Woolpack Hotel, Parramatta

Woolpack Hotel

19 George Street (cnr Marsden Street), Parramatta NSW 2150

Grade C · TraditionTrading · checked Sept 2026

Woolpack Hotel claims 1796. No earlier record has been found.

Claimed

1796

First record

none found

Building

no single date

The building. The Dictionary of Sydney dates the colonial inn on the south-east corner of George and Marsden streets to 1820 and records it demolished in 1887, the Parramatta court house going up on its site; the hotel was rebuilt in 1889 on the south-west corner, where it trades now.

Food

Sports bar

The claim

Parramatta's Woolpack trades on a licence story reaching back to 1796, when the settlement was barely a decade old. The claim is hard to prove, though, and the pub moved across George Street into a new building in the 1890s. Today it's a busy, recently renovated CBD hotel opposite the courthouse, with sports bars, a courtyard and grill dining.

What the records show

The hotel says on its own front page that it was founded and licensed in 1796, and it is often counted among the first ten houses licensed in the colony. The sources do not agree on who granted it, crediting Hunter or Phillip, who had left the colony in 1792, and the trade press reports that the provenance cannot be confirmed. The business was rebuilt across George Street in the 1890s under a different name, so neither the site nor the building is the one the licence would have covered. The hotel is not on the New South Wales State Heritage Register. What it is today is plain enough from its own pages: a main bar with a wine and cocktail list, a sports and betting bar with an outdoor courtyard, and a grill kitchen open seven days from half past eleven to half past nine.

What to look for inside

The Dictionary of Sydney calls the house the Freemason's Arms in 1820-21, owned by the emancipist James Larra
John Williams, publican from 1854 to 1865, became mayor of Parramatta
The first inn was demolished in 1887 and the court house built on its site
The sources cannot agree which governor granted the 1796 licence

Visiting

Woolpack Hotel is in Parramatta, Australia, at 19 George Street (cnr Marsden Street), Parramatta NSW 2150. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.

woolpackhotel.com.au Directions in your maps app

Sources

Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026

Run this pub? There is a badge for it

Free to put on your own site, no permission needed. It shows what the pub claims and what the records support, and it changes when the data does.

How to use it, and how to change what it says — if you have a document we have not seen, we would like to read it.