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This week we’re winding the clock back 100 years to the great wool store fire at Kirribilli Point, 1921. Wool stores were extremely vulnerable due to the bales of wool they housed as well as wooden floors that were saturated in lanolin. They were so flammable that the Goldsborough Mort wool store fire of 1935 was suspected to have been started by a single cigarette butt. The Pastoral Financial Association wool store sat at Kirribilli Point, nearly opposite Circular Quay, and

The 1820s in Sydney Before we begin an exploration of Sydney’s fire protection in the 1820s, let’s set the scene. The year was 1821, 200 years ago, when the first steps were made to ensure Sydney’s protection against fire. Two appliances were purchased by the authorities and by the end of 1821, they had arrived in the colony. The year, like most before it, brought great change to the colony. Amongst other things, the Australian Magazine made its debut, Australia’s greatest ex

During History Week earlier this month we shared our first " digital day". With a lot of people unable to travel and limits on the amount of people we can have on site at the moment we had to look at new ways to engage with everyone. One of the things we did during our digital day was to share some history about NSW's oldest fire stations. If you missed out don't worry as we will share some of these pieces that were put together by our heritage team over the coming months. To

Whilst the closed No. 1 Volunteer Company Fire Station in Haymarket is the oldest surviving purpose-built fire station, some of Sydney’s early stations remain operational. This blog will look at the oldest active fire stations and the brigades that continue to operate out of them. These buildings are all located in Sydney and include City of Sydney (1888), Balmain (1894), Lidcombe (1899) and Ashfield (1901). Join us at 2pm today for a look at the #5 oldest active station in N