Windsor, NSW 2756

Windsor is a historic riverside town about 56 km north-west of the Sydney CBD that is the council seat of the City of Hawkesbury LGA. It is the fourth-oldest place of British settlement on the Australian continent: settlement began around 1791 at the head of navigation of the Hawkesbury River, and on 15 December 1810 Governor Lachlan Macquarie officially proclaimed the town, one of the five 'Macquarie Towns' of the Hawkesbury. The old town is packed with early-colonial heritage — Francis Greenway's St Matthew's Anglican Church (consecrated 1822), Thompson Square, the Macquarie Arms Hotel and dozens of state-heritage-listed buildings — and sits on the river, enveloped by farmland. The township itself is small, but it anchors a much larger 'Greater Windsor' urban area including South Windsor, Bligh Park, Windsor Downs, McGraths Hill and Mulgrave. Windsor has also been repeatedly devastated by Hawkesbury River floods, with the 1867 flood level still marked on the wall of the Macquarie Arms Hotel.

At a Glance

Transport

Windsor railway station (heritage-listed, opened 1 December 1864) sits in the town on George Street and is on the Richmond branch of the Sydney Trains network, served by T1 North Shore & Western Line trains with additional late-night T5 Cumberland Line services. The branch terminates at Richmond station — not Windsor — with Windsor three stops short of the terminus (Richmond–East Richmond–Clarendon–Windsor), and Mulgrave the next station toward the city. Windsor station is 54.98 km from Central by rail. Most travel is by car — 68.9% of Windsor workers drove to work at the 2016 census and only 9.0% used public transport. Busways regional buses also call at Windsor Station and the town centre, including Route 672, the Windsor–Wisemans Ferry loop service, and the wider Busways 'Western Sydney Network Region 1' covers the Windsor, Richmond and Blacktown areas (Busways).

Schools

Windsor Public School — NSW government primary school on Dight Street in the Windsor town centre (school website). St Matthew's Catholic Primary School Windsor — Catholic systemic primary on Tebbutt Street, Windsor (Catholic Schools Guide). Secondary students are served by schools in immediately adjacent suburbs: Windsor High School — the local government high school (Years 7–12, about 605 students in 2023) located at 10 Mulgrave Road in adjacent Mulgrave, which stood in for 'Burrigan High' in the TV series A Country Practice — and Hawkesbury High School in adjacent Freemans Reach (school newsletter).

Shopping & Amenities

The town centre runs along George Street, where The Windsor Mall (Water Wheel) hosts the weekly Windsor Mall Sunday Market (9am–3pm) with produce, arts and food stalls. Windsor Marketplace, at 6–16 Kable Street off Macquarie Street, is the main shopping centre with 15+ stores anchored by Woolworths, about 1.5 km from the station (Windsor Marketplace). The heritage Thompson Square conservation area — with the Macquarie Arms Hotel, the 'commodious inn' built on Macquarie's orders around 1815 — sits at the George Street end near the river. Windsor is also the Hawkesbury's civic hub: Hawkesbury City Council's administration building is at 366 George Street and Hawkesbury Central Library at 300 George Street (Your Hawkesbury; Hawkesbury Gazette). Heritage and culture include St Matthew's Anglican Church, the Windsor Court House (Court and Pitt streets), the Hawkesbury Regional Museum and Hawkesbury Regional Gallery. The Hawkesbury Showground — home of the Hawkesbury Show — is just west at Racecourse Road in immediately adjacent Clarendon (Hawkesbury Showground).

Parks & Outdoors

Windsor fronts the Hawkesbury River, and the Windsor Bridge (replacement opened to traffic 18 May 2020) is the town's landmark crossing of the river. Governor Phillip Park is the riverside recreation park with a playground opened by Hawkesbury City Council in July 2018, about two minutes' drive from George Street (Blue Mountains Mums; Hills District Mums). Other local parks include Howe Park, Macquarie Park, Windsor Beach and the heritage-listed McQuade Park, and parks cover about 15.3% of the suburb's area. The river flats around town are flood-prone — flood peaks are a defining feature of Windsor's riverside setting.

Property Market

The median house price in Windsor was around $1,037,500 (median house sale price, 34 sales in the 12 months to mid-2026, CoreLogic data via YIP) (mid-2026). See our full Sydney property price map for how the suburb compares across the city. Real 2026 medians are lower than headline estimates of $1.2–1.6M: the CoreLogic-derived median house price is ~$1.04M. Windsor is a small township (4.2 km², 1,915 residents) inside the City of Hawkesbury, with older character housing and heritage properties around George Street and Thompson Square; housing there is mixed with heritage cottages, workers' cottages and newer homes. Buyer demand is also spilling into the larger neighbouring suburbs (South Windsor, Bligh Park), where detached houses are cheaper again. Low sales volumes (34 houses, 7 units in 12 months) mean medians can swing between trackers.

New Developments

Windsor Town Centre Revitalisation Project — the highly anticipated George Street revitalisation ('a shady and beautiful tree-lined boulevard') began stage one works on 24 June 2024, funded under the Western Parkland City Liveability Program, part of the Western Sydney City Deal (Hawkesbury City Council media release). The broader Windsor Town Centre Liveability Project has since been reported complete, part of Hawkesbury's wider town-centre revitalisation push (Hills to Hawkesbury). New Windsor Bridge — the replacement bridge opened to traffic on 18 May 2020, replacing the 1874 structure that was the oldest existing crossing of the Hawkesbury River. The town centre faces ongoing pressure and uncertainty as Sydney's north-west growth corridor expands around it, with redevelopment interest in sites such as the Fitzroy Hotel (Hawkesbury Gazette).

Jobs & Local Economy

As the seat of the City of Hawkesbury, Windsor's anchor employer is the council: Hawkesbury City Council's administration building (366 George Street) and the Hawkesbury Central Library (300 George Street) sit in the town centre (Hawkesbury City Council; Hawkesbury Gazette). Retail and hospitality jobs cluster around the George Street town centre, the Sunday market and Windsor Marketplace, with civic, legal and community services (courthouse, police, museum, galleries) adding white-collar roles. Regionally, the Richmond–Blacktown corridor — including RAAF Base Richmond and the Western Sydney University Hawkesbury campus nearby — plus farmland on the river flats are the wider employment base, and most residents commute by car (68.9% drove to work in 2016).

Nearby Suburbs

Cornwallis, Freemans Reach, Pitt Town, Wilberforce, Clarendon, Pitt Town Bottoms, South Windsor, Mulgrave, McGraths Hill

Sources & method

Researched 5 September 2026 from named public sources — census and government records, transport authorities, council and planning documents — plus published sales data. Where sources disagree on a figure, the guide says so rather than picking one.

Sources cited in this guide:

• NSW Government

Corrections are welcome — if something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it.

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