Pyrmont, New South Wales

Pyrmont Sydney, New South Wales
Skyline of Pyrmont featuring the ANZAC Bridge
Population	11,618 (2011 census)
• Density	11,618/km2 (30,090/sq mi)
Postcode(s)	2009
Area	1 km2 (0.4 sq mi)
Location	2 km (1 mi) west of Sydney CBD
LGA(s)	City of Sydney
Parish	St Andrew
State electorate(s)	Sydney
Federal Division(s)	Sydney
Suburbs around Pyrmont: Balmain Balmain East Millers Point Rozelle Pyrmont Darling Harbour Glebe Ultimo Haymarket

Pyrmont is an inner-city suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia 2 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Sydney. It is also part of the Darling Harbour region. As of 2013, it is Australia's most densely populated suburb.

Pyrmont was once a vital component of Sydney's industrial waterfront, with wharves, shipbuilding yards, factories and woolstores. As industry moved out, the population and the area declined. In recent years it has experienced redevelopment with an influx of residents and office workers.

Pyrmont contained a mineral spring of cold water bubbling out of a rock and was thus named for a similar natural spring in Bad Pyrmont, close to Hanover, Germany. Thomas Jones was granted 55 acres (22 ha) of land on the peninsula in 1795. Land was sold to Obadiah Ikin in 1796 for 10 pounds, which he then sold to Captain John Macarthur in 1799 for a gallon of rum.

Pyrmont was the site of quarries from a fairly early stage because of the quality of the sandstone. Charles Saunders, licensee of the Quarryman's Arms hotel, became the biggest quarrymaster, with three quarries established in the area from 1853. The work was continued by his son and grandson till circa 1931. The quarries were nicknamed Paradise, Purgatory and Hell Hole by the Scottish workers employed by Saunders. Steam-powered equipment was used there for the first time in Australia. The sandstone was used in many of the most significant buildings in Sydney. Saunders Street, near the site of the Paradise quarry, was named after Saunders.

The area was also the site of the first Presbyterian Church in the colony, built in 1864 and situated in Mount Street. The congregation eventually outgrew the premises and had to move to a new church at Quarry Street, Ultimo, in 1883. In the 1870s, a small Methodist chapel was built in Harris Street on land owned by Charles Saunders. In the 1920s, it was converted to the Maybanke Free Kindergarten, named after Maybanke Anderson, a feminist and educationist. It was still used for that purpose as of 2013.