HMS Sirius Museum

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Credit : Explore TV – Guru Productions

Open: Mon – Sat 11:00am to 3:00pm

Tickets: Single Entry: Adults: $10.00 – This is for entry to any one museum for a single visit.

Museum Multi Pass: Adults: $35.00 | School age children: Free

Explore the Museum at your own pace with the Museum Multi Pass. It includes multiple entries to all four museums at any time during your stay, as well as two guided Tag-A-Long tours.

Tag-A-Long Tour Schedule:

Sirius Museum and Pier Store: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday

Commissariat Store and No. 10 Quality Row: Monday, Wednesday, Friday

These tours include a guided journey behind the scenes, to reveal additional stories from the museum collection and Norfolk’s history. There’s no need to book, simply turn up on the two mornings that suit you. All tours leave from the R.E.O. Bookshop at 9:30am and take approximately an hour and a half.

For all tickets and tour information go here:

http://norfolkislandmuseum.com.au/index.php/tickets-and-tours/

Location: On the corner of the Compound, on Bounty Street in the former Protestant Chapel.

What’s on Display:

This museum is dedicated to the HMS Sirius, flagship of the First Fleet and wrecked on Norfolk Island in 1790. The objects you’ll see include a one tonne anchor, carronades, cannon balls and delicate pieces from the Officer’s Quarters. Over 6,000 items have been recovered from the wreck site, which lies about 100 metres away on Slaughter Bay reef. The reasons why the Sirius was at Norfolk Island and the circumstance of the wrecking are fully explored together with the words of eye-witness accounts. A 20-minute video “Search for the Sirius” tells the fascinating story of the recovery of the objects during the 1980s’.

The journey of the First Fleet is celebrated in this museum. A touch-screen computer contains biographies of all who landed at Botany Bay in 1788 and a unique First Fleet Wall provides the opportunity to view the names of all those who made the journey. Descendants can purchase and have mounted on the Wall a timber disc engraved with their ancestor’s name and also sign a “Descendant’s Book” containing a page for each First Fleeter.

The Building:

The building is known as the former Protestant Chapel as it was built in 1840 as a chapel for the convicts in the Second Settlement during the time of the reformist Commandant, Alexander McConochie. After the close of the settlement, it fell into disrepair by the 1870s. It was substantially re-built in the 1890’s and used once again as a Church. By the 1940’s it had again fallen into ruin and remained so until re-built as a Youth Centre in 1968. In 1985 modifications were made and it became a Maritime Museum for the Norfolk Island Museum and continued with this use till 2004 when it was then used as a theatre.

The HMS Sirius Museum was opened in January 2013.

Relocating the HMS Sirius museum Norfolk Island