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10am–5pm
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Entry

Adult  | $12 
Concession  | $8 
Family  | $30 
Members  | Free of charge
Children under 5 years  | Free of charge

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Address

Queens Square, Macquarie Street, Sydney, NSW 2000

Phone

Museum: 02 8239 2311
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Sydney Living Museums Image

The World Heritage listed Hyde Park Barracks is one of the most significant convict sites in the world. A crossroads for tens of thousands of people, it played a central role in the world’s largest and longest-running system of convict transportation.

Convicts

1819–1848

The Hyde Park Barracks once stood at the heart of a sprawling network of convict sites and systems.

Convict Sydney

Women

1848–1887

With the end of transportation, the main building was converted into Sydney's female Immigration Depot in 1848. 

Irish orphan girls at Hyde Park Barracks

Courts

1887–1979

From 1887 Hyde Park Barracks was taken over by courts and government offices and became a bustling legal centre for Sydney.

Irritatingly bad buildings

 

Museum

1979 – present

Restored and excavated in NSW's first publicly-funded archaeological dig, the World Heritage-listed Hyde Park Barracks is now a museum about itself.

Australian Convict Sites: World Heritage

Image with text that says: Follow the story of Sydney, from a restless convict colony perched uncertainly on Aboriginal land, through to a bustling city and international seaport. Find out how convicts went from being a central part of its social life

 

Two people looking at museum display table.
Two people seated on verandah at Vaucluse House.
promo image for school holidays with two kids running in garden.

 

Videos

 

News from Hyde Park Barracks Museum

Two children running in garden in front of two storey farmstead building.

School holidays

Summer 2019: school holiday opening hoursTuesday 27 November 2018

Coloured illustration of ship in harbour with smaller boats being rowed to shore in foreground.

Hyde Park Barracks

Mandy Moore’s Hyde Park Barracks ancestorMonday 10 December 2018

Hyde Park Barracks is in the family history spotlight again, with the premiere of season 10 of the US series of Who Do You Think You Are? featuring American singer-songwriter and actress Mandy Moore.

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Stalls in corner of sandstone-walled courtyard with visitors and city skyline in background.

Hyde Park Barracks

Bright Lights: Big CityFriday 30 November 2018

Steep yourself in the festivities of the annual Christmas Fare at Hyde Park Barracks.

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Selection of convict love tokens.

Education

Convict love token classroom art activityWednesday 21 November 2018

Inspired by our convict love tokens and the personal stories they tell, we have developed a Creative Arts classroom activity for teachers to share with their students – a perfect end-of-term project!

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Boy flying kite in field.

School holidays

Spring School Holidays 2018: opening hoursMonday 17 September 2018

Online shop

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Buy
A Forger's Progress
The Life of Francis Greenway $50.00
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Buy
Joseph Lycett Convict Artist
The life and work of one of Australia's earliest colonial artists $39.95
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Buy
Sydney Views 1788-1888
From the Beat Knoblauch collection $49.95
Book cover with image of Arthur Phillip sinking into painted waterscape with seagull on his hat.
Buy
Girt
The Unauthorised History of Australia $29.99
Groups of men standing or sitting in a town square, some of whom are looking back toward large building, Hyde Park Barracks, with front wall featuring dome-roofed cottages on either side of a large timber gate. Clouds drift overhead.
Prisoners' Barracks, Hyde Park
Group of seated students pointing at wall.
Rats: Convict Tales education program
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Hyde Park Barracks tableau
A museum visitor looks at a large white wall featuring an elaborate and extensive arrangement of convict tools.
Convict Sydney exhibition
Imposing 3 storey brick building with clock set into gable end of roof, overlooking courtyard and town square. A person is walking towards the open front door of the building through the main entrance gates, past a pair of guardhouses.
Hyde Park Barracks and Queen's Square
Young girl wearing red jumper, leaning against display panel, views large photographic reproduction of colonial painting
Children visitors enjoy Convict Sydney exhibition, Hyde Park Barracks Museum
Children in straw hats and billowing cotton shirts standing inside open wrought iron gates in front of brick barracks building.
Students dressed as convicts
Top of dome with foliage of tree in background.
Guardhouse roof dome
Visitors and stalls at the Christmas Markets
At the Christmas Markets
Closeup of the Barrack's clock movement cogs and gears with numerals partly visible.
Detail view of clock
View along interior corridor towards sunlit window, with wooden ceiling arches visible.
Corridor

Featured stories from Hyde Park Barracks Museum

Dramatic photo of lake or river with rocky shore, bordered with high grassy mountains and a road along the left hand shore.

Irish orphan girls at Hyde Park Barracks

In the few years between 1848 and 1850, a total of 4114 orphan girls, each one of them drawn from bleak Irish workhouses, were chosen to sail to Australia under a remarkable, controversial and short-lived immigration scheme.

Scan from photo print

Archaeology in action: Hyde Park Barracks

Occupied continuously by government institutions throughout its history and with over 100,000 individuals passing through, Hyde Park Barracks has a rich archaeological record.
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Between 1819 and 1848, convicts living at Hyde Park Barracks were employed mostly by the government and known as ‘government men’. Barracks convicts had a different life from those who were assigned to work for free settlers.