Hyde Park Barracks stands on Macquarie Street in Sydney. Governor Lachlan Macquarie wanted barracks for 600 male convicts and laid the foundation stone on April 6, 1817. The architect was Francis Greenway, himself a convict, who received a full pardon shortly after completion. The barracks opened on June 4, 1819, when 589 convicts were admitted.
It is a Georgian three-story sandstock brick building with sandstone foundations and sills. A pedimented gable carries an early colonial clock, and Greenway's design includes a double string course, shallow domes and circular niches.
The building housed convicts from 1819 to 1848, with up to 1,400 men at once, and later served as a female immigration depot and an asylum. Courts used the site from the late nineteenth century. It is part of the UNESCO Australian Convict Sites and now operates as a museum open daily.
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