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Millers Point
Millers Point is a small, historic area on the far side of the ridge above the western shores of Sydney Cove was first named Cockle Bay Point. The neighbourhood which sprung up in the area around a mill built there in the 1790s became known as 'Jack the Miller's Point', after an ex-convict, John Leighton, who operated a flour mill on top of the ridge. By the turn of the century, the point had become a major source of stone for the buildings of Sydney and became known as 'The Quarries'. Like The Rocks which adjoins it, Millers Point is steeped in early colonial history.Highlights
Also known as The Garrison Church, the Holy Trinity Church was Australia's first military church, being constructed as a place of worship for the British regiment stationed at nearby Dawes Point.
The Walsh Bay wharves, built in the early years of the 20th Century, were technologically advanced for their time, incorporating many design innovations. They have been renovated and put to other uses including home to a hotel and to the Sydney Theatre Centre.
A mostly intact row of Colonial Georgian Terraces is part of an historic streetscape comprised of terrace houses, a central park (remeniscent of an English village green) and a dominant church. They combine to give Argyle Place the appearance of a Georgian village square.
Barangaroo Point, a recreational reserve on the foreshore of Millers Point, is the result of the redevelopment of part of Sydney's Darling Harbour/Cockle Bay docklands. It included returning the whole point to what it might well have been before the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.
Observatory Hill is the highest point on the ridge to the west of the Sydney inner city area at its northern end. Being the highest point in area around their new settlement on Sydney Cove, it became a lookout point to monitor any ships that might be entering Sydney Harbour.
One of a number of hand cut sandstone steps found through The Rocks and Millers Point, which were built to make it easier to travel up and across the ridge to the west of Sydney Cove.
Ferry Lane is somewhat of a time capsule. This otherwise insignificant laneway had its five minutes of fame when it was identified as the source of the bubonic plague which swept through Sydney in 1900. Information signs tell its story and of those who lived there over a century ago.
The Observatory we see today was built in 1858 to replace an earlier signal station. Today it is a museum dedicated to astronomy and the study of the stars of the southern skies. The replacement signal station and remains of an early colonial fort still stand nearby.
It is appropriate that the National Trust, an organisation devoted to the protection of Australia's heritage should itself occupy this historic building. Erected as a military hospital by Gov. Macquarie, the building served the garrison stationed in Sydney in the 1820s.
Much of Millers Point's colonial-era development was removed in the mass resumptions and demolitions following the bubonic plague outbreak of 1900, but its village-like character, the remaining terraces, narrow streets and back lanes ensure the past is not forgotten.
One of the major public works by convicts in the area, this accessway linking The Rocks and Millers Point was hand cut through the sandstone bedrock of the peninsula.
The Lord Nelson Hotel is the oldest working licensed hotel in the city (the license was first granted in June 1842), and one of only two hotels in the immediate area to be retained by the Sydney Harbour Trust when Millers Point was resumed during the time of the plague in 1900.
Built from sandstone excavated from the Argyle Cut in 1844, legend has it that the hotel was used by sea captains to recruit crew - unsuspecting patrons who drank themselves into a stupor were pushed through a trap door and carried away through underground tunnels to waiting ships.
An often forgotten corner of The Rocks and Millers Point heritage area, Towns Place - and Moore's Stores, which is found in it - has a fasinating history and played an important role in the establishment of many Queensland ports and the Royal Mail service from Britain.
In a planned city, built on a level plain, the streets you start off with generally remain for many years. But Sydney was not planned. Many streets have ended up some where different from where they started out; others have disappeared altogether. Such was the fate of Clyde Street.
The first wharves built on the point were used by American whalers. During the 1840s it was not uncommon for as many as 400 American whaling vessels to be practising their trade up and down the New South Wales coast. A wharf nearby Lag's Jetty was the place from which human cargo was shipped to the Cockatoo Island prison. Though a busy neighbourhood sprung up around Leighton's mill, the rocky terrain of the Walsh Bay area limited its early use to fortifications, an anchorage for whalers in Walsh Bay and windmills. During the 1830s the basis of the maritime industry that was to dominate the area was established and continued to develop for over a century.
By the 1880s, the merchant's houses of Millers Point had given way to rows of terrace houses which were the homes of local maritime workers. The bay housed the wharves of many major export companies but much of these facilities were obsolete and access was both choked and difficult. The outbreak of the Bubonic Plague in 1900 in the area surrounding Walsh Bay led to the resumption of large portions of land there for redevelopment. This pre-empted a total re-think of the use of the bay as part of the Port of Sydney. The newly created Sydney Harbour Trust was given the task of redeveloping the area.
The docks of Walsh Bay were created by The Sydney Harbour Trust whose primary commercial aim was to redevelop the wharfage of the bay along modern lines. However, because of the quantity of housing under its control it became landlord for Millers Point and between 1900 and the 1920s effectively transformed the area into what could best be described as a 'company town'. As well as the reconstruction of the wharves, the Trust, together with the Government Housing Board, had constructed workers' housing, shops, kindergartens, hotels and warehouses and also refurbished and reconstructed many existing buildings. In this way the population which serviced the port was accommodated nearby with all its community facilities.
The most well known of Sydney s early windmills is that of John Leighton, which stood on Millers Point and gave rise to the locality's name (Jack the Miller's Point) and to that of Windmill Street. Leighton arrived in Sydney as a convict in 1804. He bought several acres of land at Millers Point in 1814 and erected his mill there soon after. By the 1820s there were three mills operating on the point, all of which are believed to have been operated by Leighton. The first, erected in 1814, was located near Bettington Street on the high ground near or on the corner of Rodens Lane. The houses pictured today (above) occupy the site of this mill.
The second mill was built to the west of Merriman Street on land granted to Joseph Underwood in 1817 for the purpose of erecting a windmill. Located in the southern corner of Clyne Reserve, it was demolished prior to 1842 to make way for a residence to be built on the site. Another mill was built to its south near Merriman Street, on land that has now been reclaimed, and the mill removed to make way for the Millers Point wharves.
Windmill Strert is so named because it led to three windmills owned by John Leighton on Cockle Bay Point, which was at the end of the street. Windmill Street was the site of a major sandstone quarry around the turn of the 19th century.