Guided tours Neighborhood tours Culture & history Tours Wheelchair accessible Underground, catacombs & cemeteries Sightseeing Educational activities

Explore Sydney’s dark past with a University of Sydney historian on a walking tour through real crime scenes, cold cases, slums and underworld haunts—featuring forgotten burial grounds and old pubs.

Highlights

• Discover Sydney's forgotten colonial burial ground
• Walk the most dangerous street in Australia between 1900-1940
• Visit the home of the infamous Crime Queen, Kate Leigh
• Find the home of Sydney's forgotten 1920s Cocaine Queen
• Wander down Crown Street, Sydney's coolest street

Description

On this not-so-typical walking tour, you’ll slip into the backstreets of Surry Hills, one of Sydney's most infamous inner-suburbs, and lose yourself in its shadowy past. Dark alleys, twisting laneways, and hidden corners become your gateway into a world of murder, mystery, and mayhem. You’ll step onto real crime scenes where notorious events between 1820 and 1930 shocked the city. Stand on the very spots where bodies were discovered, shootouts occurred, and vice was traded. Trace the paths of long-gone detectives as you explore the original streets, terraces, and lanes where Sydney’s darkest stories unfolded. Long before the cafés and cocktail bars arrived, Surry Hills throbbed with black market alcohol, gambling dens, brothels, dope racks, razor-sharp rivalries and over 90 pubs! Street gangs battled for turf. Crooks ruled the night. The underworld pulsed through every street—and you’ll uncover it all. You’ll reopen a cold case from the 1920s, examining real crime scene evidence to unravel a forgotten mystery. You’ll pass the old pub that ignited the infamous Crown Street Riot of 1890, when more than 200 thugs smashed their way through the neighbourhood. Hear the heartbreaking, rarely told story of the African-American servicemen stationed in Surry Hills during WWII. Follow the rise of a violent 1940s gang war as criminals fought to control the lucrative vice trade catering to American troops. And finally, you’ll descend into the world of Sydney’s queens of crime—the forgotten Cocaine Queen, and the infamous Kate Leigh, the sly-grog empress who ruled the underworld from her Surry Hills stronghold. This is not just a walking tour. It’s an investigation. A resurrection of forgotten voices. A journey into a Sydney you were never meant to see. The tour starts at Sydney's Central Station and finishes at the historical Shakespeare Hotel on Devonshire Street. Established in 1879, it is one of the only traditional 19th-century pubs still operating in the city.

Includes

A guided tour by a historian and archaeologist.

Important Information

• This tour includes periods of prolonged standing (up to 15 minutes). If light to moderate rain is forecast, please bring wet-weather gear.

Easy cancellation

Cancel up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund