Mrs Macquarie's Chair

Mrs Macquarie's Chair near the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney

Mrs Macquarie's Chair (also known as Lady Macquarie's Chair^[1]) is an exposed sandstone rock cut into the shape of a bench, on a peninsula in Sydney Harbour, hand carved by convicts from sandstone in 1810 for Governor Macquarie's wife Elizabeth. The peninsula itself is named Mrs Macquarie's Point, and is part of the The Domain, near the Royal Botanic Gardens.^[2][3]

Mrs Macquarie was the wife of Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821. Folklore has it that she used to sit on the rock and watch for ships from Great Britain sailing into the harbour. She was known to visit the area and sit enjoying the panoramic views of the harbour.

Above the chair is a stone inscription referring to Mrs Macquarie's Road. That road was built between 1813 and 1818, and ran from the original Government House (now the Museum of Sydney) to Mrs Macquarie's Point.^[4] It was built on the instruction of Governor Macquarie for the benefit of his wife.^[5] There is no remaining evidence of the original road, other than a culvert over which the road ran.^[4]

The peninsula sits between the Garden Island peninsula to the east and Bennelong Point (where the Sydney Opera House resides) to the west. The chair itself faces north-east towards Fort Denison and the Pacific Ocean. The area around it on Mrs Macquarie's Point is a popular lookout position for the view to the north-west of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

References

Coordinates: 33°51′34.08″S 151°13′19.93″E / 33.8594667°S 151.2222028°E / -33.8594667; 151.2222028