Waterloo Town Hall

Waterloo Town Hall in Sydney is a historic building on Elizabeth Street in the suburb of Waterloo. It was built between 1880 and 1882 in the Victorian Italianate style with Second Empire elements. The architect was Edward Hughes, while construction was supervised by John Smedley and Ambrose Thornley. The building originally served as the seat of the Waterloo Municipal Council, which met here from 1882 to 1948. Construction was marked by delays and rising costs, as the project was expanded several times. In 1915, a social hall was added at the back of the building, and during World War II an air-raid shelter was built inside, which today is one of the few surviving examples of its kind in Sydney.

Since 1972, the building has housed the Waterloo Library, a branch of the City of Sydney Library that serves the districts of Waterloo and Alexandria. The library moved in after Waterloo was incorporated into the City of Sydney and a later boundary reform. The building is heritage-listed and considered an important local landmark that reflects the district's once strong local identity. You can admire the architecture, which retains a high proportion of its original fabric, although the original wrought-iron veranda on the street side has been removed. A bronze plaque unveiled in 1990 commemorates how the suburb got its name from the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the oldest conflict commemorated in Sydney.