    • Subjects
    • Roles
    • Contributors
Connections
Appears in
Millers Point Windmills of Sydney
Subjects
Mills
Natural features
Observatory Hill
Places
The Rocks

Footer

  • Home
  • About
  • Copyright
  • Contact

Footer Secondary

  • Contribute
  • Donate

Dayes, Edward

National Library of Australia

Millers Point

Called Ta-Ra by its first inhabitants, the Cadigal, Millers Point was named for the windmills that were built on its heights, and their owner, John Leighton, known as Jack the Miller. By the 1850s Millers Point was a maritime enclave, with almost all residents and employers focused on the wharves and the trade they brought. Through plague, depression and war, the community at Millers Point retained its cohesion, but the changes brought by gentrification are harder to predict.

Windmills of Sydney

In the late eighteenth century, and well into the nineteenth century, the tallest structures around Sydney Cove were windmills. They left few physical remains, yet their presence left a lasting legacy in early colonial landscape art and the minds and hearts of many contemporaries.

Mills

Observatory Hill

Hill at the top of The Rocks, west of Sydney Cove, which is the highest point overlooking Port Jackson. With commanding views both east and west, it was the site of one of Sydney's first windmills from 1796 before being replaced with a fort in 1803. By 1849 an observatory had also been constructed which can still be visited.

full record »

The Rocks

full record »

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.