2 On the Road: The Big Dig Archeological Site

Double-click on photo to enlarge for reading.

This is the back of the hostel. Notice the "building" to the left of the stairs that says Whalers Arms. Well it's not a building. It's a fabric barrier that hides the archeological site. Notice it is also on the right side of the photo. The building on the right is the main part of the hostel, called the Margaret Byrne Wing. You can see a glimpse of the other wing, The Robert Berry, between the fabric Whalers Arms and the main wing. Notice how the hostel is on stilts suspended above the archeological site.

This is an overview of the hostel. We were in the left side of the "O" wing. The small building on the lower left is the Big Dig Education Centre.

At the top of the stairs, we begin to see the Big Dig.

The Education center and the back side of the Robert Berry wing of the hostel.


I found a few good websites while I was searching for information on The Rocks, but the best was probably, https://www.visitsydneyaustralia.com.au/the-rocks.html.

What an informative website!! I'll mention which photos can best be described on the website by saying, "Go to The Rocks website". This is what The Rocks Website had to say about Cribbs Lane. "

In the very early years of the Colony at Sydney Cove, a number of tracks wending their way up from the harbour were beaten out by the early colonial settlers who built the first dwellings there. Cribbs Lane was one of these lanes, pre-dating Cumberland and Gloucester Streets and the rest of the regularised street pattern created in 1810. Ann Armsden and her First Fleeter husband, George Legg, first built a house beside the lane around 1795. Following George's death in a boating accident on the harbour in 1807, Ann married her neighbour, baker George Talbot and rebuilt their house in stone.

Irish rebel, Richard Byrne, lived here from around 1805. Byrne was a stonemason, and may have been responsible for some of the quarrying for his neighbours' houses. One pre-1820s quarry can still be seen, and it is most likely houses here were constructed by Byrne using materials from the site. For fresh water, a number of wells were cut into the rock. A well dug by the Byrne family has a few steps cut into the sandstone leading to it. It was here, or a similar well in Cumberland Street, that a small child drowned in 1810. The Byrne family remained here until the 1850s. Their descendants can still be found living in The Rocks area.

Butcher George Cribb, after whom the lane is named, was also a convict, and purchased a house at 28 Cambridge Street where he lived and operated a slaughter yard until the late 1820s. He worked for the government as part of his sentence, and in his own time he slaughtered cattle, sheep and pigs and sold the meat for consumption within the colony, or to ships leaving Sydney. His slaughterhouse was in the centre of his property."

Under the Robert Berry Wing.

Under the Robert Berry wing.

There is a door that goes under the hostel to access the stairs to the main floor. The following photo tells about this area of the dig but it is very hard to read. Double click to enlarge.