Symetry in stone.

The Hyde Park Barracks is a brick building and compound designed by convict architect Francis Greenway between 1818–19; originally built at the head of Macquarie Street (1819) to house convict men and boys.

The site is managed by the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales as a museum open to the public for a modest fee. The site is listed on New South Wales' State and Australian National Heritage registers, and is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of 11 preeminent Australian Convict Sites as amongst "the best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers through the presence and labour of convicts."

During the late 18th and 19th centuries, large numbers of convicts were transported to the various Australian penal colonies by the British government. One of the primary reasons for the British settlement of Australia was the establishment of a penal colony to alleviate pressure on their overburdened correctional facilities. Over the 80 years more than 165,000 convicts were transported to Australia.

The number of convicts pales in comparison to the immigrants who arrived in Australia in the 1851-1871 gold rush. In 1852 alone, 370,000 immigrants arrived in Australia. By 1871 the total population had nearly quadrupled from 430,000 to 1.7 million people. The last convicts to be transported to Australia arrived in Western Australia in 1868. According to one estimate, "at least 1000 of the convicts sent to Australia before 1850 were not white".