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The Pyrmont bridge was one of the most technologically advanced swing bridges in the world when it opened in 1902.

Visited by James Cook and Joseph Banks in 1770, but rejected as a site for the colony in 1788 by Arthur Phillip, Botany remained an important source of water and a site for varied industry throughout the nineteenth century, before becoming a transport hub in the twentieth.…

One of the 'Scottish Martyrs' transported to New South Wales for sedition, Thomas Muir was one of the few convicts who escaped the colony in the 1790s.

The first Government House was not a simple singular structure but a complex with a yard, outbuildings, guardhouse, garden and greater domain. It was a home, an office and a venue for public and private entertaining, but also a symbol of British authority, with all that that…

Saved from redevelopment in 1883, Ivanhoe Park remains one of Manly's most prized public green spaces.

From a land grant to emancipist James Meehan, Glenfield was to become one of the fastest growing suburbs in the Campbelltown area.

Opened in 1892, the Strand Arcade was one of five built in the city centre during the late nineteenth century. It was designed as a covered shopping street, with 80 shopfronts on four floors. By the 1950s it was neglected but in the 1970s the arcade was refurbished, and has…

The early timber-getters of Wahroonga gave way to orchardists and country mansions for commuters after the railway came through. In the twentieth century, infill housing increased the population, though there is still little commercial development.

Designed and redesigned by three government architects, Customs House has presided over Circular Quay since 1845. It has always been a government building, although its functions have changed over time.

The area that became Pennant Hills was Dharug country before the Europeans arrived. A convict timber-getting camp was set up in 1816, but by 1830 the forest had been felled, and farms and orchards covered the land. When the railway came through in 1887, produce could be taken…

Built on Dharug land, Rouse Hill Estate was established in the 1810s, and held by the same family until 1993. Extensive gardens and agricultural buildings surround the house, which was added to over the years, though the original land was sold off. The house and gardens…

Part of the Woolwich Peninsula and originally home of the Wallumedagal clan, Kelly's Bush was saved from development by an unlikely coalition of middle-class women and communist union leaders in an action that saw the imposition of the first Green Ban.

Built as part of the Education Department's fine building in Bridge Street during World War I, the gallery hosted Australian artists' work for more than five decades.

Fishburn was the largest of the three store ships of the First Fleet stocked with provisions for the new colony. After her return to England, Fishburn was lost in a storm off Gun Fleet Sand in October 1789.

The Rachel Forster Hospital has provided services to women since 1922 including training for female doctors, and later nurses. Until the 1960s its staff were almost exclusively female. It became a public hospital in 1930 and developed into a centre for innovation in the…

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…

Named in 1832, Apple Tree Bay became a popular swimming and boating spot by the early twentieth century.

Designed as model public housing for working-class families, Daceyville subsequently became home to returned soldiers and war widows. Saved from demolition several times, by community and union action, the suburb is now a living illustration of changes in town planning.

Public support for a school of arts in the Waverley area waxed and waned from the second half of the nineteenth century, leading to the Bondi-Waverley School of Arts being founded twice, once in 1859 and again in 1911.

Known as Kay-ye-my or Jilling to its Aboriginal inhabitants, Balgowlah was settled early by convicts, farmers and market gardeners. Rural until the 1900s, Balgowlah was developed and subdivided after the Spit and Harbour bridges were built.