Early King map of Parramatta April 1790

The King Sketch of Parramatta
New South Wales, April 1790

On the way to England carrying dispatches in April 1790, Captain Philip Gidley King sketched the early location of Parramatta, established since November 1788. In this sketch, the present site of Old Government House is at the bottom, and today's Westmead train station is at top left, indicated as a hill.

Henry Dodd is in charge of the farm at the bottom right of the sketch. In the painting below, Mr. Dodd's house is the nearest to the viewer, on the right of the pathway with the south-facing chimney, two windows and a door, and is known to have had two rooms.

The smoke in the foreground is from a brick-making kiln, and the bridge to Dodd's farm is seen in the mid-distance. It's a good crop, apparently, the serried rows of the grain crossing the cleared farm area.

In this enlarged view of Captain King's sketch the Redoubt for the Marines' battery and encampment is top left. Across the bridge from Dodd's farm is "the Crescent", the steep rise of the banks of the river that creates a distinct area still recognisable today; an extensive crop of grain - maize - can be seen growing across the flats below today's Old Government House. Below the flats are the convicts' huts, five in this part of the sketch and another five below those, each hut houses ten convict men, and someone to mind the hut and keep house; gardens surround the huts. In this painting, one can glimpse the huts' outlines between the trees in the distance.