STEPS AND STAIRS
![]() Before the advent of motor transport, the majority of people walked from place to place so it is not surprising that there are some 14 sets of finely crafted stone stairs in and around the inner Sydney area which give access up and over the high ridges which surround Sydney Cove.
Agar Steps (left), the work of City Engineer Edward Bell, were built in the 1870 to provide a link between Kent Street and Observatory Hill. Their name recalls Thomas Agars, an identity of The Rocks area, who arrived in the colony in 1829. Today they are still flanked by a quaint row of terraces which climb the hillside. They overlook what was once the Kent Street quarry, which provided the sandstone for many of the colonial buildings in The Rocks and Millers Point.
![]() Further along the ridge are High Steps, Windmill Steps and Hickson Steps, all linking Hickson Road at various points around the perimeter of the peninsula with the ridge on which The Rocks and Millers Point was built. The three sets of steps were built in the early years of the 20th Century as part of the redevelopment of the Walsh Bay wharves at that time. High Steps (above) climb the side of the excavated rockface between Hickson Road and High Street.
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Hickson Steps
Hickson Steps are located close to Pier One in the shadow of the southern Harbour Bridge aproaches. The steps link Fort Street to Hickson Road. They were created in the first decade of the 20th century. The name honours RP Hickson, who was Chairman of the Sydney Harbour Trust between 1901-12 when the whole Millers Point wharf area was redeveloped and present day roads and walkways in the area, including Hickson Steps, were created.
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Windmill Steps
Windmill Steps, at the northern end of Kent Street, Millers Point, recall the time when the ridge above The Rocks was known as Windmill Hill, as it was the site of New South Wales' first windmill, built in early 1797. The mill tower was built of stone, the machinery and grindstone imported from England. It was the first of many that would line the ridge and be used to grind grain into flour and was one of the colony's first steps towards self-sufficiency. The most well known of Sydney's early windmills is that of former convict John Leighton. It gave rise to the locality's name (Jack the Miller's Point, now Millers Point) and to that of Windmill Street.
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Argyle Stairs
The oldest surviving steps in The Rocks, and in Australia for that matter, are Argyle Stairs at The Rocks. They were cut into the cliff face to a height of 9 metres when the Argyle Cut was widened, giving access from The Rocks to Miller's Point and Bunker's Hill. They replaced an early wooden set of stairs. Bunker's Hill was a high class residential area which sprang up along the top of the ridge which disappeared with the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge's southern approaches. Argyle Stairs today give access to the walking above Circular Quay on the Cahill Expressway, and onto the walkway across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
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Cumberland Place
Cumberland Place, comprising a series of flights of steps and landings, is one of the oldest known pedestrian streets in The Rocks, and probably Australia, being continuously in use since at least 1808 when it was part of Cribbs Lane. The laneway may have existed earlier as a walking track, however its recorded history begins when convict butcher, George Cribb, purchased a house in 1809 that lay along the alignment of the laneway. By 1825, similar through lanes (e.g. Longs Lane), were well established, and their names recorded on contemporary maps. These maps indicate that the steps and landings that make climbing its steep grade easier were built between 1865 and 1887. The lane's name was changed in 1896 by the Sydney City Council. It is thought that significant archaeological relics may survive under the step's protective layers of concrete and asphalt.
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![]() Bethel Steps are located near the waterfront of West Circular Quay. The land the steps are built on was at the northern end of the Government Dockyard site, constructed on land set aside in 1797 for the residence of the Master Boat Builder, Thomas Moore, which was later converted to the Naval Office, the headquarters for the imposition of Customs. By 1854, a Dead House or Morgue was built on the site, at the request of the then City Coroner, John Brenan. In 1863, Bethel Street was built as a response to the proposed building of the Sailors Home. Bethel Street was closed in 1906 and was reduced to a narrow lane running along the wall of the Mariners' Church to accommodate the expansion of the Morgue buildings.
![]() Moores Stairs (right), which honour Charles Moore, Mayor 1861-1868, were built in 1861 and link Circular Quay East to Macquarie Street. Further around Bennelong Point behind the Opera House, a flight of stairs lead to Government House and the Royal Botanical Gardens via a footpath known as the Tarpeian Way. The pathway and steps give a different view of the Opera House than is generally seen. Further to the east on Mrs. Macquarie's Point, a hand hewn flight of sandstone steps curve gracefully up from the shoreline to Mrs. Macquarie's Chair.
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Moores Stairs
In the Kings Cross / Woolloomooloo area, Butlers Stairs, Hordern Stairs and McElhone Stairs link Victoria Street and Brougham Street at various points along the ridge. Hill's Stairs give access to McElhone Street from Brougham Street below Butlers Stairs. Beares Stairs in Darlinghurst, built in 1887, link the two levels of Caldwell Street. Other steps are in Forbes Street (cnr William Street), Berwick Lane and Kings Lane. All were created during the Victorian era, their names honouring City Council aldermen of the day.
In 1878-82 John McElhone represented Fitzroy Ward in the Sydney Municipal Council. John Beare was a city Alderman from 1881 to 1899. Hordern Steps recalls Edward Hordern, a local resident, to commemorate his term of office with the Sydney Council. George Hill (1802-82), a butcher and publican, was Mayor of Sydney in 1850.
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McElhone Stairs, one of three sets of stone stairs that link Woolloomooloo and Kings Cross
![]() McElhone Stairs recalls John McElhone, a Sydney Municipal Councillor. Near the bottom of the stairs on Cowper Wharf Road is Harry’s Café de Wheels (right), a pie cart that’s been a Sydney late-night institution for over 50 years. Its walls are festooned with photos of famous patrons, mostly politicians and pop stars, enjoying a meat pie at Sydney's most famous outdoor eatery.
Butlers Stairs has a memorial plaque to Mick Fowler; while on the eastern side, house No. 202 Victoria Street also has a plaque revealing it was the home of local identity and publisher of the newspaper, NOW, Juanita Neilson.
![]() These two sites are reminders that Victoria Street in the early 1970s was the scene of one of Sydney's most sustained and vicious development battles. Locals like Mick (who lived at No. 115 Victoria Street and camped on rooftops, defying police and demolition teams) and Juanita were joined by the Building Labourers Federation and other unions, and urban conservationists, using green bans, protests, site occupations, squatting and blockades to save the street from being completely redeveloped into high rise.
By 1974, frustrated developers, often with government support, were resorting to massive intimidation and force, launching assaults on squatter-held buildings. Neilson, who had come to be a strong supporter of the protests in her publication, disappeared without trace in July 1975. Arrests were eventually made, linked back with the developers, but her body was never found. Mick died in 1979. In the end major development on the Woolloomooloo escarpment went ahead, but most of the Victoria Street homes were retained in something like an original streetscape.
The Queen Victoria Building's Grand Staircase is recognised internationally as one of the top 10 Grand Staircases in the world. This building, now affectionately known as the QVB, was designed by George McRae and completed in 1898, replacing the original Sydney markets on the site.
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Queen Victoria Building's Grand Staircase
Built as a monument to the long reigning monarch, construction took place in dire times, as Sydney was in a severe recession. The elaborate Romanesque architecture was specially planned for the grand building so the Government could employ many out-of-work craftsmen – stonemasons, plasterers, and stained window artists – during a time of economic recession.
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