Old cemeteries, secret tunnels and war bunkers: what lies beneath Australia’s major cities

FROM Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium to Sydney’s Town Hall, there are secret tunnels, cemeteries and bunkers under our capital cities.

Sydney was built on old burial grounds.

AUSTRALIA’S city dwellers live among new skyscrapers, state-of-the-art sporting facilities and bustling cafes.

But that’s a stark contrast to what lies beneath the polished floors of many inner city apartments, houses and modern office buildings.

Just below the surface of Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Darwin and Brisbane is a mix of old streetscapes; secret tunnels; war bunkers; storage chambers and burial grounds including headstones, coffins, skeletal remains and skulls.

Many modern cities, including Canberra, were built on top of old Aboriginal hunting, meeting and burial grounds. And as is often the case in booming cities, post European settlement cemeteries were moved with many bodies left behind before new owners of the land built over them.

While remnants of the past are often buried, many of them still remain in tact or dormant — just a few metres below some of the most populated places in the country.

SYDNEY

A 1865 map shows the Old Sydney Burial Ground. Druitt Street runs along the bottom of the picture, Bathurst Street along the top, and George Street to the left. The building within the cemetery grounds is the wooden temporary St Andrews Church. Picture: City of Sydney

One of Sydney’s most famous landmarks, Town Hall, stands in the “dead centre” of the city on what used to be a colonial burial ground.

Graves, headstones, iron bark coffins, skulls, skeletal remains and tombs have regularly been uncovered during construction works in the area over the past decade.

Dating back to the 1790s, the site was once the principal cemetery of NSW and is commonly called the Old Sydney Burial Ground.

It is also known as the George Street Burial Ground, the Cathedral Close Cemetery and, retrospectively, the Town Hall Cemetery.

In September 1792, four years after the First Fleet arrived, Governor Arthur Phillip and Reverend Richard Johnson chose the “Town Hall” site for the internment of the dead. Up to then people had been buried in several places around the colony, including a makeshift graveyard in The Rocks. This was because, traditionally, people in Europe were buried in church yards and the first church in the colony did not open until 1793.

Graves were found underneath Town Hall in 1991 — the site of the Old Sydney Burial Ground. Picture: City of Sydney.

When Phillip and Johnson chose the site it was on the outskirts of the growing settlement. But by 1812, the town of Sydney had inched up to the burial ground, which was already so full that the site had to be extended.

By 1820 the cemetery was full and authorities surrounded the area with a brick wall to protect the graves from desecration. A new burial ground was set aside on Brickfield Hill — now the site of Central Station. Some vaults and graves were opened and the corpses and sepulchre deposited in the new burial ground.

Once closed, the cemetery was neglected. By 1837 many of the headstones had been vandalised. The cemetery became “a resort for bad characters at night” and by day stray pigs, goats and horses wandered among the graves, many of which lay open.

Unpleasant smells arising from the grounds became unbearable in hot weather. Many blamed clandestine burials and grave robbers opening graves to steal leaden coffins. It was also recorded in a committee report that men used the old burial ground to answer the call of nature.

The graveyard remained as something of an eyesore, until it was decided to make better use of this increasingly desirable plot of land. Sydney’s councillors were looking for a place to build their grand new town hall, as far away from the powerbrokers in Macquarie St as possible, and in 1868 they demolished the graveyard to build their edifice.

The bodies were moved to a new graveyard at Haslem’s Creek, later renamed Rookwood. But in their haste to build the town hall, some bodies were left behind. Some of those bodies would turn up in ensuing decades.

In 1926 when the Sydney underground railway was being constructed, workers discovered a tombstone with the name W.M. Bowen inscribed on it, along with the remains of a vault, a coffin lid and “a human shank bone”. Other discoveries by railway workers included a 1.3m tall skeleton and a skeleton in evening clothes. When a portico was being added to the building in 1934, workers found more coffins, vaults and bodies. Even as recently as 2008 when work was being done in the cellar of Town Hall, graves were still being uncovered.

BRISBANE

Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium is often a hive of activity, as it hosts high profile rugby league games, broadcast across the country.

But the atmosphere below is much less lively with the site built on top of the North Brisbane Burial Grounds — the principal place of burial of Brisbane residents up to 1875.

The cemetery was officially closed that same year following concerns regarding health issues and to accommodate the city’s expansion to the west.

By mid 1914, most of the graves and headstones were removed to the Memorial Cemetery and subsequently the Toowong and Lutwyche Cemeteries.

The original owners of the land upon which the stadium now sits were the Turrbal Yuggera people.

One of Brisbane’s most significant recent archaeological finds was unearthed beneath City Hall’s wooden auditorium floor in 2011.

Workers excavating the area for a new commercial kitchen uncovered an 1850s streetscape complete with stone drain in 2011.

It was perfectly preserved in the clay used to level out the site before construction began on the much-loved City Hall in the 1920s.

Senior archaeologist Phil Habgood said at the time of the find it was possible as more excavation was undertaken that early homes may also be uncovered.

Mr Habgood said it was possible the streetscape, about 50m wide, would continue across the entire expanse of the auditorium floor.

Prior to the construction of City Hall was ‘the market place’ with stables on the corner of Ann St. Domestic material nails, bottles, crockery and shoes have been uncovered on site in recent years.

HOBART

The Historic Hobart Rivulet, beneath the arch of Wellington Bridge. Picture: Osborne Images / Hobart City Council

The Hobart Rivulet in 1913, before the diversion under the Domain. Picture: Archives Office of Tasmania.

Below the streets of Hobart lies a network of centuries-old run-off tunnels.

The Rivulet winds through Hobart but it’s where it goes under the city that things get interesting for history buffs. Until the 1860s Hobart Rivulet was the main source of freshwater for the new settlement and so the colony grew up along its banks.

The bricks in the rivulet’s tunnels date back to the 19th century. Today some of them have been painted by contemporary artists.

The subterranean waterway was closed off to formal tours in recent years due to health and safety concerns but plenty of people still venture down there.

But it’s not just tunnels that lurk beneath Tasmania’s capital.

Many current homes were built on an old burial ground used by the Wesley Church in the 19th century. The last body was buried there in 1872, but when the cemetery was decommissioned the following year most of the bodies were exhumed and moved to a cemetery near Cornelian Bay several kilometres away. But some of the bodies had been left behind in the move — as one man found while excavating his backyard in West Hobart and uncovering a human skull earlier this year. The remains were found about 1.5m below the ground and about 60cm below the foundation of the home.

DARWIN

World War II Oil Storage Tunnels in Darwin remain under the booming city after being constructed in 1942. Picture: R Walker

An extensive five-tunnel complex was constructed in Darwin during World War II to store oil for the Navy ships visiting Darwin Harbour.

Darwin has been obliterated and rebuilt twice over the past 74 years.

It was repeatedly bombed during World War II in 1942 and again brought to its knees by Cyclone Tracy in 1974.

While most of the homes that once stood no longer remain, the oil storage tanks used to store fuel during the war remain under the city.

From the first raid during 1942-43, Australia and its allies lost about 900 people, 77 aircraft and several ships.

Following the first Japanese air raid in February 1942, engineers began looking at British government designs for oil storage tanks in underground tunnels secure from aerial bombardment.

In 1943 contractors Johns and Waygood began work on a series of tunnels running under the escarpment. The tunnels were, on average, designed to be about 15m underground. The longest tunnel, Tank 10, was nearly 200m long.

By November 1944 the tunnels that still exist today — 1,5,6, 10 and 11 — had been lined with welded steel sheeting. Despite these precautions, it became apparent in 1945 that the tunnels leaked. As water seeped between the steel lining and the concrete walls, corrosion set in. Various solutions were attempted but with little success.

In the 1950s, tunnels 5 and 6 were used to store jet aircraft fuel for the RAF and RAAF. After about three years and a period of heavy rain the whole system was not used again.

MELBOURNE

Underneath Melbourne’s streets is a labyrinth of tunnels stretching more than 1500km. One of the most elaborate storm water drain systems in the world, it is a complex maze of waterfalls, gates, ladders and reservoirs. Inside is a secret museum of street art

Among one of the more complex of Melbourne’s storm water systems, the Maze Drain, is a slippery waterfall nicknamed the “Pit of Death”.

Another chamber is known as the “Tram Room,” and then there’s the “Triple Split,” the “Slide,” the “Skull Chamber,” and so on.

The drain measures roughly 5km from one end to the other not including its many junctions and side tunnels, alternate routes and overflows.

FREMANTLE, LEIGHTON AND ROTTNEST, WA

Tunnels built to transport water under 19th century prisons or house military equipment during World War II that today lie dormant under thriving cities, including Fremantle, Leighton and Rottnest in Western Australia.

Originally published as Old cemeteries, secret tunnels and war bunkers: what lies beneath Australia’s major cities