Fort Denison

Fort Denison, part of Sydney Harbour National Park, is a protected national park that is a former penal site and defensive facility occupying a small island located north-east of the Royal Botanic Gardens and approximately east of the Opera House in Sydney Harbour, New South Wales, Australia. The island was formerly known as Pinchgut Island.In 1978 the former fortress was listed on the Register of the National Estate, and is now used as a national park, nature reserve, tourist facility, and as a function space.HistoryPrior to European settlement, the island had the Eora name Mat-te-wan-ye (sometimes Mallee’wonya).PrisonAfter the First Fleet arrived in 1788, Governor Phillip and his advocate-general used the name Rock Island. In 1788, a convict named Thomas Hill was sentenced to a week on bread and water in irons there, after a time the island came to be known as Pinchgut. Once a 15m high or higher sandstone islet, the rock was levelled by convicts under the command of Captain George Barney, the civil engineer for the colony, who quarried it for sandstone to construct nearby Circular Quay.