One of Sydney's more unexpected public spaces, the Paddington Reservoir Gardens occupy a decommissioned Victorian water reservoir that supplied the city from the 1870s until 1899. After the roof of one chamber collapsed in the 1990s, the structure was reborn in 2009 as a sunken garden, with the surviving brick arches and timber columns left exposed around a quiet planted courtyard, a hanging garden and a reflecting pool.
It is small and easy to miss behind its Oxford Street railings, but the play of light through the old vaults makes it a striking spot to pause, and it won international awards for its adaptive reuse. A good place to rest between the shops of Paddington and Darlinghurst.