Windsor and Richmond: Governor Macquarie's Towns on the Hawkesbury

Why These Two Towns Still Matter

In 1810, Governor Lachlan Macquarie laid out five towns in the Hawkesbury region to give the young colony a stable agricultural base and, arguably, to demonstrate that Britain intended to stay. Windsor and Richmond are the two most accessible of those original five, and together they contain a concentration of early colonial architecture that has few equals anywhere in Australia. This isn't a theme-park version of history — these are working towns where the Georgian post office and the convict-era inn sit alongside the newsagent and the Vietnamese bakery.

For a group of friends with a taste for the genuinely old, the appeal is straightforward: walk a streetscape that hasn't changed its bones since the 1820s, stand inside a church designed by a transported convict architect, and then sit down to a long lunch. No car required. No steep hills. No ticketed admission to the good parts. It's the kind of day that feels both effortless and quietly significant.

Getting There: The Richmond Line Does the Work

The Richmond line runs directly from Sydney's Central Station, passing through Blacktown and Richmond before terminating at — logically enough — Richmond station. The journey takes roughly 90 minutes depending on the service. From Richmond station, Windsor is about seven kilometres away; a short taxi or rideshare covers it easily, or you can take a local bus (check Transport NSW for current timetables). Many travellers find it simplest to begin in Windsor, which has the denser heritage precinct, and work back toward Richmond in the afternoon.

Opal cards work on the Richmond line, and the daily cap means a return trip with any connecting buses stays very reasonable — around $16 or so for the day, though fares change so confirm on the Transport NSW website before you go. There's no need to pre-book unless you're travelling on a public holiday. Trains run regularly on weekdays and Sundays, with slightly reduced frequency on Saturdays. For a group of four or five friends, the train is genuinely the better option: no one drives, everyone enjoys the scenery through the Blue Mountains foothills, and no one pays for parking.

Both town centres are flat. Windsor's main heritage area around Thompson Square and the mall is compact enough to cover entirely on foot. Richmond's CBD is similarly manageable. If anyone in your group uses a walking stick or prefers to pace themselves, neither town will cause problems — the footpaths are sealed and the distances are short.

Thompson Square and Windsor's Georgian Heart

Thompson Square is the centrepiece of Windsor, and it earns that status. Gazetted in 1810, it's considered one of the oldest and most intact town squares in Australia. The buildings around it — the Macquarie Arms Hotel, the courthouse, various Georgian terrace shopfronts — were built in the decade or two after Macquarie laid out the town, and enough of them survive to give the square a coherent character rather than a patchwork of eras. Stand in the middle on a quiet Tuesday morning and the 1820s feel surprisingly close.

The Hawkesbury Regional Museum is housed in a building on the square and offers free entry — though it's worth confirming opening hours and any seasonal closures on the Hawkesbury City Council website before you go. The collection covers Indigenous Dharug history, the flood history of the river (floods here are serious and frequent), early colonial settlement, and the agricultural life that Macquarie intended the region to support. It's modest in scale but well curated, and the staff tend to be genuinely knowledgeable about local history.

The square also gives access to the Hawkesbury River foreshore, where a riverside park offers shaded seating, views across the water, and a welcome place to pause. The Hawkesbury is a big, slow, brown river — nothing like the manicured waterways you see in tourist brochures — and that plainness is part of its character. Pelicans are common. So is the occasional houseboat drifting past.

St Matthew's Church: Francis Greenway's Finest Hour

Francis Greenway arrived in the colony as a convict in 1814, having been transported for forgery. He was a trained architect, and Governor Macquarie — who had a sharper eye for talent than for economy — put him to work almost immediately. St Matthew's Anglican Church in Windsor, completed in 1822, is widely regarded as his masterpiece. It's a Georgian church of real elegance: the proportions are exact, the tower is graceful, and the interior is cool and simple in the way that Georgian ecclesiastical architecture does so well.

The church is still an active Anglican parish, which means access depends on services and events — check ahead if you want to go inside. The churchyard, though, is always open and worth a slow walk. The headstones date from the earliest decades of European settlement, and the inscriptions tell the kind of abbreviated, often brutal histories that colonial cemeteries specialise in. It's sobering and interesting in equal measure.

Greenway is one of Australian history's stranger characters: a convicted forger who shaped the look of early colonial Sydney, was eventually dismissed in disgrace, and died in poverty. His face appeared on the old ten-dollar note for years. St Matthew's is his most complete surviving work, and seeing it in person gives a sense of what the colony was reaching for, architecturally, even in its earliest decades.

Windsor Mall Markets and a Country-Priced Lunch

Windsor Mall, the pedestrian shopping street running through the centre of town, hosts a Sunday market that draws producers and makers from across the Hawkesbury district. The market is well regarded locally — fresh produce, preserves, handmade goods, and the occasional antique dealer — but dates and frequency can vary, so confirm through the Hawkesbury City Council website or local Facebook community pages before planning your visit around it. Getting there on a market Sunday and finding it cancelled is the kind of thing that's easily avoided with a five-minute check.

For lunch, Windsor has a handful of cafes and country pubs that offer the kind of food and pricing that's become rare in inner-Sydney: a generous schnitzel or a bowl of pasta at prices that won't make anyone wince. The Macquarie Arms Hotel, one of the oldest licensed premises in Australia, serves meals in a setting that has at least some of its original character intact — worth a look regardless of whether you eat there. Coffee is reliably good across several of the mall cafes; bring your patience for a small-town pace, which on a good day is actually the point.

Richmond: The Quieter Counterpart

Richmond, seven kilometres south-west of Windsor, is a smaller town with its own heritage precinct and a very different atmosphere. Where Windsor has the river and the square, Richmond has a wide main street, the RAAF Base Richmond on its edge (not publicly accessible, but historically significant as one of Australia's oldest air force bases), and a cluster of early colonial buildings around Windsor Street and the town green.

St Peter's Anglican Church in Richmond, also associated with the Macquarie era, is worth seeking out. The town green is one of the original 1810 Macquarie layouts and still functions as a park. Richmond is quieter than Windsor on most days, which suits travellers who want to finish the afternoon somewhere unhurried before catching the train back to Sydney. There are good cafes on the main street, and the walk from the station into the heritage precinct takes about ten minutes on flat ground.

A practical note: if you're planning to visit both towns in a single day, Windsor in the morning and Richmond in the afternoon works well logistically — you finish closer to the station for the return train. Allow at least two to three hours in Windsor and an hour and a half in Richmond. That leaves time for a proper lunch and a sit-down without feeling rushed.

Practical Matters: Pacing, Comfort and What to Bring

Both towns are at their best in autumn and spring — March to May and September to November. The Hawkesbury basin can be genuinely hot in summer, and January and February in particular can see temperatures above 38 degrees, which makes wandering heritage streetscapes uncomfortable. Winter days are mild and often sunny, though July and August mornings can be cool enough to warrant a layer. The flat terrain and short distances mean this day trip suits a wide range of mobility levels; anyone who can walk a kilometre or two comfortably will manage both towns without difficulty.

Wear comfortable shoes — you'll be on your feet for most of the day. Bring a water bottle; both towns have public drinking fountains in the main parks. Sunscreen and a hat are sensible from October through to April. Most cafes and the museum have accessible toilets. There's no obligation to rush: the whole point of a day in the Macquarie towns is to move at the pace the nineteenth century intended, which is to say, slowly and with frequent stops.

For travellers coming from interstate — including from regional Victoria, where a flight or train to Sydney adds a night either end — it makes sense to fold this day trip into a broader Sydney itinerary rather than making the trip to Sydney for Windsor and Richmond alone. The Richmond line is about 90 minutes from Central, so combine it with a day or two in the city. Sydney to Windsor is not a weekend away; it's a very good day out from wherever you're based in the city.