Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney
| Hyde Park Barracks | |
|---|---|
Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney
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| Type | Historic Building |
| Location | located at the southern end of Macquarie Street, Sydney, New South Wales, adjacent to the north-east corner of Hyde Park, opposite Queens Square and beside the Sydney Mint. |
| Coordinates | 33°52′10″S 151°12′45″E / 33.86944°S 151.21250°ECoordinates: 33°52′10″S 151°12′45″E / 33.86944°S 151.21250°E |
| Area | 2.16 hectares |
| Status | Open daily 10.00am – 5.00pm closed Good Friday and Christmas Day. |
| Website | Hyde Park Barracks Website |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | iv, vi |
| Designated | 2010 (34th session) |
| Part of | Australian Convict Sites |
| Reference no. | 1306 |
| State Party | Australia |
| Region | Asia-Pacific |
The Hyde Park Barracks Museum is a brick building and compound designed by convict architect Francis Greenway between 1818 and 1819; originally built at the head of Macquarie Street (1819) to house convict men and boys.
The site is managed by the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales as a museum open to the public for a modest fee. The site is listed on New South Wales' State and Australian National Heritage registers, and is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of 11 pre-eminent Australian Convict Sites as amongst "the best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers through the presence and labour of convicts."
Constructed by convict labour by order of Governor Lachlan Macquarie, the Barracks is one of the most familiar works of the accomplished colonial England-born, Australian architect Francis Howard Greenway. As the principal male convict barracks in New South Wales it provided lodgings for convicts working in government employment around Sydney until its closure in mid-1848.
It has had many occupants since then. It was an Immigration Depot for single female immigrants seeking work as domestic servants and awaiting family reunion from 1848 to 1886 and also a female asylum from 1862 to 1886. From 1887 to 1979 law courts and government offices were based at the Barracks. Construction began in 1817.
In 1991, Hyde Park Barracks underwent conservation and adaptation work by award-winning architects Tonkin Zulaikha Greer and conservation architects Clive Lucas Stapleton and Partners. The completed project won the Australian Institute of Architects national Lachlan Macquarie Award in 1992. Now, the newly installed Hyde Park Barracks is a museum operated by the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales. Tourists who visit the building discover the daily lives of convicts and other occupants through exhibitions on Sydney’s male convict labour force, Australia’s convict system, an innovative soundscape, excavated artefacts, exposed layers of building fabric and the complex’s rooms and spaces.
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