Square, evolved into McQuade Park. James Meehan, the surveyor, started to lay out the new central square on 9 January 1811. At that stage he envisaged it as occupying two whole rectangular sections in the town, constituting the link between the narrow north-east end of the town and the regular, broader grid-plan of the south-west end, set at a slight angle to the north-east part. Meehan measured the Great Square as 15 chains (300 metres) in length by 15.5 chains (310 metres) in depth, although a chain would be taken off on each of the four sides for a street of standard width. The square would then be reduced to 280 by 290 metres, though later surveys show the area as considerably less, at around 4 hectares (e.g., SRNSW, Map 5967 of 1835). The church and cemetery reserve in 1811 was to occupy land immediately to the north of the square, as an extension of the town grid. This is shown clearly on the 1812 plan of the town, signed by Macquarie himself. Meehan, most unusually, commented in his Field Book about the purpose of the Great Square. It was, he wrote, "intended as a Square or Open Area - as a parade or park for the use of the Town". The reference to "parade" refers to the military contingent stationed in the town. It is not known whether the area of the square was already cleared in 1811, but a panorama of Windsor painted in 1816 shows the area empty both of houses and of trees, while the detailed vista of the town painted by Joseph Lycett in 1821-1822, which shows St Matthew's Anglican Church, confirms that no trees survived on the site of the square. It is likely that the area was used at this time for grazing, for military parades and for the occasional game of cricket between the military and the farmers. By 1827, when new plans were drawn, the area of the Square had been more than doubled and its shape was no longer rectangular. The original Square which Meehan surveyed in 1811 is shown in red hatching on the map below. The only part which remained the same by 1827 was the southern edge, along George Street, although the George Street frontage was now extended to the west to a total of about 230 metres. The Square had become an irregular pentagon, and it