Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Castellated Gothic former stables, built for horses but scandalous enough to help end a governor's career.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music traces a castellated Gothic fortress built to house just twenty-eight horses, designed by Francis Greenway, a convicted forger turned the colony's chief architect. It follows Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who laid the foundation stone himself without permission from London, and the commissioner sent from London to investigate the colony's spending, who called the finished stables uselessly magnificent. Stand in the courtyard and picture the towers and battlements built for horses rather than people.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Hyde Park Barracks
Georgian convict barracks designed by a pardoned forger, later a depot for migrant women and the destitute.
Government House
Gothic Revival vice-regal mansion of turrets and battlements overlooking the harbour, still the governor's official residence.
The University of Sydney Quadrangle (A14)
Sandstone Gothic quadrangle whose gargoyles mix medieval monsters with kangaroos and crocodiles.
Vaucluse House
Turreted Gothic Revival mansion and gardens overlooking a harbour, built by a colonial power couple.
Old Government House
Georgian country residence of New South Wales's earliest governors, built by convicts beside a colonial observatory.
The Mint
Colonial hospital wing funded by rum, later reborn as the first Royal Mint branch outside England.