[2] The Raphael Mackeller Stores is generally considered as separate from the George Street properties it is purported to have originally served.

[1] The subject land was originally granted to Captain John Piper in June 1828 by Lieutenant General Ralph Darling, Governor of the Colony.

[1] Construction proper of the shops and houses fronting George Street commenced a few years earlier in 1843 by Unwin.

Dr Frederick Mackellar purchased the four tenements in February 1853 for £2,100 and his trustees re-leased the buildings to the Crown and the then NSW Minister for Public Works in December 1902 for the sum of £5,932/15/4.

The most recent tenant before the original conservation and adaptive reuse works in the late 1980s was Stanton Catchlove & Co who moved into 2 Kendall Lane in 1930 and manufactured sheep dip and soft soap.

This involved extensive conservation and adaptive reuse of the building to accommodate modern services and fitout occurring in 1988- 1990.

In 2005, the Raphael Mackeller Stores were once again converted to accommodate the Rocks Discovery Museum (opened in December 2005), at which time, further conservation and interpretation works occurred.

[3][1] The Raphael Mackeller Stores or Coach House is a narrow stone building facing Kendall Lane.

The other three pulleys are located in between (a) and (e), and were used for flat belt drives to other machinery (since removed) at ground floor level, mainly mixing machines for making 44-imperial-gallon (0.00020 ML) much sheep dip and soft soap, again for Stanton Catchlove.

The motor for driving the lineshaft was tucked beneath a wooden staircase at the northern end of the ground floor area, and is partly guarded (for operator safety) by a roughly made chain-wire mesh screen.

The internal conical drive setting, and hence output speed, is varied by means of a handwheel and flexible shaft connected to the motor easing.

[1] Power was provided by a continuously running flat leather belt, which came up through a hole in the floor from the ground-floor lineshaft immediately beneath the mixer, and passed around the machine's pulleys.

A handle with metal prongs enabled the mixer operator to slide the belt onto one pulley which was keyed to the gear shaft, and which then drove the mixing blades, or to slide the moving belt onto the second pulley which was not keyed but which rotated freely on the shaft and allowed the blades to stop.

The whole mixer is very dirty, but in fairly intact condition, except that the drive belt is missing, and a drain cock has been removed from a threaded outlet at the bottom of the drum.

The frames are joined by three horizontal tie rods with threaded ends, which pass through holes at the apex and at each foot of the A-frame, and are secured by square nuts.

Engaging the intermediate gears allows much heavier loads to be lifted occasionally, although they would be raised more slowly, a versatile arrangement well suited to a small store like this one.

The upper end of the brake band is attached to a fixed pin in the top of one leg of the A-frame side casting.

As part of the Kendall Lane/Unwin Stores Precinct and The Rocks as a whole it conveys very clearly the character of Sydney's mid to late 19th century period of development.

The Raphael Mackeller Stores and site are of state heritage significance for their historical and scientific cultural values.

[3][1] The Raphael Mackeller Stores or Coach House was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 10 May 2002 having satisfied the following criteria.

The Raphael Mackeller Stores has historic value because of its immediate visual association with an early phase of Sydney's history.

The coach house is associated with a very historic precinct of Sydney, George Street, The Rocks, indicating early commercial activity.

The Raphael Mackeller Stores is associated with the merchants and professionals Frederick Mackellar (solicitor, father of long-term parliamentarian Sir Charles Mackellar and grandfather of poet Dorothea Mackellar), Joseph George Raphael (merchant, seaman shipping agent, clothier, publican and member of NSW parliament) and Frederic Wright Unwin, who were all instrumental in the early development of the commercial precinct of George Street North and Kendall Lane.

[3][1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.

The Raphael Mackeller Stores is a well detailed colonial sandstone three storey building which is relatively intact and has had sympathetic restoration works carried out.

It is an extremely significant townscape element to Kendall Lane portraying the original form, scale, detail and material of the 1850s.

[3][1] The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.

The construction of the Raphael Mackeller Stores indicates the early method of building and finishing in the 1850s, using hardwood flooring, beams, columns and sandstone block walls.

[1] Winch & Catshead Pulley: The winch and associated catshead pulley are very significant, because they represent the original and long-standing function of the Raphael Mackeller Stores as a typical small multi-storey store warranting manual-powered hoist machinery, but not warranting a major steam or hydraulically powered hoist.

[3][1] The place possesses uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.