Sydney office
National Archives Sydney Office
National Archives of Australia
120 Miller Road
CHESTER HILL NSW 2162
Tel: (02) 9645 0110, Fax: (02) 9645 0108
Locked Bag 4, CHESTER HILL NSW 2162
View map
Opening hours
Reading room
9am–4.30pm Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, closed public holidays
9am to 1pm on particular Saturdays
Please note: There is no new issue of records after 3.30pm. Records cannot be delivered from the repository on Saturdays. You can send an advance request to view records.
Getting there
Trains
The nearest railway station is Chester Hill, 15–20 minutes walk away. Trains travel to and from Chester Hill every 30 minutes.
Buses
Veolia Transport NSW operates bus routes from Chester Hill railway station, stopping at the corner of Campbell Hill and Curtis Roads, 5–10 minutes walk to the National Archives reading room.
Taxis
There is a taxi rank at the Chester Hill railway station. Premier Cabs 131 017 can be used to book taxis from the National Archives for return journeys.
Onsite accessibility
Car parking
Parking is available for visitors at the National Archives at Chester Hill.
Wheelchair access
All public areas of the National Archives are wheelchair accessible.
Toilet facilities
A toilet with disabled facilities is on the ground floor near the reading room.
Assistance animals
Visitors with recognised assistance animals, including guide and hearing dogs, are welcome.
The collection in Sydney
The oldest document in the National Archives’ collection held in Sydney is a Deed of Title signed on 1 May 1804 by Governor Philip Gidley King. The deed allows the allotment of land in Pitts Row (now Pitt Street) to be transferred to Matthew Kearns for 14 years. This site later became the ‘Pitt Street Extension’ of the Sydney General Post Office.
Other highlights of the collection include New South Wales post office records dating from 1830s; plans and drawings of post offices, customs houses, army and navy establishments, and Government House Sydney dating from 1860s including original coloured drawings by the Colonial Architect James Barnet.
Also included are NSW colonial trademark records from the 1860s and copyright records from the 1870s; meteorological journals of the Government Observatory, Parramatta, from 1822 to 1836; records of the Cockatoo Island dockyard from the 1860s; records of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine from the 1930s; and sound and moving image collections including Damien Parer’s Kokoda Front Line, Prime Minister Ben Chifley’s declaration of peace on 15 August 1945, decimal currency television and radio commercials, and the ABC’s Seven Little Australians.
The Sydney Office holds over 25 kilometres of audio-visual material including material from the ABC, Screen Australia, the Australian Film Television and Radio School, the Department of Defence and significant Commonwealth Persons including Prime Ministers.
