Anthony Hordern & Sons was a major department store in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

With 52 acres (21 hectares) of retail space, Anthony Hordern's was once the largest department store in the world.

The historic Anthony Hordern building, which was located on a block bounded by George Street, Liverpool, Pitt and Goulburn Streets, on what was a small hill called Brickfield Hill in the Sydney central business district, was controversially demolished in 1986, to make way for the World Square development.

A further large menswear store was in upper George Street, and Hordern's also operated one of the largest mail order businesses in Australia.

The business remained in family hands for a century, and a substantial six-storey building was opened by them in 1905, called The Palace Emporium, the main entrance being completely fitted out in imported Italian marble.

[2] He and his wife Ann (ca.1791–1871) and four children arrived in Sydney on the Phoenix on 6 August 1823 (one reference has 16 June 1824)[3] and set up a drapery business "Mrs. Hordern's" at 12 King Street, between Pitt and Castlereagh Streets[4] on the eastern corner of Terry Lane (later Truth Lane);[2] (He may have initially set up as a coachbuilder.)

[12] Anthony's share of the business was however not disposed of by dissolution of the partnership, a fact that was the subject of a considerable legal tussle.

[15] The company established factories across Sydney which produced a diverse range of items from clothes and baked goods to pressed metal ceilings.

[16] Anthony Hordern & Sons produced general catalogues[17][18] from 1894 to 1935 to tap into the country market and mail order trade.

[24] The store included automatic opening doors, an escalator to the second floor and roof top parking for 160 vehicles.

It then became a Norman Ross store and today the site is West Ryde Marketplace with a Woolworths supermarket as anchor tenant.

A number of the upper levels of the Brickfield Hill store were closed, as the management of Anthony Hordern's tried to restructure the business.

Despite some counterbidding from Buckingham's Holdings Ltd, Walton's succeeded in gaining control of Anthony Hordern and Sons Ltd by 6 January 1970.

[28] After the takeover of Anthony Hordern's by Walton's, the Brickfield Hill site was then sold to Stocks and Holdings Ltd, for $8.5 million.

The development of American-style suburban shopping malls during the later 1960s, coupled with fiercer competition in the city and a lax attitude towards heritage buildings, is said to have sealed the fate of the store.

The Port Jackson fig tree on the Hordern family's estate at Camden, upon which idea of the crest was based, was merely vandalised, having been poisoned in 1966, and did not "die soon afterwards" but was rescued and looked after and is still growing in its pride of position today on Razorback Mountain, surrounded by a fence thus ensuring its enduring security.

The Anthony Hordern Brickfield Hill site, Palace Emporium, was subsequently used by the NSW Institute of Technology (now UTS) for some years.

It (and surrounding buildings) was controversially demolished in 1987 for the World Square development, which remained a hole in the ground for nearly twenty years, before finally being completed in 2004.