The first Government House

The first Government House was not a simple singular structure but a complex with a yard, outbuildings, guardhouse, garden and great domain. It was a home, and office and a venue for public and private entertaining, but also a symbol of British authority, with all that that meant to different people, both then and now. A place of intimacy and officaldom, birth and death, celebration, confrontation and reconciliation, the first Government House was the scene of significant moments in the young colony's history.