Old Government House

It is a sad thing to report that almost no buildings survive from the earliest colonial days of Australia. I say "almost" because a very few DO remain .... and some 90% of those are all to be found in Parramatta.

Foremost among historical buildings is "Old Government House"  (today's photograph) which was either the full time or part time residence for the first 10 governors of New South Wales. Arthur Phillip built a cottage on this site as early as 1789 (12 months after the first fleet's arrival) but within 10 years it was already in poor repair and hardly a place to impress the locals. So Governor Hunter built the original, central part of this present residence in 1799. It remains this country's very oldest surviving public building.

The early days of New South Wales owe much to Lachlan Macquarie who (among many other accomplishments) in 1816, extended the house to be some six times its original size. He also got Francis Greenway,  Australia's earliest architect of note (and himself a former convict) to add a simple portico on the front. This building employed a staff of 20 and oversaw the "government farm" which provided most of the colony's meagre food supply during those first 20 "iffy" years.

The history of this old place and that of the early colony is quite fascinating of course but can't all be reproduced here. Norma and I toured the site today and enjoyed the experience hugely. Some of the furniture pieces are genuinely from Macquarie's time but most are later reproductions. A VERY few highly precious exhibits belonged to Macquarie himself - including the bed. Most of the fixtures and fittings, including many panes of glass, the doors, locks and ballustrades etc remain from the original construction. 

The extra pictures are shots of the interior.