Hi Cathy You wrote: Does the book mention the Old Sydney Burial Ground - where the Sydney Town Hall is today Yes it does - but it is not indexed [sounds like a job I must find time to do one day] - so although it is only 37 pages, it is closely typed text - and hard to immediately pick up an individual reference to a place. On one level, the book basically is the author 'walking' through George Street and commenting on what was on a particular site post 1788 settlement. It is quite fascinating and full of adverts and illustrations (also not listed for easy reference <sigh> ). However, am beginning to think this slim volume is a bit of a treasure because it is full of places, names, illustrations, and details. Even mentions 'a shop tenanted by Cowles and Dunn, now part of Messrs. F. Lassetter and Company's premises, the White Horse Tavern stood till it was removed across the road.' [picked up on the'Dunn' name, you see <grin>. [Note: all capitalisation below is my emphasis]. ...and the old LUMBER YARD was also mentioned (an enquiry from another PJ Lister) - so I will try to extract that info some time over the next few days. In the meantime, the LUMBER YARD was located: 'corner of George and Bridge Streets...where the convicts in the Hyde Park Barracks were employed...' And another location snippet: 'a little beyond the southern boundary of the LUMBER YARD ...come to what is now Bond Street..' Although Bond Street did not exist until 1832. The old burial grounds are mentioned in part: Page 11: 'Site of first hospital in Australia... building stood just a little north of the present Globe Street...soon filled...overflow of patients accommodated in tents...misery...blankets and sheets for the hospital had been forgotten in the equipment of the First Fleet...beds of grass, and drugs...inferior quality. When a man died the unfortunates near him stripped his body, before it was cold, of its clothing...gradually the hospital quarters and surgeon's residences extended along George Street until they reached from Globe Street to a little north of Argyle Street. Illustration: Sydney in 1803 - buildings visible. 'As a natural concomitant to the hospital a CEMETERY was established near Globe Street, and the tombstone of George Graves of the 'Sirius' came from this site.' [the one found in Bethel Street and used as a paving stone to plug a gap in the mud...]. Page 33: quoting reminiscences of J.B.M. - 'The brewery reservoir of Terry Hughes [Albion Brewery] stood within the drainage area of the old DEVONSHIRE STREET CEMETERY, which imparted a special flavour to the beer.' [my comment: Oh dear!!] Page 32: 'On the Druitt street end was the watch-house. On the other side of Druitt Street, where the TOWN HALL now stands, was one of the early Sydney CEMETERIES. The FIRST was in George Street North, in the vicinity of Globe Street; the SECOND was near the corner of Clarence and Margaret Streets; and the THIRD was on the Town Hall site, and was in use as early as 1793, and closed as a CEMETERY in 1820. For some 50 years it remained as an eye-sore to the city; during the day boys played between the tombstones and at night it was the haunt of bad characters. There yet probably remain a number of coffins in the Town Hall grounds, while others may have the wood blocks of George Street as their covering. One, I know, is under the footpath just on the south side of the southern gateway entrance to the Town Hall. In 1904, when the electric light cables were being laid along this footpath, a corner of the coffin was disclosed. It was not disturbed, but a bottle containing an inscription and newspaper of the day was placed inside, and the coffin cemented over. Little did the relatives of that man dream when they lowered the body into its grave that it would have one day for its tombstone a magnificent building, that over it would pass daily the tread of a thousand feet, and that within a foot of its resting place would pass a mysterious current with powers so incredible that it would transcend their wildest dreams. When the City Council was looking for a site for a Town Hall in 1843 it asked the Government to vest in it the OLD BURIAL GROUND for this purpose. The Governor agreed, and introduced a Bill in 1845, but a select committee reported against the proposal, and the measure was dropped. I do not know if the letter of an irate objector to the proposal which appeared in one of the papers in September, 1845, had anything to do with the rejection of the proposal. So that you may judge I quote the first paragraph: - "Gracious Heavens! Is it possible that, in the nineteenth century, when the univeral diffusion of human intelligence and knowledge is declared to be the Ultima Thule of sublunary blessedness, in the promotion of which her most Christian Majesty Queen Victoria, of all the lords, temporal and spiritual, of her Imperial Parliament profess to combine, that her Majesty's representative in Botany Bay should be so abandoned to all sense of decency, allegiance, and duty to her most gracious Majesty, and her most loved subjects in this remote territory, as to propose a project so monstrous, so inhuman, and unchristian as the sacrilegious spoliation of the sacred repositories of the silent dead." When the members of the Legislative Council came to the surface again, after reading this, they also probably ejaculated "Gracious Heavens!". The Council were more successful in a later application, and on March 3, 1869, an Act was passed vesting the site in the Council.' Sincerely hope this helps you out. And also hope I haven't overstepped any PJ-List protocols with a number of quotes from this Old George Street book. Will also post to the List in case others are interested. Cheers Jennie in W.A.