WHARVES 1790-1880s

HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST

The half submerged retaining wall is all that survives of a busy wharf built in 1834. Stretching back from this wall was 5 metres of hard stone surfacing, for loading and unloading heavy cargoes. To the east of this platform was a boundary fence delineating government land from the private wharfing facilities of Byrnes Mill.

The first wharf facility was situated upstream from here, constructed around 1790 from timber logs. It was from here the Parramatta High Street (later Macquarie’s George Street) commenced, to run for roughly one mile due west, lined on either side with regulation sized convict huts, past the town markets and the site pegged out for Town Hall, past the stocks and log bridge crossing over to the government farm buildings in the vicinity of present day Parramatta Stadium, to terminate at the gatehouse to Government House, on the low rise known as Rose Hill.

Back behind us somewhere, on original Macarthur land, an early 4 storey stone Granary, or grain store, was built in 1809. The land was offered to the government in exchange for land given to him elsewhere. This original Granary was served by a landing then known as Kings Wharf. It was demolished in the 1840s after a devastating fire.

The wharves along this section of the river provided landing facilities for goods and people traveling between Sydney and the headwaters of the Parramatta River. In addition to the manufactured textiles from the Byrne’s Mill, there was timber and farm produce heading into Sydney.

Travel between Sydney and Parramatta was provided by a succession of steam powered vessels including the first to operate in Australia – a paddle steamer named ‘the Surprise’ – launched in 1831. By the 1880s, modern screw-powered vessels dominated the ferry trade. As one newspaper described the 15 mile ferry commute between Circular Quay and Parramatta in the 1890s, ‘A boat excursion from one town to the other is one of ever changing scenes of beauty’.