Page 119 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Sydney

BO T ANIC GARDEN AND THE DOM AIN  117

masterpiece. They were
completed in 1819 by convict
labour and designed to house 600
convicts who had previously been
forced to find their own lodgings
after their day’s work. The building
later housed Irish orphans and
then single female immig rants,
before becoming courts and
legal offices. Refurbished in 1990,
it re opened as a museum with
exhi bits about the site and
its occupants over the years.
The displays include a room
reconstructed as convict quar-
ters of the 1820s, as well as
pictures, models and artifacts Detail from the Children’s Chapel mural in the St James’ Church crypt
relating to this period of
Australian history. Many of r St James’ Church 1824 by Samuel Marsden, the
the objects now on display, 173 King St. Map 1 B5. Tel 8227 1300. infamous “flogging parson”, it is
recovered during archaeological @ Sydney Explorer, Elizabeth St Sydney’s oldest church. Many
digs at the site, had previously routes.  St James, Martin Place. additions have been carried
been dragged away by rats Open 10am–4pm Mon–Fri, 9am–1pm out, including designs by John
to their nests; the scavenging Sat, 7:30am– 4pm Sun. Free concerts: Verge in which the pulpit faced
rodents are acknowledged as Mar–Dec: Wed 1:15pm. ∑ sjks.org.au towards high-rent pews, while
valuable agents of preservation. convicts and the military sat
The Greenway Gallery on This fine Georgian building, behind the preacher where
the first floor holds temporary constructed with convict-made the service would have been
exhibitions on history, ideas bricks, was designed as a court- inaudible. A Children’s Chapel
and culture. house in 1819. The architect, was added in 1930.
Hyde Park Barracks is one of Francis Greenway, was forced Prominent members of early
11 Australian convict to convert it into a church in 19th-century society, many of
sites included 1820, when plans to build a whom died violently, are com-
on the UNESCO grand cathedral on George memorated in marble tablets.
World Heritage Street were abandoned. These tell the full and bloody
List for their Greenway, unhappy about the stories of luckless explorers and
universal change, designed a simple yet shipwreck victims, among other
significance. elegant church. Consecrated in untimely demises.

The stained-glass
windows in the
Chapel of the Holy
This clock, dating from 1817 and Spirit of St James’
one of Sydney’s oldest, is on the Church are mostly
Hyde Park Barracks façade.
20th century.
The Land Titles Office,
a WL Vernon building
from 1908, has a
Classical form with
Georgian some fine Tudor
sandstone Gothic detailing.
façade
Copper spire
atop a square
brick tower
Statue of Prince
Albert

Hyde Park Barracks (1817–19) Land Titles Office (1908–13) St James’ (1820)

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