3-047-024 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The General Post-Office, Sydney, New South Wales, 1872. 'The capital city of New South Wales, having a population of nearly 150,000, and a flourishing trade, awhile standing in a magnificent position on the inner shore of Port Jackson, one of the finest harbours in the world, is now adorning itself with stately architectural structures...The new Post Office stands between George-street and Pitt-street, with a frontage to each of those streets. Its design combines the Florentine with the Venetian characteristics. The pillars of the arcade, being of the native granite, which has a grey tint and takes a high polish, agreeably relieve the general uniformity of colour. The building is profusely decorated with carving throughout...Sydney contains about a hundred and twenty churches and chapels, of greater or lesser outward pretensions. This brief enumeration will show that the town has a metropolitan aspect, worthy of the oldest colony and province in the English Australian empire'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.