Convict and Industry Extended to Newcastle East in 1858

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open Monday during school holidays school during Monday open and the single footprints of a human, with the piles of dirt and hole hole and dirt of piles the with human, a of footprints single the and

5pm, – 10am Sunday to Tuesday

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King Charles Spaniel at the time. A slab is covered with dog prints prints dog with covered is slab A time. the at Spaniel Charles King

(Railway Workshops) (Railway

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WALKABILITY

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local Historian Dr John Turner, who was walking the site with his his with site the walking was who Turner, John Dr Historian local BUCHANAN STREET BUCHANAN

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The sculpture also evokes the accidental rediscovery of the yard, by by yard, the of rediscovery accidental the evokes also sculpture The

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uncovered during archaeological examination of the site. the of examination archaeological during uncovered

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explores the Convict Lumber Yard and the rich layers of artefacts artefacts of layers rich the and Yard Lumber Convict the explores

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HOPKINS STREET HOPKINS by locally-based artist Trevor Weekes, Weekes, Trevor artist locally-based by Rediscovery, sculpture The

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O Indigenous and European settlement were discovered. discovered. were settlement European and Indigenous

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Rose Cottage, 51 Bolton Street Bolton 51 Cottage, Rose 9

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archaeological digs. Hundreds of objects relating to both both to relating objects of Hundreds digs. archaeological

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The site’s significance was established during extensive extensive during established was significance site’s The

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Accessible

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planks at the water’s edge near Watt Street and stored here. stored and Street Watt near edge water’s the at planks

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Signal Hill (Fort Scratchley) Scratchley) (Fort Hill Signal NATIONAL PARK STREET PARK NATIONAL

were bound together and poled downstream by convicts, cut into into cut convicts, by downstream poled and together bound were FOWLER STREET FOWLER

STANLEY STREET STANLEY CORLETTE STREET CORLETTE Convict Coal Mining, under under Mining, Coal Convict 7

construction and ship building. Cedar logs felled along the river river the along felled logs Cedar building. ship and construction

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D Newcastle was once rich with Red Cedar, a timber used in in used timber a Cedar, Red with rich once was Newcastle

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King Edward Park Edward King

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one of the earliest sites of convict industry in Australia. in industry convict of sites earliest the of one

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10 M

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E L This was the location of Newcastle’s Lumber Yard and represents represents and Yard Lumber Newcastle’s of location the was This

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were employed in the coal, timber and lime-burning industries. industries. lime-burning and timber coal, the in employed were

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Evolution 2 Evolution 4

ANZAC PARADE ANZAC

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for the punishment of secondary offenders from Sydney. Convicts Convicts Sydney. from offenders secondary of punishment the for

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The GNR Railway Yards Railway GNR The 3 BRUCE STREET BRUCE

From 1804 to 1822, Newcastle was a penal settlement established established settlement penal a was Newcastle 1822, to 1804 From STREET LAWSON

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Convict Lumber Yard Lumber Convict

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Trevor Weekes 1999, corten steel corten 1999, Weekes Trevor Frame Barracks Convict

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S 3

The GNR Railway Yards

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O The now tranquil parklands of the foreshore were once a vast WALKING TOUR

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E maze of railway sidings and goods yards. The Great Northern STREET HUDSON

Railway, running from Honeysuckle Point to East Maitland, was Convict and Industry extended to Newcastle East in 1858. For more than a century this ROAD MAITLAND

place was filled with the sounds and smells of bustling locomotives Much of the modern Newcastle landscape STREET DENISON

Convict and ST COAL WILSON STREET WILSON

and clattering wagons. has been shaped by the hands of convicts STREET COWPER YOUNG STREET YOUNG

The exchange sidings allowed trains to meet the ships for loading STREET FERN

and industry. Industry STREET FITZROY and unloading of cargo along Queens Wharf. Coal from all over Explore the city’s early years as a convict settlement. the region was transported in wooden hoppers to this point where Explore Newcastle’s Visit remnants of the great industrial enterprises that a row of steam cranes would lift the bodies of the wagons out of once defined the city. Discover amazing engineering industrial and convict their frames to be emptied into the holds of the waiting ships. feats that allowed the city and its people to prosper. past through a self-guided The goods yards remained in use until the 1980s, when the This walking tour starts at the Convict Lumber Yard, walking tour of the city. process of transformation into park lands began. one of the most significant archaeological sites of convict industry in Australia. It ends at Newcastle Museum, the home of incredible objects and exhibitions that celebrate the industrial and convict heritage of the region.

Postcard of Newcastle Harbour and Railway Yard Photograph courtesy of Newcastle Region Library collection 163000167 Smith General Contracting Pty Ltd Robert and Bill Smith arrived in contracts completing railway the Hunter in 1955. The Great maintenance. The company Northern Railway had been made over a million dollars in severely damaged by floods its first full year of operation. in Maitland and these two The company completed contracts Aboriginal brothers were part of for BHP and was responsible for the army of workers tasked with building the railway to the Port Newcastle Art Gallery getting the trains moving again. Waratah coal loaders. Laman Street, Cooks Hill At its busiest time, the company Tuesday to Sunday 10am – 5pm, closed Monday Robert and Bill spent many years www.nag.org.au employed more than 130 people working on the N.S.W railways and over 70% of its employees Fort Scratchley and in 1969 borrowed six dollars were Aboriginal. Robert and Bill Nobbys Road, Newcastle East from their brother Roy to open a Wednesday to Monday 10am – 4pm, closed Tuesday were proud of their company, Rediscovery Trevor Weekes 1999, timber, concrete and stainless steel company bank account. www.fortscratchley.com.au not just for its financial success Newcastle Museum Moderate This was the beginnings of but also for the opportunities Workshop Way, Honeysuckle 2hrs 45mins / 5km Smith General Contracting it provided Indigenous Tuesday to Sunday 10am – 5pm, Pty Ltd. Utilising their railway Australians to develop skills open Monday during school holidays skills, the brothers applied for and gain employment. www.newcastlemuseum.com.au Audio and other information www.visitnewcastle.com.au/attractions/walks-and-rides 4 Evolution 2 Reflecting the bustling movement of people and trains are local artist Sandra Minter-Caldwell’s sculptures Evolution 2. Consisting of an assortment of silicone bronze cast legs fitted with wheels, the work reflects the energy of the area, Signal Hill (Fort Scratchley), Stratigraphical sketch, William Keene, 1854 recalling the rotating wheels Courtesy University of Newcastle Cultural Collections Services, Auchmuty Library of busy locomotives moving 7 wagons and freight to feed Convict Coal Mining local industry. The sculptures Lieutenant Shortland happened upon the Hunter River while also explore the movement of searching for escaped convicts in 1797. He found no evidence people through the park today, of the escaped convicts, but he did find coal. Coal had been a part with people walking, jogging of local Indigenous culture for thousands of years. The earliest and riding bikes, scooters and European coal mining in the Southern Hemisphere commenced Evolution 2 Sandra Minter-Caldwell 1998, silicone cast bronze skateboards in all directions. here in 1801 under what was to become Fort Scratchley. Early coal mining in Newcastle was a hard task performed by 5 unskilled convicts. These convicts were led by a professional Zaara Street Power Station miner named John Platt and together they raised nine tonnes Rose Cottage In 1915 the Zaara Street Power Station joined the locomotives of coal a day. and steam ships to belch soot over the East end of Newcastle. 9 Coal mines dominated the landscape of Newcastle for decades, Rose Cottage, 51 Bolton Street The Power Station was built by the New South Wales Railways. much of the ground beneath the city’s CBD is a honeycomb of pits. Behind the modern buildings of Bolton Street sits Newcastle’s It was capable of supplying so much electricity that it was connected The old tunnels beneath the Fort are still there, having been sealed oldest surviving building, Rose Cottage. It is believed to have to the grid of the Newcastle Borough Council in 1917 and supplied by the 1880s construction of the military installation. been constructed in 1828. much of Newcastle’s electricity needs throughout the 1920s. By this time the only convicts remaining in Newcastle were Zaara Street Power Station remained in operation until 1975 8 employed in mining and breakwater construction. In 1824 and was demolished in 1978. The First Gaol Newcastle was divided into 190 allotments that established Newcastle’s gaol was constructed in 1818 on this site. The Gaol the layout of central Newcastle as it exists today. Rose Cottage was separated from the rest of the town by large sand dunes occupied allotment 35. 6 Macquarie Pier and Nobbys Island formed by the vegetation being removed to prevent escaping Cut off from the road by a realignment of the street, Rose During the early years of Newcastle, navigation of the Harbour convicts concealing themselves. The first gaolers were convicts Cottage survives today as private offices. could be a perilous task. To protect lives and shipping something themselves and it was not only a place of confinement but also had to be done. a place where corporal and capital punishment took place. On August 4th 1818, Captain James Wallis, Commandant of In 1828 women from the overcrowded Parramatta Female Factory 10 The Bogey Hole Newcastle, brought Governor Lachlan Macquarie to this spot and were transported to Newcastle. Another lasting project produced by convict labour is the Bogey proposed constructing a causeway between the mainland and Nobbys. The original gaol was modified with new walls, lodges, gates and Hole, located at the base of Shepherds Hill. Construction began The next day the foundation stone for Macquarie Pier was laid. partitions to accommodate them. Although the gaol had housed in 1819 by order of Commandant Morisset for his personal use. Convict labour was used to construct the pier through to its female prisoners before, the building modifications signalled the Originally known as the Commandants Bath, the pool was cut completion in 1846. It went through several rebuilding programs, beginning of the Newcastle Female Factory. by hand into the rock platform by convicts. While its completion date is not known, it was in use when the Commandant left the vastly improving the safety of the harbour entrance. In the 200 In 1870 the gaol was abandoned. Eventually the crumbling ruins settlement in 1823. years since construction, the city’s most iconic beach, Nobbys were demolished and a depot for Newcastle’s steam trams was Beach, has formed along its length. built on the site. It remains a popular swimming spot to this day.

The13 Water Reservoir This is the site of Newcastle’s first water reservoir. By the 1870s Newcastle was home to thousands of people, with no reliable source of fresh drinking water. Wells dried out in summer and were easily contaminated by the city’s waste. People were dying from preventable water born diseases. To ensure safe drinking water was available, the Hunter River Pumping Scheme was initiated in 1880. This ambitious engineering project pumped water from Maitland to Newcastle. The works began supplying clean drinking water to Newcastle’s population in 1882.

Cathedral Park

11 Cathedral Park Burial Ground and Christ Church Cathedral Approximately 3,300 people were buried in what is known today as Cathedral Park. In 1817 Governor Macquarie declared the Inner view of Newcastle (detail) Joseph Lycett c1818, oil on canvas. Purchased with assistance three acres of land that looked down upon the fledgling penal from the National Art Collections Fund, London UK 1961. Newcastle Art Gallery collection settlement for use as a church and cemetery, making this the oldest official European burial ground in Newcastle. Joseph Lycett, The headstones were either relocated or destroyed when the site Convict Artist became a park in the 1960s. Today the park is being restored and Much of what we know of how encouraged him to paint the the surviving headstones are being returned to their undisturbed early European settlement in local Aboriginal people. Wallis burial position, revealing the history of the park. Newcastle looked, as well as wanted to prove to his superiors insights into local Indigenous in Sydney he was capable culture and traditions, are drawn 12 of maintaining harmonious Australia’s First Railway from the paintings, engravings relations between the convict and sketches of a convict. Just off Church Street is the site of the first railway ever and Indigenous populations of constructed in Australia. Built in 1831, it didn’t use horses Joseph Lycett was convicted Newcastle. The resulting works of forgery and sentenced to or locomotives to propel its wagons but rather gravity. provide a valuable early record 14 years with transportation of the Aboriginal way of life. Workers at The Honeysuckle Point Railway Workshops, 1887 The Australian Agricultural Company built an incline plane to Australia in 1811. Found After receiving an official pardon, Photograph courtesy of Newcastle Region Library collection 001003631 and gravitational railway for the transportation of coal from its to be responsible for further Lycett returned to England in 14 mines on The Hill to the waiting ships below. This pioneer railway forgery in Sydney, he was sent Newcastle Museum (Railway Workshops) 1822 and published books was double track and its wagons each held a ton of coal. Loaded to Newcastle as punishment. It of his illustrations. The buildings that house Newcastle Museum once formed part was here that his skills as an artist wagons were lowered down the inclined plane by a rope passing of the Honeysuckle Point Railway Workshops. These works Several prints and paintings around a large wheel. To control the speed of their descent, the came to the attention of Captain James Wallis. produced by him are held were a crucial part of the Great Northern Railway’s operations. other end of the rope was attached to empty wagons, which were in the Newcastle Art Gallery Established during the construction of the railway in 1854, returned to the top of the hill for reloading. Wallis allowed Lycett to utilise his creative talents on a variety collection including Inner the assembly, repair and maintenance of the region’s fleet of Once the wagons arrived at the bottom of the hill they were of projects. He drew up the view of Newcastle 1818 which locomotives and wagons took place here. pushed by labourers out onto the wharf, where a shoot hanging travelled to the Royal Academy, plans for the first church on From an enormous 60 tonne ladle used for pouring molten steel over the waiting ship meant that the coal contained in the wagons this site. Completed in 1817, London in 2013 for inclusion in at BHP, to a button from a convict’s tunic uncovered at Stroud; could be loaded directly into the vessel’s hold. Remnants of the he also produced paintings for the exhibition Australia spanning railway survived in a modified form, utilising locomotives, until the altar piece. Captain Wallis 200 years of Australian art. Newcastle Museum is home to objects, exhibitions and stories demolition in 1923. exploring Newcastle’s convict and industrial heritage.