[1] Six key phases of development demonstrate the evolution of the site, from proposed reformatory and model farm for wayward boys to an important teaching hospital that specialised in geriatric care and rehabilitation until its transformation into the Media Village for the 2000 Summer Olympics.

An innovative aspect of the development of the site was Sydney's first septic tank with associated facilities, constructed in 1897–1898 to alleviate the inadequacies of the existing system.

A summary of key development dates is provided below:[1] The Lidcombe Hospital Recreation Hall and Chapel was designed by architect Ken Woolley.

[1] Archaeological features and deposits associated with the development of the Asylum and State Hospital have the potential to enhance the available information relating to the care and hospitalisation of the aged, infirm and destitute.

[1] Archaeological remains of the first institutional septic tank constructed in Australia are located within the neighbouring University of Sydney Cumberland College campus.

[17][1] The majority of buildings outside the Lidcombe Hospital Precinct have now been demolished and substantial changes have been made to the landscape to prepare the site for a residential development.

The precinct retains substantial evidence of all periods of development of the site from Boys Reformatory, through State Hospital to Olympic Media Village.

The site has significance for its association with innovative medical practitioners, specialists in geriatric health care, nurses and the local community for over a century.

As the site of the Media Village, the place also has associations with the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, which provided short-term accommodation for approximately 5,000 visiting journalists.

All reformatory and asylum buildings are designed in harmony around the central Village Green and unite qualities of shelter and surveillance, community and destitution, within a landscape both picturesque and functionally self-sufficient.

[1] The nine Vernon-designed wards, individually and collectively, are outstanding examples of hospital pavilion buildings in a bungalow form, which are a deliberate continuation of the hospital pavilion typology found in some French and British Colonies of the time, with innovative design variations demonstrating the early use of the colonial vernacular in NSW public buildings and advancements in design for patient care.

[1] The Lidcombe Hospital site, as a whole, contains physical evidence of major public works associated with changes in State and Commonwealth health care policy.

[1] The Lidcombe Hospital Precinct is important in demonstrating the concept of a self-sustaining public welfare institution that required intensive farming operations to support its functions.

[1] Dr Tinsley established a full rehabilitation department in 1961 at Lidcombe Hospital and developed programs to actively improve physical and mental facilities and quality of life for aged and disabled persons, demonstrating evolving attitudes to geriatric health.

[1] Many medical specialists, including Dr Lionel Cosins, an English geriatrician of note visited Lidcombe Hospital because of its advanced Rehabilitation Centre, indicating its professional reputation in geriatric medicine.

[1] The asylum and hospital planning is an exceptional example of the 19th century advancements in NSW for health care along the principles of Florence Nightingale, where it was considered healthy to surround hospital and asylum buildings with gardens as part of patient treatment and the buildings were designed with particular attention to natural light, ventilation and climate control for the care of patients.

[1] The nine Vernon-designed wards (1893-1906) demonstrate finely crafted and detailed timber and fretwork, roof vents, fleches, brick chimneys and encircling verandahs which are aesthetically distinctive.

[1] The Lidcombe Hospital Precinct contains a rich ensemble of buildings that reflect changing technologies associated with the provision of medical care and public health administration for a period of over 100 years.

[1] A number of prominent built elements and landscape features, such as the phoenix palms and hoop pines along the Main Avenue, the Boiler House Chimney, the Clock Tower, the Village Green surrounded by the Barnet and Vernon-designed buildings, the Woolley-designed Recreation Hall and Chapel, the large fig trees and the separate grove of surviving mixed Eucalypts, are all landmark features within the Precinct.

[1] The architectural character of the Barnet and Vernon-designed buildings and their arrangement around the Village Green reflects late Victorian planning ideals for institutional facilities.

[1] The sequence of buildings on the Lidcombe Hospital site as a whole reflects the changing attitudes to, and technologies of, health care and forms of accommodation thought suitable for patients and staff and architectural philosophies of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

[1] The Lidcombe Hospital site was important to the local community in providing employment and access to a wide range of health care facilities.

The archaeological resource associated with the Lidcombe Hospital Precinct (in varying degrees depending on integrity) has the potential to contribute to and enhance the extant documentary and physical evidence concerning the development and use of the site over time.

[1] The archaeological resource associated within the Lidcombe Hospital Precinct can contribute to an understanding about developments and changes in the treatment of the destitute, infirm and ailing during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Sydney.

[1] Archaeological investigations of the early road system could reveal details relating to modifications of the landscape and land use patterns over time that are not available in the documentary resource.

[1] The buildings constructed in the Lidcombe Hospital Precinct during the first phases of its development, designed by architects Barnet and Vernon, provide evidence of the government's architectural solution for late nineteenth and early twentieth-century institutions for wayward boys and homeless and destitute men.

[1] The wards designed by Vernon provide evidence of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century methods of natural ventilation and climate control for dormitory-style buildings in New South Wales.

Lidcombe Hospital Precinct provides evidence of the type of self-sufficient institution developed in the late nineteenth century for the care of wayward boys and later for homeless and destitute men.