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The first woman in the United States to qualify as an architect, Marion Mahoney Griffin's legacy in Australia can be seen in the work done in Castlecrag, Canberra and Melbourne with her husband Walter Burley Griffin.

Built on the ridge at Paddington, with views to the harbour and Botany Bay, Juniper Hall was the home of wealthy distiller and ex-convict Robert Cooper, and his large family. It was later used as a school, public building and court, and later subdivided into flats, before the…

The Wallumedegal were the traditional owners of the land that became Cheltenham, but it was made part of the Field of Mars common in 1804, and timber and charcoal were taken from it. When the land was subdivided in the 1890s by William Chorley, covenants prevented buyers from…

Yasmar is a rare surviving example of a mid-nineteenth century great house and garden. The estate had only three owners before it was transferred to government control during World War II, and has been empty since 1994.

Subdivided in 1906, Seaforth was a new suburb built on the hill above sheltered beaches popular with campers and picnickers.

An industrial training school for destitute children founded on a ship, the Vernon, and its successor Sobraon, was designed to protect and look after wayward boys, as well as giving them useful training.

Part of the old Campbelltown common opened for selection in 1894, the area called Kent Farms was subdivided into 5-acre blocks in the 1920s and named Kentlyn in the 1930s. When neighbouring suburbs were densely developed after World War II, Kentlyn was still zoned for 5-acre…

Originally Dharug country, Arcadia was named in 1894. Timber-getting in the tall forests gave way to citrus orchards by the late nineteenth century, and the area remains semi-rural.

Arrested at 14 for stealing, and sentenced to transportation for life, Mary Beckwith was one of the few convict women who escaped the early colony. Nicolas Baudin made a large donation to the Female Orphanage and took her with him on the Geographe in 1802. Her fate is unknown…

Anna Wood was a 15 year old girl who died in October 1995 after taking an MDMA or ‘ecstasy’ tablet. The coroner's findings ended with a recommendation that young people be educated about the consequences of ingesting illegal drugs, with a section specifically addressing the…

Yemmerrawanne was one of the first Eora men to meet the British, and was a regular visitor to the home of Captain Arthur Phillip, Governor of New South Wales. When Phillip returned to London in December 1792 Yemmerrawanne, and his kinsman Bennelong, travelled with him.…

From its beginnings as a rural and maritime village built on the traditional lands of the Cammeraygal people, Greenwich developed as roads and water connections improved, into a prosperous, leafy commuter suburb.

Mrs Lillian Dulcie Watson was born in 1904 and interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' Mrs Watson remembers her arrival in Hammondville, a settlement developed near Liverpool during the…

Pemulwuy was a powerful Aboriginal resistance leader against the British settlers who occupied his land. Through the final decade of the eighteenth century, Pemulwuy led guerrilla attacks against settlers' farms, burning their huts, maize crops and livestock, and plundering…

Marked with the rock carvings and middens of its traditional owners, Tamarama became the site of pleasure gardens and amusements in the early twentieth century.

A region of farming estates, before the railway joined it to the city, Eastwood is now a multicultural suburb which retains some of its historic precincts.

A significant meeting place for the Cadigal people, Granville's forests gave way to heavy industry and housing for workers as industrialists were attracted by its road, rail and water access.

Gundungurra people knew and travelled through the area of Blackheath before the Europeans came. The town grew from the 1830s as a resting place for travellers over the Blue Mountains, first by road and then by rail after 1868. Land sales in the 1880s led to population growth…

Growing out of earlier societies which endeavoured to further the cause of science in the colony, the Royal Society fostered discussion, learning and research from its formation in the mid-nineteenth century.

Where the Parramatta and Duck rivers meet was also a meeting place for the Cadigal and the Wategora, Barramattagal and Bidjigal clans of the Dharug, before Europeans arrived and took the land. John Macarthur established Elizabeth Farm which remained intact until it was…