Museum
Old Government House
Cnr Pitt and, Macquarie St, Parramatta NSW 2150
Georgian country residence of New South Wales's earliest governors, built by convicts beside a colonial observatory.
This guide to Old Government House in Parramatta follows Governor Thomas Brisbane, who moved in in 1821 and, within months, built a small timber observatory beside the house instead of tending to colonial business. It traces the astronomers he paid himself, their catalogue of thousands of stars, and a Duke of Wellington one-liner about governing the earth rather than the heavens. The house itself was built plainly by convicts for Governor Hunter in 1799, its hallway floor painted to fake the marble the colony could not afford.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.