Sydney Town Hall, Sydney

Making your way down George Street, you soon meet Sydney Town Hall—one of the city’s grandest Victorian creations that looks every bit like it refuses to blend in. This sandstone showpiece didn’t appear overnight—it took the city from 1869 to 1889 to finish it, with architects J. H. Willson and later Thomas Sapsford giving it the full High Victorian treatment. Corinthian columns, grand arched windows, domes, carvings, and just enough ornamentation to make a peacock blush—they're all here.

What most passers-by don’t realise is that this civic landmark sits on Sydney’s first official cemetery. Beneath the foundations are traces of the colony’s earliest years—an unexpected reminder that city halls may have stories layered deep under their floorboards...

Once inside, the drama continues. Centennial Hall, unveiled in 1889, is the real star of the building. With its lavish plasterwork, stained-glass windows, and a pipe organ that once held the title of world’s largest, this hall was designed to impress—and it still does. Concerts, ceremonies, grand receptions—you name it, this room makes it sound (and look) spectacular.

Sydney Town Hall also remains a working building, home to the Lord Mayor and City Council. Visitors who join a tour get to wander through its richly decorated rooms, extravagant staircases, and polished hallways that seem determined to prove the 19th century never really left.

And keep an eye on that clock tower. At 55 metres above George Street, it’s been keeping time—and keeping watch—over the city for more than a century.