Historical Walking Tour of Newcastle

Also known as Newcastle Railway Station

Newcastle's railway terminus first opened on 20 March 1858, with the current building constructed in 1878 under John Whitton, Engineer-in-Chief of the NSW Government Railways. The last train departed on 25 December 2014, and in September 2018 the precinct reopened as a community space branded "The Station." Added to the NSW State Heritage Register in 1999.

Source: Wikipedia

Also known as Customs House Newcastle

Designed by colonial architect James Barnet and built between 1874 and 1877, this Italianate Renaissance Revival landmark served Newcastle Harbour's customs operations for over a century. Its 32-metre clock tower carries an 1877 time ball. Listed on the NSW State Heritage Register in 2000, it now operates as the Customs House Hotel.

Source: Wikipedia

Built in 1882 to George Brown's Victorian Italianate design, this two-storey brick landmark at 16 Bond Street sheltered visiting seamen during Newcastle's port era. Championed by Reverend James Coutts and funded by public contributions and government endowment, it was one of only two such homes in NSW, joining the State Heritage Register in 2011.

Source: Wikipedia

Also known as Convict Lumber Yard Newcastle

Newcastle's first convict settlement began on this site in 1801, and with it the Lumber Yard, a convict industrial workplace. Lumber work carried on after Newcastle closed as a penal settlement in 1822, until the yard shut in 1831. A year later it reopened as 'The Stockade', the base for convicts building Nobby's breakwater, which was finished in 1846 as convict occupation wound down. The railway then took over the ground. The site keeps rare remains of convict structures once thought lost, the Stationmaster's residence and Paymaster's office, and evidence of Aboriginal occupation now rare in urban Newcastle.

Source: NSW State Heritage Inventory

Merchants Earp Gillam & Co traded from this bond store, which with the neighbouring Russell Warehouse and railway siding shows how rail and port worked together to move goods in the late nineteenth century. The firm's success helped its directors found, with others, the East Greta Coal Mining Company, which led the opening of the South Maitland coalfields and built railways to carry their coal to the port. Those fields became one of the leading sources of NSW coal exports before the 1950s, setting Newcastle on course to become the biggest coal exporter in the southern hemisphere. The precinct stands on Awabakal Country.

Source: NSW State Heritage Inventory

Also known as Great Northern Hotel Newcastle

Four hotels of this name have stood on this Scott Street site. A grocer traded here until 1861, when the first Great Northern went up: three rendered storeys with verandahs on columns. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, stayed in 1868, and by 1880 it had grown to 50 beds. Sydney brewer Tooths bought it as brewing became centralised, rebuilding it in a late Federation style in 1923. The present hotel opened on 24 January 1938, its design having moved from an early Art Deco scheme toward the newer Inter-War Functionalist style, and it stayed Newcastle's premier hotel for decades.

Source: NSW State Heritage Inventory

Built between 1900 and 1903 to designs by NSW Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon, this Federation Academic Classical landmark once housed the city's post, telegraph and telephone services. Its freestone detailing and domed pavilions anchor the civic precinct. Added to the NSW State Heritage Register in 2000.

Source: Wikipedia

Colonial Architect James Barnet designed this Victorian Italianate court house, and his successor, Walter Liberty Vernon, oversaw its construction. Contractor C. Coghill finished it in 1892 at a cost of just under £14,800. It replaced a court house of 1841 that, even after several additions, had outgrown its purpose. The heritage register describes it as a grand and substantially intact example of late nineteenth-century civic architecture, with a long association with justice in the district. Barnet, born in Scotland and trained in London, was Colonial Architect from 1865 to 1890; the Customs House on this walk is also his work.

Source: NSW State Heritage Inventory

Also known as Fletcher Park

Government House and its Domain were established here in 1804, and the land has stayed in government hands and use ever since. The first convicts sent to Newcastle, men caught up in the Vinegar Hill rebellion, dug two vertical shafts on the site that are counted as Australia's first coal mines. Newcastle was then a place of secondary punishment, and convict labour under military supervision left the quarried wall of the parade ground, the 1840s barracks, gatehouse and military hospital, and remains of an 1819 parsonage. Fletcher Park, where Government House stood, holds traces of its flagstaff and a statue of James Fletcher.

Source: NSW State Heritage Inventory

Also known as Christ Church Cathedral Newcastle

With roots in Newcastle's convict beginnings, Christ Church is the largest Anglican cathedral in New South Wales and the largest provincial Anglican cathedral in Australia. John Horbury Hunt drew its plans in 1868, using brick rather than stone for both structure and ornament in the Arts and Crafts spirit, and it is the largest of his cathedrals. Its stained glass is outstanding nationally for size and quality. Repairs after the 1989 earthquake were the first use in Australia of the German Cintec method of strengthening masonry. The collection includes the only Victoria Cross in NSW not privately owned and a Union Jack carried throughout Gallipoli.

Source: NSW State Heritage Inventory

Also known as Victoria Theatre Newcastle

This is the oldest theatre building still standing in New South Wales. The first Victoria Theatre opened here in 1876, was altered in 1885 and razed in 1890; in 1886 a group of leading citizens, including the mayors of Newcastle and Maitland, had agreed to buy it. Architect James Henderson's rebuild of 1890-91 gave it an elaborately furnished three-level auditorium on a Grecian theme, a large stage house and a small first-class hotel. Today's building pairs the 1891 facade with an auditorium from 1891 and 1921, and it survives virtually intact from the age of silent pictures and vaudeville.

Source: NSW State Heritage Inventory

Also known as Argyle House Newcastle

Dating from the 1860s, this building served for years as the regional headquarters of the Australian Agricultural Company, which held a monopoly over Newcastle coalmining from 1829 to 1847. Extended from 1903 by architects including Frederick Menkens, it now operates as a nightclub and joined the NSW State Heritage Register in 1999.

Source: Wikipedia