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Originally Burramattagal country, the area that became Rydalmere was granted to Philip Schaeffer, who planted vines, and the land was later acquired by Hannibal Macarthur who built a grand house, later a Catholic girls' school. The area was named Rydalmere in 1886 when it was…

For the colony's first 50 years the signal station was a basic lookout hut, a flagpole and a signal staff for semaphore flag signals. A new signal house was built in 1841, and added to over the years, until the station went out of official use in 1992. Now run by volunteers,…

Planned from 1919 and unveiled in 1922, Glebe War Memorial remains a focus of community interest.

Brooklyn was settled by the 1830s though it remained remote until the railway bridge was built in 1885-89. In the twentieth century, Brooklyn was a fishing and tourist town.

Conducted over two years from 1988-1990, the Royal Commission into Mental Health Services examined mental health services in New South Wales. The commission specifically focused on the practices of the Chelmsford Private Hospital psychiatric institution from 1963 to 1979.

As a building, the Newcastle was a typical two storey Australian pub. It became something of an arty and intellectual hotel sometime in the early twentieth century when academics, writers, journalists, bohemians, free thinkers and students gathered in the late afternoon and…

Cambodians began coming to Australian in the 1970s, after the fall of their country's genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. A large part of the existing community arrived in the 1980s as refugees or as family reunion migrants. Most Cambodian Sydneysiders live in the Fairfield area,…

Dharug land before the arrival of Europeans, Dural was settled from the 1820s by timber-getters, farmers and orchardists. With its large blocks of land and remnant forest, Dural remains a semi-rural area.

Part of the country of the Wallumedegal, Denistone West is a post-World War II suburb largely developed though the Ryde Council Housing Scheme, one of the most innovative schemes of its type.

Named for a seaside town near Dublin, Clontarf's beach was a popular picnic spot by the 1860s. In 1868, at a picnic in the pleasure grounds, Prince Alfred the Duke of Edinburgh was shot, in an unsuccessful assassination attempt, by Henry O'Farrell who was hanged. Clontarf…

Built to house the colony's collection of art, purchased from 1874, the Gallery has been on the site in the Domain from 1884, and in the current building, and its series of extensions, from 1896.

Influenced by black political struggles in the United States, the Australian Aborigines Progressive Association demanded the dissolution of the Aborigines Protection Board, return of Aboriginal land, and an end to removal of Aboriginal children.

Sally is probably the subject of the pencil portrait ‘Sally Bundil a native of Kissing Point’ that was once in…

Even a penal colony needs prisons. As early as 1796 gaols were built to hold criminals who had committed offences in the colony, and to hold the public floggings and executions that were thought to deter such crimes. Through the nineteenth century, attitudes changed, and…

Traditionally owned by the Cadigal people, the land that became Dulwich Hill was granted to early colonists Thomas Moore and James Bloodworth in the 1790s. Later owned by Robert Wardell, it was known as Wardell's Bush. By the 1860s Chinese market gardens and orchards, as well…

Educated at the Native Institution in Parramatta, Maria Lock was the first Aboriginal woman officially married to a British convict. They settled on land granted to her in Blacktown, and descendants still live in the area.

One of the earliest areas of the North Shore to be settled, West Lindfield was built on Aboriginal land, prized by the Europeans for its tall timbers and fertile river flats.

Named for George Collingridge, whose writing and artwork helped make Berowra a popular resort.

Badly affected by sandmining during the 1950s and 1960s, this Georges River beach was rehabilitated by the council in the 1970s and a public reserve created.

Glenrock, the home of the Smith and Whistler Smith families from the 1840s, was replaced by a later building that is, along with Fiona, now part of Ascham.