Convicts settled here when the First Fleet arrived in 1788. The name "The Rocks" comes from the rocky western shore where they landed Fact.
Australia's oldest pubs
Some of Australia's oldest pubs cluster here — the Fortune of War (1828), the Lord Nelson (1831), the Hero of Waterloo (1845), and Harts (1899) Fact. Cadmans Cottage (1816) is considered Sydney's oldest surviving residential building Fact. The laneways come alive best on a guided walking tour, and a pub tour can carry stories like the Rum Rebellion and the "six o'clock swill."
The first eviction
When bubonic plague struck in 1900, the government resumed much of The Rocks, demolished slum housing, and forcibly evicted residents Fact. This was not the last time this ground pushed people out — it's the opening line of a pattern that repeats later in this series.
The walls of The Rocks aren't a backdrop for tourists — they're a record left by convict hands and the age of rum.