Canley Vale Accommodation, Hotels, Tours & Information

Canley Vale

The significance of Liverpool in the development of the fledgling NSW penal colony is underlined by some observations made by the fifth Governor, Lachlan Macquarie, as he handed over to his successor, Thomas Brisbane, in 1822.

Macquarie noted that when he first visited the southern outpost that he named Liverpool in 1810 "the land was thick with forest". When he left the colony 12 years later, Macquarie noted Liverpool "included a handsome, neat, brick-built church, a brick-built hospital, a provisions store, barrack, schoolhouse, parsonage, gaol, a wooden wharf and several other government buildings".

The private homes already in place included Collingwood, built in 1810 for Eber Bunker, the father of Australian whaling. Historic Collingwood survives to stand in the shadow of the Regional Museum which is located on the Hume Highway, about 1km south of the Liverpool Centre.