ANZAC Memorial, Sydney
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A large memorial in the heart of Sydney that primarily commemorates the Australians who participated and fought in, and all too often died in, the “Great War”, i.e. WW1, but has meanwhile been extended to cover subsequent wars in which Australia took part (WWII, the Vietnam War, the 2003 Gulf War, etc.).
More background info: “ANZAC” (also spelled “Anzac”) is short for ‘Australian and New Zealand Army Corps’ formed as part of the British (and French) expeditionary force that invaded Gallipoli in 1915 – the first mass slaughter battle of WW1 that the Allied forces eventually lost against Turkey. But later “ANZAC” was used for all forces from Australia and New Zealand in this war, also in France and Belgium.
Accordingly, the ANZAC memorials in Australia were intended to honour all Australians who lost their lives in this “Great War”. The idea of creating such a memorial in New South Wales dates back to when the war was still being waged in 1916. After the war the idea was extended to honouring all Australian military personnel, i.e. including returnees.
Fund-raising was hampered by the Spanish flu pandemic and post-war divisions and priorities, but in 1923 a government act was passed and a Board of Trustees established that was to oversee the creation of the memorial monument.
The site in Hyde Park was approved in 1929, one of the designs proposed in a competition in 1930 was chosen, though the original design was somewhat altered in the final form. The foundation stone was laid in July 1932. The Great Depression slowed proceedings but the building was completed and the memorial officially inaugurated on 24 November 1934. At that point in time, Europe was already in the early stages of heading into another war, WWII.
And while WWII was the most deadly war in history it was by no means the last one, and Australians also participated in various other conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries. Today the memorial honours all those from New South Wales involved in these conflicts.
What there is to see: The monument towers over its surroundings in Hyde Park, though it is now rather dwarfed by all the skyscrapers of Sydney’s CBD (Central Business District) bordering the park.
The design of the monument has typical 1930s characteristics. Its main part is a squat rectangular tower of sorts with four square columns on each side that are crowned by statues of seated soldiers, plus four more standing in recesses on each corner just beneath the roof. There are grand church-like stained-glass windows in the centre of each side.
The inside has three levels. The upper floor houses the “Hall of Memory”, the main symbolic part behind those stained-glass windows. In curved recesses in the corners of the hall are inscribed the names of significant battle locations of WW1, in particular several sites in Gallipoli, well-known locations in France and Belgium, such as The Somme and Ypres. But theatres of war in Egypt and beyond also get a mention.
The ground floor is home to the “Hall of Silence”. Here a central monument consists of a tall black-marble column of sorts atop of which is perched a black sculpture of a naked man with his arms draped over a sword and his head and lower legs dangling down. It’s a rather pompous design, really.
Around the access corridors and stairs are numerous smaller memorials dedicated to particular units or branches of the military.
The lower floor consists of several elements including a library, conference room and auditorium, which won’t be of much interest to visitors, while the “Hall of Service” and especially the “Exhibition Gallery” may be.
The Hall of Service was created as part of the Centenary Extension, opened in 2018. The walls ringing the space are filled with hundreds of soil samples with the names of New South Wales cities, towns and homesteads that they came from. They represent the home addresses of WW1 enlistees. In the centre of the hall is a circular installation ringed by yet more place names and soil samples, this time from significant battlegrounds in various wars from the 19th century to almost the present day (e.g. Iraq or Afghanistan). Above this ring is a skylight called the “Oculus”.
At the time of my visit in August 2024, an exhibition space housed a collection of traditional-style museum displays focusing on the roles Australia’s Navy has played, not only in WW1 and WWII but also in more recent engagements, e.g. as part of the “Interfret” UN operations in East Timor in 2000 or the Iraq War of 2003 (with an Iraqi sea mine on display, amongst other things). I won’t go into further detail, though, as it turns out that this was only a temporary exhibition, and by the time you read this there will most certainly be another one in place.
There was also another exhibition room, largely bare but with a collection of drawings and paintings on the walls. Whether this was also temporary or permanent I don’t know.
Back outside, the memorial extends to a reflecting pool to its north and a cascade of pools to the south.
All in all I found this memorial a bit underwhelming. On the one hand the pompousness of the commemoration and statuary felt a little heavy-handed to me, while at the same time background information was rather lacking. It’s worth a look, and for serious war history buffs it’s probably a must, but I wouldn’t count it amongst the top dark-tourism sites in Sydney/Australia. Incidentally, I found the equivalent ANZAC Memorial in Brisbane more convincing.
Location: in the middle of the southern half of Hyde Park in the eastern central part of Sydney’s CBD (Central Business District).
Google Maps locator: [-33.8757, 151.2109]
Access and costs: easy to find, free.
Details: To get to the memorial you can walk it from within the southern and central parts of Sydney’s CBD. Coming from further away, the station “Museum” on the inner-city loop served by regional trains is the closest – located at the south-western corner of Hyde Park, just a stone’s throw away. That station also has a bus stop.
Opening times: daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed only on Christmas Day and Good Friday, but occasionally also for special events.
Admission is free.
Time required: not long, unless you are really into studying the minutiae of the various memorial elements and all the dedications. If you, like myself, are not that level of a war history buff, then you may also be done with it within 20-30 minutes.
Combinations with other dark destinations: See under Sydney.
Just a few steps to the south-east of the memorial stands a small monument also related to WW1, a single event, namely the sinking of the German Emden cruiser by the Australian Navy – it consists mainly of a salvaged gun from the Emden.
Another memorial monument stands a short distance away to the north-west of the ANZAC Memorial and consists of a set of oversized mock gun cartridges.
Of the sites given their own separate chapters, the nearest, though not thematically related, other dark site is Hyde Park Barracks just to the north of the park of this name.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: See under Sydney in general.