Stories
Our houses, museums and collections are packed to the brim with stories of all kinds
![Education program at Parramatta Female Factory](https://images.mhnsw.au/fotoweb/embed/2024/05/1bf1fe684fe5486ea86ca3a29f04f3ce.jpg)
Cultivating a therapeutic landscape
Tracing the evolution of the Parramatta Female Factory to a hospital
![Pencil drawing of Bathurst 1818, Plans of Government Buildings at Bathurst, Main series of letters received [Colonial Secretary], 1788–1826.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/ec5b53147e75bdc6536c142340cae04b71adc992-3203x1998.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Convict farmer Antonio Roderigo and a ‘dastardly massacre’
A dispute over potatoes farmed by convict-settler Antonio Roderigo was one of many hostile events between colonists and Wiradyuri people that led to the Bathurst War of 1824
![Cartoon drawing of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/915640c9904bd615a6c81041dcb014a3c7fd2564-1815x1424.jpg?rect=0,0,1815,697&fit=max&auto=format)
The Wasmuth Portfolio
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wasmuth Portfolio, is regarded as one of the most influential architectural treatises of the 20th century
![Exterior of Elizabeth Farm](https://images.mhnsw.au/fotoweb/embed/2024/06/f9831626975844b1a7be9026f2c387d3.jpg)
Elizabeth Farm museum at 40
This year Elizabeth Farm celebrates 40 years open to the public as a house museum!
![Vaucluse Bay, Port Jackson, NSW](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/28a09ddb156b0f9100831170e870f5caa2167a11-2000x1318.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Convict Sydney
Harbourside Gothic: The convict origins of Vaucluse House
Its architectural style is not all that is gothic about Vaucluse House. Discover the dark history of the house’s first owner, Henry Browne Hayes
![View of the archaeological dig on the site of the first Government House from the rooftop of Colonial Secretary’s building, photographer Lindy Kerr for the NSW Department of Planning, 28 October 1983.](https://images.mhnsw.au/fotoweb/embed/2024/05/4014098ea7d74f66bab738fc76b896e0.jpg)
Excavating Australia’s first Government House
Did you know that when you walk into the Museum of Sydney, you’re walking over the remains of one of the most significant buildings in Australia’s history?
![Opening ceremony. NRS15933-11-A5357](https://images.mhnsw.au/fotoweb/embed/2024/04/c4ab8e5339fa49628dd524734ba3b42f.jpg)
A look back at the Sydney 2000 Olympics
Do you remember when Olympic Fever hit Sydney in 2000? The Olympic Games and Paralympic Games in Sydney welcomed and hosted over 11,000 athletes from 199 countries. Together with 50,000 volunteers and millions of spectators Sydney captured the attention of the world - a city of sport, festivals, arts, community, friendship and fun
First Nations stories
Browse all![Painting of a small water basin in the bush with birds](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/e16d102357e22f7ca5f58e78ea5dcd00f730c8a8-2000x1404.jpg?rect=0,551,2000,853&fit=max&auto=format)
Duall
When Duall was born in the mid-1790s conflict over resources and competing land use practices in districts surrounding Sydney was giving rise to tensions between the original inhabitants of the land and the newcomers
![Pencil drawing of Bathurst 1818, Plans of Government Buildings at Bathurst, Main series of letters received [Colonial Secretary], 1788–1826.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/ec5b53147e75bdc6536c142340cae04b71adc992-3203x1998.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Convict farmer Antonio Roderigo and a ‘dastardly massacre’
A dispute over potatoes farmed by convict-settler Antonio Roderigo was one of many hostile events between colonists and Wiradyuri people that led to the Bathurst War of 1824
![Coomaditchie Lagoon](https://images.mhnsw.au/fotoweb/embed/2024/04/0146a69a326e4242a1171dee896b8cfe.jpg)
First Nations
Coomaditchie: The Art of Place
The works of the Coomaditchie artists speak of life in and around the settlement of Coomaditchie, its history, ecology and local Dreaming stories
![The mission, Lorraine Brown, 2007](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/bc5573a87b323b94815e4a7562745ea4633a1e19-1500x894.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
First Nations
Coomaditchie: Of place
These works record the extraordinary arc the artists of Coomaditchie have travelled over more than three decades
Convicts
Browse all![EPU10_CONSYD_001_0.jpg](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/1c2a1628c34a48758584dc28ee6552c2.jpg)
Convict Sydney
Convict Sydney
From a struggling convict encampment to a thriving Pacific seaport, a city takes shape.
![Convict Barrack Sydney N.S. Wales](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/11/9ad8db07c8da4f92985ec1bf22363696.jpg)
Hyde Park Barracks – the convict years
In 1788, the penal colony of New South Wales was established on the Country of the Gadigal people
![Several tall ships anchored in Sydney Cove with long boats unloading passengers. The headland that is the rocks can be seen in the background to the left of the frame.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/6d39d495fd3244f69a9f4c30073e0b6b.jpg)
Convict Sydney
The turning tide
Amidst public outcry, the convict ships stop but the ‘stain’ of Sydney’s convict past is harder to erase
![Convict Sydney, Level 1, Hyde Park Barracks Museum](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2023/03/204b04754bff4d8fa8f65eab4af74969.jpg)
Convict Sydney
Objects
These convict-era objects and archaeological artefacts found at Hyde Park Barracks and The Mint (Rum Hospital) are among the rarest and most personal artefacts to have survived from Australia’s early convict period
Conservation
Browse all![A women holds a large book open while she threads the pages together.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/807410183cdbfb93ac19af90b6a0657b72e4df6d-3840x2160.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Conserving the archive
Supervising conservator Dominique Moussou talks through her work and some of the projects underway in the MHNSW conservation lab
![Kitchen, 60 Gloucester Street, Susannah Place Museum](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/11/bc265bf7f0b54327af75311944d13863.jpg)
Conservation
Susannah Place conservation project
A behind-the-scenes look at some of the complex work that goes into conserving and preserving the fascinating Susannah Place Museum
![Internal view of the timber shed at Rouse Hill Estate](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2023/04/d1429f1fd51748b6b830cc40fcfb270a.jpg)
Conservation
A strong and simple structure: conserving the woolshed
The second phase of a major conservation project on the woolshed at Rouse Hill Estate has seen the rustic 160-year-old structure strengthened and stabilised
![Rose Seidler (left) and Bea Evans seated in the living room, Rose Seidler House](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/56ebd6ad3f66460b9cd4a5f6929a3a0f.jpg)
Conserving Harry Seidler’s sofa
A sofa Harry Seidler designed for Rose Seidler House was conserved and reupholstered, and the process revealed some unexpected findings
Stories about our places
![Joseph Lycett, 'The residence of John McArthur Esq. near Parramatta, New South Wales'. Aquatint. Published London, John Souter, 1825. Elizabeth Farm collection, Museums of History New South Wales.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/11/5732bac361cb48c6806caf3a2837422e.jpg)
Museum stories
A turbulent past
With its deep, shady verandahs and elegant symmetry, Elizabeth Farm is an iconic early colonial bungalow
![Black and white image of a sandstone building. A man can be seen in the foreground.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/73b9a81b9c80c302bd1d758acb7347003848cf31-2296x1648.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Museum stories
Gritty business
Immerse yourself in Sydney's chilling criminal past in this unique water-front museum of policing, law and disorder – with its grizzly collection of underworld weapons along with tales of mayhem and lawlessness, aptly described as an educational resource befitting a 'professor in crime'
![Image of the Meroogal homestead on a sunny day.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/cc4c400f6753c59c93e0edffdff8bd1f616129cf-3840x2160.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Museum stories
Make yourself at home
Meroogal became home to four generations of resilient and resourceful women, whose house was their livelihood as well as their home
![image of painting showing a dramatic panoramic view of harbour surrounded by natural bushland with Vaucluse estate in the foreground.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/79c1bdb9a39d8c02372ac4749f2024b81f09ee97-1366x935.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Museum stories
Not a lovelier site
‘There is not a lovelier site in the known world’, wrote the Sydney-born barrister and novelist John Lang about the Wentworth family’s estate of Vaucluse
3D story telling
Browse all![Elizabeth Farm house - front verandah and carriageway](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/11/e59d8550dc104cbc95719530c4ef4d0e.jpg)
'A most excellent brick house' Elizabeth Farm
Curator Dr Scott Hill explores some of the enduring mysteries buried in the architecture of Australia’s oldest surviving homestead
![](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2023/11/aa32225334f9487597059ed14d30e8b8.jpg)
3D scanning the archaeological dog skeleton
A key component of Museum of Sydney’s interpretation is the archaeological remains of First Government House
![Large 2 storey building with deep verandahs, steps leading to lower verandah and bushes and driveway in the foreground.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/b592fbcdb4bde2ca92fc642e8e568e101a65a8cd-1366x1034.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Museum stories
A rum deal
When Lachlan Macquarie began his term as governor of NSW in 1810, Sydney was in desperate need of a new hospital
Plant your history
Browse all![](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2023/09/9adb5b45040246c7b4815f4bcda6b605.jpg)
Plant your history
Beautiful bountiful bamboo
One of the most recognisable plants growing at Museums of History NSW today is bamboo. This colourful plant has a long history in colonial gardens
![Pink racemes of crepe myrtle against the Elizabeth Farm homestead](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/057db983a0c74c6a8ab5ea21a87316a8.jpg)
In the pink at Elizabeth Farm
Amid the late summer bounty in the garden at Elizabeth Farm, the crepe myrtle is the undoubted star of the show
![](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/6f5b9b69a2fe4dd6b9af275a4514442d.jpg)
Plant your history
Sumptuous cape bulbs light up late summer gardens
Belladonna Lilies and Crinum Lilies are tough bulbs that never say die and can survive years of neglect
![Plants against a sandstone wall in the front garden of The Mint.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/staging/7dfd192e56a030dc8cc5cf6ef9f32c8a1dd8eec8-2776x1561.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Plant your history
Acanthus - an apt symbol for The Mint
Look at any classical building today, anywhere in the world and chances are you will find an acanthus leaf lurking somewhere
Dodgy, dangerous, disturbing
3D models: a fascinating exploration of some seemingly innocent objects modified for nefarious purposes from the Justice & Police Museum collection
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