Susannah Place Museum

Story

Susannah Place Museum is a historic house museum situated in The Rocks, Sydney. It is a block of four terrace houses that was built in 1844 and had domestic occupants until 1990. It is a documentation of the urban working class community in The Rocks. The terraces in various states of modernity show the evolution of occupation over 150 years.A Museum in the MakingIn 1987, a joint project between the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales and the Sydney Cove Authority was established to conserve the terrace houses. The conservation work focuses on preserving and conserving, rather than recreating, so all restorative work is fully documented and where possible, reversible. The terraces contrast with many other restored houses because it retains old materials rather than recreating them from new ones. Susannah Place aims to ‘preserve the evidence of the building’s use and its adaptation to the changing needs of its occupants over 150 years.’A conservation management plan places exceptional importance on retaining the character of the building, stating the need to ‘retain overall form, scale and character of the exterior and character of the ground, first floor levels’. One example of creating a museum in the making include leaving the front room on the ground floor of no. 58 ‘as found’, which hadn’t been occupied since 1974 and the only changes were essential repairs.Building DescriptionSusannah Place ‘is very similar to a class on London houses that featured simple pattern of openings and detailing.’ It is made up of four multi level terraces, with a two story façade facing onto Gloucester St and a three storey façade facing onto Cambridge St and Cumberland Place. The building is on a sandstone foundation, with external brick walls in colonial bond and internal walls brick nogged. The roof line is hidden by a sandstone-capped parapet, fashionable for the day.