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Historical Walking Tours

Self-guided historical walking tours

historical walking tours footThese self-guided historical walking tour brochures have been developed by the City of Sydney History Program to introduce you to different aspects of Sydney's fascinating history.

Self-guided historical walking tours.

Each brochure features a clear map of the walk with numbered points of interest, detours and museum stops suggested along the way.

Each tour takes approximately 1 to 2 hours.

Download a brochure below or pick up a hard copy from one of the Council Locations, Community Centres and Libraries.

 

 

Barani/Barrabugu (Yesterday/Tomorrow)

Barani/Barrabugu (Yesterday/Tomorrow) Sydney's Aboriginal Journey showcases the history and culture of Aboriginal Sydney, from first contact to today's living culture.

This booklet features fascinating stories of more than 60 sites across Sydney which have played a role in the living and resilient culture of Aboriginal people. It shows Aboriginal people's unbroken connection with the City of Sydney and identifies important sites that reveal these histories, cultures and associations. Several walks are described, along with suggestions for cultural institutions and organisations to visit, making this a valuable resource for Sydneysiders and visitors.

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Colony

This tour departs from Customs House and covers Millers Point and The Rocks. The earliest European Sydneysiders - convicts, soldiers, whalers and sailors - all walked this route. The Rocks and Millers Point have been overlaid by generations of change, but among the bustling modern city streets remnants and traces of these early times can be found.

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Community

This walk will take you from Town Hall, south into what was once the industrial backyard of Sydney. Today it contains Sydney's Spanish Quarter and Chinatown, along with arguably the most significant 20th century Aboriginal site in the City of Sydney. The walk concludes in Hyde Park.

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Exchange

From imposing banks to opulent shops and old warehouses, much of Sydney's commercial history can be seen in its buildings. This walk will take you through the heart of the City's financial and retail district pointing out landmarks, their architectural features and the history behind them. The walk starts at St James Station and finishes at the former Mark Foys Department Store.

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Hidden

Explore the city’s laneways and minor streets, the ones the casual passer-by doesn’t see. Sydney was settled around a freshwater stream that formed the back boundary of properties fronting the earliest main streets, and a series of informal paths provided rear access to gardens, stables and storage areas. In time these laneways became formalised, oblivious to any planner’s grid. Other laneways developed to provide access to the rear of commercial buildings that came to dominate the area. Charming walkways or grungy service lanes, today they contribute complexity to the tapestry of the city.

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Parade

Oxford Street has hosted many parades: military and celebratory, ceremonial and political. Parade along Oxford Street from Hyde Park South in the city to Centennial Park in Paddington and discover the evolution of this cosmopolitan area.

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Passion

Kings Cross, along with its adjoining locales of Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay, has a rich and risque history. Once the domain of grand houses and stylish apartments, it has also been the haunt of artists, actors, writers and musicians. 'The Cross' eventually became the city's red light district and an entertainment zone that never sleeps. Departing from Kings Cross Station, the circular route uncovers the history of Sydney's bohemian wild side.

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Port

In past decades, the Pyrmont-Ultimo peninsula belonged to Sydney's industrial heartland, with its wharves, goods yards, woolstores and factories contributing enormously to the city's economic wealth. Departing from Pyrmont Bridge, this tour visits key sites in the industrial and maritime history of Sydney, as well as exploring an often overlooked Sydney community.

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Preservation

The Glebe has always been a place of contrasts. The Glebe Point area became fashionable in the 19th century, while the southern part of Glebe became a working class district. This tour will explore an area which has not only a fascinating built environment but a long history of bohemian lifestyle, activism and intellectual pursuits.

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Renewal

Until 1850, Ultimo was semi-rural, with cornfields and cow paddocks. Members of the Gadigal people still harvested cockles on its foreshores. Then the landscape was remade by sandstone quarrying on Ultimo’s western edge and by the construction of a railway and goods yard on its eastern shoreline. The suburb became crowded with factories, woolstores and workers’ housing. Today it has a new identity as a cultural precinct as industrial sites are adapted for entertainment and education. This tour of Ultimo starts in greyness and ends in the technicolour of Darling Harbour.

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Skirting Sydney

The majestic Queen Victoria Building stands in the heart of the city as a monument to a much-loved and long-reigning Queen, although she never visited Sydney. But what of the other, less obvious, city spaces where Sydney women went about their daily lives? This map pinpoints key sites where girls and women lived and worked, where they were educated and entertained, and where pioneering activist women held meetings, published journals and sometimes in the process expanded the possibilities for all women's lives.

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Strip on the Strip

This booklet presents the stories that inspired the bronze street plaques set in the pavement of Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross. Part guide, part history, the "Strip on the Strip" booklet highlights the colour, diversity and wit of Kings Cross: the bohemians and artists, entrepreneurs, residents and businesses.

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Walk on Water

This walk is a guide to Sydney's water features and was developed in conjunction with the historical exhibition Water, Water Every Where. Thirty different water features are identified on the map along with photographs and historical information.

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The Rock and Roll Walks of Fame and Shame

Surry Hills to Kings Cross

Revisit all the great venues near Central Station and Surry Hills that added so much colour and new music in the 70's, 80's and beyond; then drift down the remaining memory lane to Kings Cross and track the history and locale of the clubs once renowned for their late night revelry, Rock'n'Roll notoriety and even occasional international glamour.

Listen Now (21 Minutes)

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City to Pyrmont

From the fashionable heights and desperate depths of downtown Sydney City's music heritage, we traverse the CBD and discover what remains of your favourite venues; then across to the streets of ultimo and Pyrmont to visit the site of the world famous Festival Records, itself a virtual corporate jukebox of Australian Rock'N'Roll history; and then discover the venues where bands as diverse as Sherbet and Nirvana made their extraordinary stamps on the Australian music scene.

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Oxford Street

The Rock and Roll Walk of Fame and Shame is a podcast that takes you back to Oxford Street, to the very hub of an emerging rock'n'roll scene in the 60s 70s and 80s that changed the face of artistic Sydney. Featuring Radio Birdman, Mental as Anything, The Missing Links and many more... you'll visit the locations, hear the songs and listen to guest voices from Sydney's rock'n'roll past.

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King Street & Enmore Road

Many of Sydney's musicians and artists moved to the Inner West and its new cultural hub Newtown and adjoining suburbs Erskineville and Enmore.

On this tour we take you along City Road to King Street, Enmore Road and beyond - featuring the King of King Street John Kennedy, Hoodoo Guru Brad Shepherd and musician, manger and Ivy League label boss, Andy Kelly.

Listen Now (16 Minutes)

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Please Note:
While care is taken to ensure accuracy, the City of Sydney cannot guarantee that information expressed here is correct and recommends that users exercise their own skill and care with respect to its use. The City of Sydney makes no warranty or undertaking, whether expressed or implied, nor does it assume any legal liability, whether direct or indirect.