Page 76 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Sydney

74  SY DNEY AREA B Y AREA

u Customs House
31 Alfred St, Circular Quay. Map 1 B3.
Tel 9242 8551. @ Sydney Explorer,
Circular Quay routes from Elizabeth St.
 Circular Quay. Open 8am–midnight
Mon–Sat (from 10am Sat), 11am–5pm
Sun & pub hols. Closed Good Fri,
25 Dec. - 0 7 ∑ sydney
customshouse.com.au
Colonial architect James Barnet
designed this 1885 sandstone
Classical Revival building on the
site of an ear lier Customs House.
It recalls the days when trading
Strolling along a section of the Writers’ Walk at Circular Quay ships loaded and unloaded their
goods at the quay. Features
r Sydney Opera in 1856; Water Police Station, include columns in polished
House designed by Alexander Dawson granite, a sculpted coat of arms
in 1858; and Police Court and a clock face, added in 1897,
See pp76–9. designed by James Barnet bearing a pair of tridents and
in 1885. Here the dolphins. It contains a City
t Writers’ Walk rough­and­tumble Library with a read ing
under world of room and exhibi tion
Circular Quay. Map 1 C2. @ Sydney quay side crime, space, and an open
Explorer, Circular Quay routes from
Elizabeth St.  Circular Quay. from the petty to lounge area with an
the violent, was international news­
This series of plaques set in the dealt swift and, at paper and maga zine
pavement at regular intervals times, harsh justice. salon, Internet access and
between East and West Circular The museum exhibits Detail from bar. On the roof, Café
Quay gives visitors the chance bear vivid testimony to Customs House Sydney offers great views.
to ponder the obser va tions of that turbulent period,
famous Australian writers, both as they docu ment and re­create
past and present, on their home legal and criminal history. Late i Macquarie Place
country, as well as the musings Victorian legal proceed ings can Map 1 B3. @ Sydney Explorer,
of some noted literary visitors. be easily imagined in the fully Circular Quay routes from Elizabeth St.
Each plaque is dedicated to a restored courtroom.  Circular Quay.
particular writer, with a quo tation Menacing implements from
and a brief biographical note. knuckledusters to bludgeons In 1810, Governor Lachlan
Australian writers include novel­ are displayed as the macabre Macquarie created this park
ists Miles Franklin, Peter Carey, relics of violent and notorious on what was once part of the
and Thomas Keneally, poets crimes. The bushranger exhibit, vegetable garden of the first
Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Judith prison artifacts, and forensic Government House. The sand­
Wright, humorists Clive James display powerfully evoke the stone obelisk, designed by Francis
and Barry Humphries, and femi­ realities of the justice system Greenway (see p116), was erected
nist Germaine Greer. Among visit­ in Australia. There are also in 1818 to mark the starting point
ing writers are Charles Darwin, regularly changing exhibitions. for all roads in the colony. The gas
D H Lawrence and Mark Twain. lamps recall the fact that this
was also the site of Sydney’s first
y Justice and Police street lamp, installed in 1826.
Also in this little triangle of
Museum history are the remains of the
bow anchor and cannon from
Cnr Albert & Phillip Sts. Map 1 C3.
Tel 9252 1144. @ Sydney Explorer, HMS Sirius, flagship of the First
Circular Quay routes from Elizabeth St. Fleet. There is also a statue of
 Circular Quay, Martin Place. Thomas Mort, a 19th­century
Open 10am–5pm Sat & Sun (daily industrialist whose vast busi ness
Jan & NSW school hols). Closed Good interests embraced gold, coal
Fri, 25 Dec. & 8 7 restricted. and copper mining, dairy and
∑ sydneylivingmuseums.com.au cotton farming, wool auc tioning
and ship repair. These days his
The museum’s buildings were statue is a marshalling place for
originally the Water Police Court, Montage of criminal “mug shots”, the city’s somewhat kamikaze
designed by Edmund Blacket Justice and Police Museum bicycle couriers.

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