HERITAGE NEWSLETTER OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ORGANISATIONS INC. JULY - AUGUST 2013 ISSUE No. 28 HERITAGE FOREST OF WOLLEMI PINES Many botanic gardens are increasingly becoming involved in conservation activities that integrate in situ and ex situ approaches to tree conservation, which are typically undertaken in partnership with other organisiations such as national park agencies, forest services, non-government organisations(NGOs) and local communities. (BGCI- Integrated Conservation of Tree Species: A reference manual) by Ross Ingram, Acting Curator Manager, Blue Mountains Botanic Garden In the early 1990s Blue Mountains Botanic Garden acquired almost 200 hectares of wilderness, adjoining and to the north of the existing garden.

Following the discovery of the Wollemi Pine in 1994 and with the declaration of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage area a few years later the acquisition took on even greater significance and opportunity.

All of these changes precipitated the need for a review of the gardens View into rugged a gorge and selected planting site on Blue Mountain thematics to refocus the role and Botanic Garden conservation area. Photograph Greg Bourke function of the garden in a World One potential conservation strategy forest that would provide visitors Heritage area and to explore the is to establish ex situ populations in with a relatively safe and managed new opportunities and possibilities natural environments. To maximise “wild Wollemi experience”. arising from these changes. the effectiveness of this approach it is critical to understand how Access to the conservation area Into this context came an approach Wollemia responds to a broader has to date been challenging. from University PhD student Heidi range of environmental conditions. Zimmer in conjunction with the This requires an experimental The first obstacle was overcome Wollemi Pine Recovery group which approach. (Zimmer and Baker, with the donation of funding by the stimulated interest and the 2011) Friends of the Botanic Gardens for immediate possibility to initiate a a footbridge which made safe planting of some 200 trees. To After careful exploration and access across the highway quote Heidi’s report – research of a number of locations possible. To date, research of the natural within the conservation area, a site populations of Wollemia nobilis has which almost replicates the original Visitor access has been limited to been observational. discovery site, was identified and students participating in formal field the challenging task of planting out study trips and to those who were Studies on the natural history, and began prepared to book and pay for an morphology, biology, genetics and organised tour with a guide. phylogeny of Wollemia provides a fundamental understanding of the A new visitor The area is abundant with natural species and is a necessary experience attractions ranging from lush precursor to informing conservation rainforest to dry sclerophyll and strategies. With this planting project completed heath, ancient rock formations, successfully, the idea arose of wildflowers, dozens of bird species However, the current populations of creating another site using some and spectacular views. Wollemia exist in a relatively narrow very advanced trees not utilised in set of environmental conditions. the initial project to create an ex situ Continued page 3

HERITAGE 1 July - August 2013 Contents...... An opinion from the editor...... HERITAGE July - August 2013 Sealing of Cox’s Rd is

*P1 Heritage Forest of Wollemi heritage vandalism by Pines by Ross Ingram *P2 Sealing of Cox’s Rd is local government heritage vandalism by local Plans by Blue Mountain City It is ironical, at the present time as government by John Leary Council to apply bitumen over the we commemorate and celebrate the *P4 ‘Crossing of the Blue unsealed parts of Old Bathurst bicentenary of the Western Mountains’ an outstanding Road (Cox’s Road), Woodford Crossings 2013-2015, that this exhibition by Jean Winston impregnating with tar, a road work which if it goes ahead will constructed of and on ultimately destroy one of the sandstone,198-years ago; can at earliest colonial road-lines which least be considered cavalier and at allowed the starving settlement at worst sheer heritage vandalism. Sydney to expand and open up the golden west of NSW. When one considers the wealth of misinformation that councillors and It is almost like a Bacchanalian senior staff spread, suggesting celebration of ancient Greece that this roadway had no heritage where after the festivities there significance and that ‘there is no followed a drunken orgy of crimes *P7 Council were set to destroy heritage listing at either local or and conspiracies. Here in the Blue heritage integrity of Cox’s state level’, it is well time that Mountains, after the Rd, Woodford by Jan someone should look at council’s commemoration and celebrations Koperberg and John Leary flow of information both within the of the achievements of the three *P8 Devotion - Sir Joseph and organisation and to the ratepayers feted explorers, an orgy of Dame Mary Cook and residents of this city. destruction of one of the only major *P9 Alice in Wonderland by heritage structures remaining from John Low, It has been claimed by several that period will follow. *P9 Longtime series descendants of the explorers that *P10 Sydney Rock - on the Ways pressure was brought upon them Many who live in this rustic setting to the West not to alert the media. as it might would prefer it to remain an *P11 RAHS Conference in affect the success of the unsealed road unattractive to the Katoomba celebrations. hoons likely to see it as a route to a *P12 Lithgow migration and bush rubbish tip or worse. The settlement study It is certain that every member of concerns of local residents need to *P13 Capt Cook’s pistol fetches Blue Mountains City Council’s be taken into account. The most $220,000 heritage advisory committee was serious concern is drainage after *P14 History at your fingertips aware of the listings and the summer storms. Sealing the road *P14 Polar trek made to measure heritage significance of this road on its own will only make the *P14 Plans to bring water into construction had council or its drainage problem faster and more the museum senior staff taken the trouble to destructive. The drainage concerns *P14 Aboriginal heritage grant consult with this body. can and should be addressed for Kandos Museum without having to seal the road. The simple fact is that the Cox’s *P15 Cronje the brumby brigand Road is listed on the State Council will now wait on an *P16 New Aboriginal heritage Heritage Inventory and in council’s archaeological report before taking tour at Blue Mountains Local Environment Plan 1991. further steps to seal the road; but Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah until councillors accept that *P17 “The biggest Estate on At council’s ordinary meeting of heritage is just more than a word to Earth: how Aborigines June 4, 2013 some councillors which they pay lip service, the made Australia” -a critique appeared to be in complete denial future of heritage conservation in by Andy Macqueen about these facts.They could not the Blue Mountains will sound very *P22 Focus on the George or did not want to understand, that hollow. With a little innovative Evans story the heritage value is in the road thought by council, Cox’s Road *P22 The sex lives of Australia --- construction itself, not in some could be equal to Old Great North a historical reflection cast-off shoe from Cox’s horse or a Road - World Heritage walk which *P22 Walk to the Cattle Rustlers’ broken clay pipe dropped by one features a historic convict-built, Yards of his convicts. some in chains, road overlooking *P24 Lynn Collins will facilitate the Hawkesbury River, in Dharug museums workshop There is a legal requirement on National Park. *P24 Across the Blue Mountains council to take note of this item in *P25 Western Crossings John Leary, OAM - the SHI and LEP 1991 and President, Blue Mountains *P26 Ancient Syrian sites certainly a moral obligation to Association of Cultural Heritage imperilled by war future generations. Organisations Inc.

HERITAGE 2 July - August 2013 A wilderness walk plunging into a Wollemi gorge Continued from page 1 A circular walk Here was the opportunity to offer a through a variety truly unique visitor experience by of ecosystems creating a varied wilderness walk and features and with the chance to experience across different rainforest, open woodland and terrains will lead wildflowers, cliff edges, a magic walkers to the Angophora forest and then finally Wollemi grove plunging into a Wollemi gorge. which nests in a moist gully However, this is more than just beneath about providing visitors with a sandstone cliffs. pleasant, relatively safe ”emersion” in wilderness. The proposed boardwalk will st The botanic garden of the 21 minimize the century has a role and a impact of walkers, responsibility to address much more avoid erosion than simply providing visitors with problems and pleasant experiences and enable intimate displaying collections of plants in contact with the well organised high standard trees and horticultural displays. associated vegetation. Here is the chance to interpret and explain conservation, the nature Unfortunately the and importance of biodiversity, conservation area habitat, the relationship between is difficult terrain people and plants and the and access will be understanding of place - in a limited to relatively botanic garden managed fit and able wilderness. persons. Research scientist Heidi Zimmer (right) and horticulturist Chris Crottey take a break during Blue Mountains Botanic Garden At least two hours “operation plantout”. Photograph : Greg Bourke natural area staff have begun will be needed to systematically surveying the area fully enjoy the walk and the country successful hazard reduction so that we have a good idea of what is quite steep in places. exercise to help manage the threat the area has to offer and what of wildfire. responsibilities we have in Because it is a heritage and managing the site. conservation area, the proposal is Part of the ongoing management to not intrude unnecessarily and for plan for the site is that such Tracks have been created and the infrastructure to be as exercises will need to be conducted some preliminary guided walks unobtrusive as possible. at regular intervals as determined have been laid out. and recommended by ecologists to Approval was sought and received both ensure the integrity of the and work has started. natural ecosystems and to protect the Wollemi plantings into the The project will need to attract future. substantial sponsorship as it will be necessary to construct a lengthy boardwalk to provide access.

The boardwalk will reduce the impact of visitors on the fragile site and provide means to maintain the highest standard of hygiene. (The disease Phytopthora is carried on footwear).

Wildfire and disease represent the two big threats to a project such as this.

Horticulturists planting out and Recently, in collaboration with the recording details. Photograph: Botanic Gardens Trust, the Rural Greg Bourke Fire Service conducted a very Wollemi nobillis

HERITAGE 3 July - August 2013 ‘Crossing of the Blue Mountains’ an outstanding exhibition at Mt Victoria

“There has been plenty of opportunity for celebratory activities and some of them have been memorable, such as the Blue Wave crossing A remarkable re-enactment by John Sullivan and descendants of the three explorers, the spectacular flyover of aircraft and the mass circulation of the and commemorative holey dollar to schoolchildren to name but a few. “There has however, been few enduring things which have so far come innovative from the three-year commemoration of the bicentenary of the ‘western crossing’ other than the foundation proposed by Dr David Blaxland and engagement the splendid activities centred around the Hartley Valley.

with the “To its great credit the Mt Victoria Historical Society has produced another enduring legacy, which will have immense value for many years community to come — the outstanding exhibition created at Mt Victoria museum in a newly dedicated Crossings Room.

“Not only has the concept and energy of Marcia Osterberg-Olsen, herself of descendant of some of our earliest pioneers been harnessed, to curate this commemorative exhibit; but it has also seen the engagement by this historical society with a much wider community including Rotarians, volunteers, professional and business people as well several generous donors.

“Other groups could well learn from this successful engagement with the community for the preservation and presentation of our heritage.

“This exhibition is as well presented and as professionally created to equal those displays found in many of larger state owned museums.

“In this article, president of the Mt Victoria and District Historical Society, Mrs Jean Winston outlines the work involved to create this exhibition. Congratulations to all concerned.” John Leary, OAM – president, Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage Organisations Inc

An outstanding exhibition, to The Blackheath Rotary Club These efforts were gratefully commemorate the bicentenary of generously offered financial and received by the Mount Victoria and the ‘Crossing of the Blue Mountains’ physical support to get the District Historical Society which has been created at the Mount exhibition under way. managed the exhibition. Victoria Museum. One Rotarian sent a letter to local Marcia said that she wanted a ‘wow’ The concept and execution of the residents asking for financial factor for the exhibit. exhibition were driven by the support and a Katoomba Rotarian determination of Marcia Osterberg- erected a false wall in the exhibition Olsen whose family were pioneers room. Continued page 5 in the Little Hartley district.

There were many pitfalls to be overcome before the display could be mounted, including renovations and painting of the designated room.

This was done by members of the historical society.

Money was limited and an application for a grant from Museums and Galleries NSW had been declined.

A graphic designer and Blackheath Rotarian, Clive Jones of Red Egg Design offered his skills free of charge, as did his wife Gabrielle. A clever illusion: a real table and glassware in front of the graphic of Governor and Mrs Macquarie drawn by Clive Jones.

HERITAGE 4 July - August 2013 They got as far as Mount Blaxland, Details are given of the equipment A chronology further west from Mount York where used and some examples are on they stood and overlooked the display: gunpowder, block and western plains. tackle, crowbars, sledge hammers, of the axes, two man cross-cut saws, A copy of Gregory Blaxland’s diary picks and shovels. crossings written, very legibly, on May 28, 1813 at Mount York is on display The method of sawing used in a Cotinued from page 4 and really connects the viewer with two man pit saw was for a saw pit to This was to be achieved through the explorers. be dug to about 2.5metres deep artifacts, tools of trade, stories, line and 1.5 metres wide. drawings, pictures and To progress each day, they photographs. struggled through dense bush and Poles were placed across the pit had to go ahead to reconnoitre a and the log to be sawn was placed Her idea was to show the route ahead of the main group, on the poles. chronology of the crossings of the blazing trees as they went, and then Blue Mountains starting with the went back to bring the horses. The bottom man stood in the pit and Aborigines and ending with the the top man or senior sawyer journey by Governor and Mrs. Grass for the horses had to be cut balanced on the log above and Macquarie to Bathurst in 1815. where available and carried, guided the saw in making the cut. increasing their loads to about The three local Aboriginal tribes, 100kg each. English artist John Lewin who Gundungurra, Darug and Wiradjuri travelled with Macquarie’s party to had been crossing the Blue The party encountered one group of Bathurst in 1815 painted scenes Mountains and the Great Dividing Aboriginal women and children who along the way. Range for centuries carrying chert were frightened at first but when and mudstone to make tools. interest was shown in the children A huge reproduction of his they all relaxed. watercolour painting ‘Spring Wood’ Examples of these objects found in stands in a commanding position on the Hartley area are on display. It was reported that both the women the false wall at the end of the were blind in the right eye. room. The routes of four earlier attempts to cross the mountains are Surveyor Evans, who was thirty Line drawings of Governor depicted, those of Bass, a ship’s three years old, was asked to make Macquarie and Mrs Macquarie, surgeon, Everingham, a convict, a route suitable for horses and sitting like ghosts in the scene, are Barrallier, a Royal Navy surveyor stock. He took enough stores for a superimposed on it. and Caley a botanist. two months period. In front of the figures is an actual None were successful and Caley One of his tools of trade was a table with a lamp, a decanter, wine was amazed when he heard it had circumferentor which is a surveyor’s glasses and a pack of cards put been done. He is depicted sitting at compass, an earlier version of the ready for the evening game of home in England, with a parrot on theodolite. whist. his shoulder, a virtual recluse. The Land and Property Information Beyond the Spring Wood scene is a Large panels of text give Service at Bathurst has kindly lent a beautiful chiaroscuro screen named information on the explorers, circumferentor to the society. The ‘Eucalypt’ which was made by surveyors, road makers and on the instrument measures horizontal Marcia’s daughter Vashti Gonda governor and Mrs. Macquarie. angles. The east and west points on and donated by Creative the face of the instrument are Powerhouse Pty Ltd. It is a work of The display gives extensive reversed from the normal way. art in itself. biographical notes on each of the men up to the time that they The road maker William Cox, aged The following panels depict and crossed the mountains. Blaxland fifty one later built a road of 101.5 describe Governor and Mrs. aged 35, Lawson 39 and Wentworth miles on Evans route. Macquarie. 23 set out in 1813. It was noted that Macquarie like other governors before him had given orders that all colonists make every effort to live in friendship with the Aboriginal people.

On Thursday May 4, 1815 Macquarie’s expedition reached the Bathurst Plains where the town of Bathurst was proclaimed. Continued on page 6

HERITAGE 5 July - August 2013 ...a beautiful BLUE chiaroscuro MOUNTAINS screen named HISTORY ‘Eucalypt’... CONFERENCE Continued from page 5 The final small picture shows how IN 2014 the colour of their clothes delineated the status of the SUCCESS of the 2012 History wearers. Conference organised by BMACHO has spurred the committee into A society member assisted Marcia staging another in May 2014. by doing research for the text. Three venues are currently being A Hartley man gave money for the considered and in the meantime, a installation of the lighting system. number of eminent historians are being approached to be speakers. Numerous other people have assisted in preparing this exhibition A good number of people and I apologise to any whom I have interested in heritage and history omitted. attended the day long conference last October and at least this The Mount Victoria and District number is expected to register for Historical Society is immensely the May 2014 event. pleased with the final display and is most appreciative of the creative All who attended last years ability and determination shown by conference will be contacted and Marcia Osterberg-Olsen in seeing invited to next year’s function. the project through to the finish. Further details will be announced in Pictured is the chiaroscuro screen named ‘Eucalypt’ made in coming weeks and will appear on aluminium by Vashti Gonda and donated by BMACHO’s website Creative Powerhouse Pty Ltd. www.bluemountainsheritage.com Woodford Academy seeks grant for schools program based on service in World War 1 DURING the First World War, up to The military records of these men Woodford Academy would like to 48 graduates from the Woodford are freely available from the contribute to the understanding of Academy enlisted in the First AIF. National Australian Archives. Australian school students about the social and political situation They served in a variety of Their unit records are freely under which these particular men capacities. Two are known to have available from the Australian War lived and enlisted and to see how been killed in action and one was Memorial in Canberra. this might have been affected by awarded the Military Medal. their First World War experience. Woodford Academy management The study of the Academy’s records committee has submitted an of all these veterans has not yet application for funding from the been undertaken. Australian Government’s Department of Veteran Affairs These men and their experiences ANZAC Centenary grants program. can now be seen as a mini-study of the times and experiences of men The funding would be used to who served in that war. develop the recourses that exist at the Academy that deal with these There is a large collection of boys and the period 1910-1918 and unprocessed recourses and records to add their military records to Descendants wearing service that contains information about create a teaching and learning medals including a Military Cross these men and their school recourse for schools in the Blue of former students of Woodford experience. This includes Mountains. Academy at the 2006 photographs, school records, fees Remembrance Day unveiling of a paid, family contacts and the like. Through the study of this history the restored honour roll. Photograph John Leary, OAM

HERITAGE 6 July - August 2013 Council were set to destroy heritage integrity of Cox’s Road, Woodford by Jan Koperberg and John Leary --- photographs by Patsy Moppett taken on June 7, 2013 BLUE MOUNTAINS City Council has damaged some of Australia’s oldest road construction when it graded Old Bathurst Road (Cox’s Road), Woodford.

A number of local residents became alarmed, as were members of BMACHO and other heritage and historical societies on the Mountains, that the Blue Mountains City Council had graded the Woodford stretch of Bathurst Road (Cox’s Road), ready for sealing.

Council had earlier decided to include this heritage carriageway, as part of a project to seal presently unsealed roads on the mountains.

People with knowledge of the road’s heritage approached a number of Stone wall is evidence of 1820s improvements to the original Cox’s councillors who had been publicly Road over which council had planned to seal with bitumen. stating there was no heritage value Following protests to council by Organisations Inc, Ian Harman, in the roadway. people with heritage knowledge, chairman, Woodford Academy and after grading of the road had management committee and Jan This particular section of Old been finished and machinery Koperberg, secretary, BMACHO. Bathurst Road is listed on the NSW brought in for sealing, a report by Heritage Branch Inventory, as ‘LD staff was presented to council. Those residents in favour of sealing 019: Remnants of Cox’s Road’. this rural road cited dust and This listing covers Old Bathurst Some damage to the original stormwater run-off problems. Road and Taylor Road, Woodford. roadwork was done to the It is one of the earliest colonial-era construction of the 198-year old Not all residents are in favour of the road-lines surviving in Australia. heritage road. road being sealed and some are concerned that it will increase traffic The 1814 road is tangible evidence The staff report stated: ’ …there is movements to a property where an of the development of the colony at no heritage listing at either local or allegedly unauthorised commercial Sydney and the expansion of white state level’. activity is taking place. settlement into western NSW. This is clearly untrue as it is listed in Cr Geordie Williamson, a Woodford This was originally listed in LEP the State Heritage Inventory and resident, was the only councillor to 1991 and was updated in January, also in council’s own LEP 1991. speak in favour of retaining Old 2005, the study being done in 2003 Bathurst Road as an unsealed road. by Dr Siobhan Lavelle and Dr Ian It is understood a report drawing Jack. attention to the road’s heritage At the time HERITAGE was status was not made available to published on-line, council was When council became aware of the councillors for the council meeting seeking advice from an concerns by historians and others of June 4, 2013. archaeologist. of the road’s heritage status, a site inspection took place with the A number of people for the sealing attendance of several councillors, and against the sealing, attended council senior staff, council’s the Blue Mountains City Council heritage advisor, a representative of meeting on Tuesday June 4, 2013. Roads and Maritime Services who had considerable knowledge about Three people were allowed to speak this road, and local residents. in favour and three against. Those who spoke against the sealing of To council staff’s credit, when they the road were John Leary, OAM, president of Blue Mountains became aware of the heritage View of the graded road to the Association of Cultural Heritage listings, the sealing of the road was south near the stone wall Cox’s delayed. Road foundations

HERITAGE 7 July - August 2013 Devotion – Sir Joseph and Dame Mary Cook An exhibition celebrating Lithgow’s Prime Minister AN EXHIBITION celebrating the lives and achievements of Sir Joseph and Dame Mary Cook is on display at Eskbank House and Museum until October 7, 2013 having been officially opened earlier this month.

“Lithgow is very proud to have its own Prime Minister in Sir Joseph Cook,” said Lithgow City Council Mayor Maree Statham. ”It is also very special to see, in this exhibition, the bond between Sir Joseph and Dame Mary and how they were able to achieve so much together.”

The couple moved to Lithgow in 1886 and Sir Joseph worked in the Vale of Clwydd Colliery as he studied and worked his way up through the unions and into politics.

He was a minister in the first federal government, became prime minister in 1913, was high commissioner in London and knighted in 1918.

As well as being beside him every step of his career, Dame Mary was heavily involved in the Red Cross and was made a Dame in the Order of the British Empire in 1925 for this work.

This exhibition focuses on the lives of Sir Joseph and Dame Mary and their devotion to politics, the community and family.

As well as stories and images, several items from the couple, not exhibited before, will be on display, such as a lovely reference written by Dame Mary for one of her maids and the original letter from Her Majesty’s Privy Council to Sir Joseph Cook offering him the position of Australian High Commissioner in England.

The exhibition was officially opened by Mayor Statham followed by talks from Hartley Cook (great grandson of Sir Joseph and Dame Mary), Cassandra Coleman (a member of the Sir Joseph Cook Commemorative Group) and curators Miriam Scott and Wendy Hawkes.

During Sir Joe’s time as high commissioner in London both Sir Joe and Dame Mary were very active in promoting Australia’s interests in Great Britain. In these photographs Dame Mary is officially commissioning the first Australian amphibian flying boat “The Seagull” in 1926. Sir Joe then took a flight in the plane. The bottom image is Dame Mary wishing him well and the top is a very relieved kiss when he landed safely. A photograph album gifted to the Cooks by the Supermarine Aviation Works Ltd. is in the National Australian Archives and is a beautifully told story of the occasion. (Photographs Joseph Cook photographed at the from the National Australian Archives M3613) time he was post master general.

HERITAGE 8 July - August 2013 ALICE IN WONDERLAND by John Low, OAM - Loal historian WHEN THE ENGLISH aristocracy visited the Blue Mountains, as they regularly did, the unfamiliar pleasures of the landscape often seduced them into relaxing the normal formalities of their class.

Even the future Queen Mary and her ladies took to the swings at Leura Cascades in 1901 and wandered the bush paths for longer than they should.

Almost a decade earlier, following a visit to Jenolan Caves in January 1893, Alice, Duchess of Buckingham and Chandos, alighted at the Carrington Hotel with her A 19th century picnic at Govett’s Leap friend Hilda. of the valley, a lost soul who’d thunderstorm, and got well soaked Having roughed it at smaller wandered from his friends and died – hailstones like peas ... and sheets accommodation houses, they “bewildered in the endless scrub of rain. settled in to the comfort of the grand and forest”. hotel, a panoramic view from their It rains like a water-spout here when verandah and their dinner table Then a lesson in fire-making and it once begins. “covered with flowers”. the baking of potatoes, followed by a warning about snakes and a Some of the ladies were so The following day Sir Frederick careful study of the ground to frightened that they took refuge in a Darley of ‘Lilianfels’ took them to ensure no serpents would spoil their house, but most of us drove on and Wentworth Falls and the Three “excellent repast”. braved the elements”. Sisters and despite the heat and flies they were not deterred from After lunch and an exciting An outing with Harry was invariably accepting an invitation the next scramble down to the edge of the a memorable experience! morning for “a grand picnic precipice, “throwing stones to see if expedition” to Govetts Leap. we could hear them fall”, it was time Authors note: A copy of Alice’s for the ritual of ‘billy tea’ and the letters, Glimpses of Four Coach driver Harry Peckman, their climactic flourish of the guide’s own Continents, written during her world guide for the day, was a man well poetry. tour and published in London in versed in the art of introducing the 1894, is held in the Local Studies aristocracy to the informalities of the His ‘Laughing Jackass’, a humorous Section at Springwood Library. bush. verse and prose piece that included a reputedly faultless imitation of a Also, copies of Jim Smith and John Bushman, poet and raconteur, it Kookaburra, brought the picnic to a Low’s book on Harry Peckham, The was he who had taken Lord and suitably colourful conclusion. Prince of Whips, are still available Lady Carrington by horse across at the give-away price of $5! the Six Foot Track in 1887 and But the drama had not yet ended! introduced them to the camaraderie Nature still had a few lines of her This article was first published in of the camp fire and the delights of own to deliver. Hut News of the Blue Mountains billy tea. Conservation Spociety, Issue 298, “On the way home”, Alice reported, November 2012. “Oh, such a beautiful, wonderful “we were caught in a tremendous place!” exclaimed Alice on arrival at the Leap, the amphitheatre of cliffs intersected with dashing waterfalls (her words) becoming the Longtime series background against which the KURRAJONG Comleroy Historical Hungerford Brinsmead and other ‘theatre’ of the picnic played out. Society will hold its annual general interesting research. meeting on Monday, September 23 Both director and performer, when the guest speaker will be The meeting will be held at the Peckman always ensured that his Lesley Jane Abrahams. Kurrajong Community Centre, guests were part of the action. McMahon Park, Kurrajong. Lesley will share local history from It began with a story, a skeleton the “Longtime Series” by Hesba found in the thick bush in the depths

HERITAGE 9 July - August 2013 Sydney Rock - On the Ways to the West SYDNEY ROCK is a striking sandstone outcrop some six metres high beside the Great Western Highway and the recently realigned railway on the eastern approaches to Lawson.

It is listed on the State Heritage Inventory and recent highway construction and railway deviations have left it more isolated and best approached from Somers Street.

On its irregular top surface it has weathered into a small-scale lunar landscape.

Beside the highway, the west side of the rock has been chipped away, probably as a result of highway widening.

Historic notes forming part of the Eugene Stockton at the playground which he shared with butterflies. State Heritage Inventory listing highway. Brian Fox in his Blue state: ‘Sydney Rock was a likely to be the result of roadworks Mountains Geographical Dictionary significant landmark at the north- later in the twentieth century. records its recognition as early as eastern approaches to nineteenth- 1882.2. century Lawson. ‘Sydney Rock was a popular picnic area, with a commanding view down Now a book Sydney Rock - On the ‘In 1903 it was damaged by to Sydney before the regrowth of Ways to the West, published by ‘vandals who had begun to blast it the bush. Blue Mountain Education and out for road metal’: the four drill- Research Trust and edited by holes evident at the north end of the ‘It was a vantage point from which Lawson’s, Father Eugene Stockton outcrop today are probably the work local people during World War II has been released. Father Stockton of these ‘vandals’. would go to watch searchlights probing the skys over Sydney or in may be contacted on(02) 47 591818 ‘The breaking-up of the rock was peace-time fireworks displays on “Sydney Rock loomed large across stopped in 1903 by the brisk [Sydney] Harbour.’ the highway from my childhood intervention of John Geggie, the home,” recalls Eugene. store-keeper and honorary ‘It also gave its name to a refreshment house opposite on the secretary of both the Lawson “In the 1940s we kids clambered highway, known as the Sydney Progress Committee and the over the Rock imagining ourselves Rock Cafe long before Hard Rock Reserves Trust. as early explorers who first crossed Cafes were invented.’1. the Blue Mountains. ‘The damage to the lower part of the Sydney Rock was long recognised rock adjacent to the highway is “Parties often enjoyed picnics on as a prominent landmark along the the Rock, savouring the far distant views and the mountains breezes.

“During World War 2 one watched the searchlights waving across the Sydney horizon and the fireworks at war’s end.

In those years petrol rationing severely limited traffic on the highway, but since then increasingly heavy traffic has virtually closed access to the Rock and tree growth has hidden it from the view of passing motorists.

Continued page 11

Pictured is Sydney Rock some years ago.

HERITAGE 10 July - August 2013 Western most outcrop of Hawkesbury sandstone

Continued from page 10 “Now with the completion of the roadworks in 2012, Sydney Rock can be restored to public enjoyment, while the old railway cutting left partly unfilled allows inspection of the sandstone stratagraphy and of the pick marks of the rock cutters (1867 and 1902) Cross bedding in sandstone on southern face of the cutting, beneath the third (steel) bridge. “The rock brings together the history of the road and railway, supported a rich mix of plant Copies of Sydney Rock - on the geology and botany – and even communities and species, some of Ways to the West are available mating butterflies!!,” according to special conservation significance direct from the publisher at $15 a Father Stockton. and interest. copy plus postage and handling.

Greg McNally an engineering The Smiths recorded 118 species For more information about this geologist and chartered engineer across 47 plant families in the publication, telephone Eugene believes that Sydney Rock is the course of a brief survey, noting Stockton, Blue Mountain westernmost outcrop of that further species, particularly Education and Research Trust Hawkesbury sandstone in the Blue grasses and orchids, could well be (02) 4759 1034 or e-mail: Mountains. revealed in future searches. [email protected]

“With the 2013 realignment of the Three Aboriginal sites have been End notes road and railway, the now recorded in the neighbourhood, 1. NSW Environment & Heritage abandoned and partly backfilled including rock shelters with State Heritage Inventory 25 Feb railway cutting on its southern deposit, axe grinding grooves and 2000, Ld 009 Sydney Rock flank exposes contact between the rock engravings Hawkesbury sandstone and the 2. Fox, B. 2001 Blue Mountains underlying Narrabeen group rocks The rock itself shows no sign of Geographical Dictionary (2nd Aboriginal activities. Edition) “The cutting is significant because it contains the only identified However, Father Stockton 3. Stockton, E. 2009 Blue Mountains Hawkesbury sandstone/Narrabeen considers, to Gundungurra people Dreaming. The Aboriginal Heritage contact in the area, though other travelling along the main ridge, (2nd Edition). occurrences could be present in Sydney Rock could well have local gullies and road cuttings,” served as marker turning north Greg McNally has said. along this ridge.3.

Sydney Rock overlooked a precious pocket of bushland, RAHS Conference in Katoomba according to Hazelbrook’s Chris The annual RAHS Conference will Tarella will be open for those who Whiteman a horticulturist for the be held this year at Katoomba would like to see through the Commonwealth Agriculture, RSL. cottage. Fisheries and Forestry who is particularly interested in the It will begin on Friday afternoon, The Conference whose theme is preservation of the mid-Blue November 1, with a visit to State The Great Divide - From Here to Mountains heathland and has Records. There will be held on Saturday and completed botanical surveys of Sunday, November 2-3. this area. This will be followed by a Meet and Greet pre-dinner drinks and Details of the speakers and their In 2007, this pocket of about 1.25 ‘nibblies’ at Hobby’s Reach. topics have not yet been released. hectares was surveyed by For more details visit the RAHS botanists Judy and Peter Smith, website. who found this small area,

HERITAGE 11 July - August 2013 Lithgow migration and settlement study LITHGOW CITY Council has entered a partnership with the Powerhouse Museum’s NSW Migration Heritage Centre to undertake a Lithgow Region Migration and Settlement Thematic Study.

This scholarly research and resulting history will involve the research and production of a community history through researching and uncovering the hidden story of all the waves of migration and settlement to the Lithgow City Council area, with a focus of industrial and family history.

The history will research from first European settlement to the present. A wonderful image of coalminers from the Lithgow Valley Colliery It will encompass Anglo-Celtic taken in the 1880s. Research by Ray Christison indicates these men migrations (with reference to came from Northumberland and Durham, Shropshire, Staffordshire particular diaspora) and contact and Cornwall. Some came to Lithgow via the goldfields, the Turon, history with Aboriginal Australians, Bendigo, Ballarat or California. A substantial proportion of the early including the shared labour miners were Methodists and Free Methodists. (Lithgow Regional histories on farms and in local Library 42439) industries. conditions such as housing are members of BMACHO), • The early pastoral economy, supply. National Parks & Wildlife Service, including settlement patterns and Office of Environment & and the use of convict labour. th • 19 Century Chinese Heritage. migration. • Coal, oil shale, minerals An illustrated history is to be the processing, electricity • Post Second World War outcome of the first three stages of generation and munitions refugees the project. industries, and their workers. • Recent, ie within past 20 The history will focus on key places • The impact of the railway years, migration including and industries – including places of coming to Lithgow refugees. work, recreation, religion and business – that will help tell the • Manufacturing industry, • The impact of the White story of the region and its distinctive including the linen mills and Australia immigration policy more recently, Berlei. migration and settlement history, and its abolition. township by township. • Hostels for contractual and Research for the project will The history will include an oral migrant labour, including concentrate on the Lithgow City Lithgow and Wallerawang. history component to access the Council area including Lithgow, knowledge of elderly former Wallerawang, Hartley, Portland and • migrants or people with Social groups, friendly surrounding districts. societies, worker recollections that will assist the project. This is a priority as many organisations and religious Among other groups Blue practice. post-World War Two former Mountains Association of Cultural migrants are aging and frail. Heritage Organisations Inc • The experience and impact (BMACHO) is to be consulted Lithgow City Council is currently of migrant women and during the project. Other groups children. seeking an experienced consultant who will be asked for participation in with professional historian the project are the Eskbank House • The influence of migrant qualifications to under take stage and Museum, The City of Greater groups on political activism one of this study project. Lithgow Mining Museum Inc, and ideas. Employment- Lithgow Small Arms Museum Inc, driven settlement patterns The project is scheduled to be Lithgow and District Family and subsequent living completed by May 31, 2014. Historical Society; (all four groups

HERITAGE 12 July - August 2013 Capt Cook’s pistol fetches $220,000 A RARE PIECE of Australian history has gone under the hammer, netting a small but tidy profit for its seller.

A pistol belonging to Captain James Cook handed down through the family for many generations, was sold at auction in Melbourne earlier this year for almost $220,000.

For a man who had such a profound effect on the European colonisation This pistol is therefore the one The lock of the pistol is signed of Australia, there is remarkably tangible link to him personally. “Corbau-A-Maastricht”, a reference very little physical evidence of to its Dutch gunmaker, Godefroi Captain James Cook or his “We can confidently argue that he Corbau Le Jeune. personal possessions. has left his DNA on this, something that can’t be said for the anchor of It features a plain 13 bore barrel, Had he failed to make landfall in the HMB Endeavour which is brass fore-sight, spurred brass 1770, Australia might have become located at the James Cook pommel, brass trigger guard, a Portuguese, Dutch or Spanish Historical Museum in Cooktown or replacement ramrod and pipe, and dependency. the ship’s cannon which is located pale fruitwood full stock with carved at the Australian National Maritime shell behind tang. The barrel is While his legacy looms large in Museum in Canberra.” 31cm long. Australia’s collective consciousness, only Cook’s pistol remains as the one key link to his Polar trek made to measure life and relationship with Australia. WHEN SIR DOUGLAS Mawson led Professor Turney said the his epic scientific expedition to information collected by Mawson If not for the efforts of former Antarctica, cutting edge technology and his team between 1911 and Melbourne Lord Mayor, Grand Prix meant being able to send daily 1914 would be a valuable impresario and philanthropist, Ron wireless messages back to comparative resource for modern Walker AC CBE, even this would Australia. scientists. have stayed well away from our reach. A century on, Chris Turney’s six “They generated a vast amount of week scientific expedition will use a data and things like the saltiness of Mr Walker purchased the pistol in modern mix of Twitter, You Tube, the water is today a very useful 2003 from the descendants of Cook live streaming video conferences measure of how much the ice is at an auction in Edinburgh, and blog sites. melting.” Scotland. Surveying tools such as the clunkey Professor Turney and University It had been willed to the family by theodolite, used by Mawson’s men, colleague Chris Fog will be among Cook and remained in their will be replaced by a drone that will 20 scientists, oceanographers and possession for more than two scan the icy continent to collect ornithologists and even a tree ring centuries. data to create “bird’s eye” film in expert, to trace the steps of Mawson 3D. Now, almost 250 years after his The first part of the trip will death in Hawaii, the early 18th The drone will map areas of several concentrate on the sub-Antarctic century Continental Flintlock holster square kilometres in a matter of islands down to 50 degree latitude. pistol was offered for sale by Leski hours, with an accuracy rate within Bridie Smith, science reporter, The Auctions of Melbourne under 10 centimetres. In Mawson’s day Sydney Morning Herald instructions from Mr Walker. this would have taken days or weeks. “There is a wealth of memorabilia available that is associated with the But despite differences in icons of Australia, be it Bradman, technology, the trips a century apart the Kelly Gang, Phar Lap, Kingsford are motivated by the same thing: a Smith or Mawson,” says Charles sense of scientific curiosity. Leski. “It’s still very much science-driven, “Yet James Cook, arguably the most climate scientist Professor Turney significant of that group in terms of said of the privately funded $1.5 his impact on Australia as a nation, million voyage which leaves Hobart has left us virtually nothing. on November 25.

On his fifth trip to the Antarctic Sir Douglas Mawson,

HERITAGE 13 July - August 2013 History at your fingertips Aboriginal heritage grant for Kandos Museum

THE KANDOS Museum has received a $12,000 Aboriginal heritage grant to enable it to develop a Dabee Travelling Cultural History exhibition in partnership with the Aboriginal people of Kandos.

“The grant will help us with site identification, the building of the travelling exhibition on the Dabee people and the creation A NEW WEBSITE full of Blue president, Dr Anne-Maree Whitaker. of a small introductory exhibition Mountains historical photographs Website: www.rahs.org.au.western- at the Kandos Museum, Colin and publications has been launched crossing/ Jones curator at the museum by the Royal Australian Historical said. “The project is about There are over 300 photographs Society. recognising family ancestors of and six historical publications the Dabee people. included and these will be added to The website was developed in coming months. following a grant from the NSW “The exhibition itself will identify Department of Premier and Cabinet individual north-eastern Wiradjuri Pictured from the website is: The people and their ancestors who to mark the bicentenary of the first great wall of the old Mt Victoria crossing. contributed to the creation on Pass constructed by the chain gang Kandos and the culture in the in 1832 when forming the old region today,” Mr Jones said. This fantastic collection of material is Bathurst Road. Courtesy RAHS – available for everyone to explore for The Frank Walker Collection themselves,” said RAHS Lyn Syme, Native Title cultural heritage officer at Moorlarben Plans to bring water into museum Coal was instrumental in getting the exhibition off the ground. THE AUSTRALIAN National The museum will seek to complete Maritime Museum will turn to the the first stage — a new pavilion to Ms Syme put forward the initial private sector to try and realise a tell the story of its submarine, $12,000 and it was with that major revamp of its exhibition HMAS Onslow, and destroyer money the Kandos museum was space. HMAS Vampire — in time for the able to apply for the “dollar-for- ANZAC centenary in 2015. Its director, Kevin Sumption, has set dollar” Aboriginal heritage grant. out plans to ‘bring water into the More than 8 million people have The exhibition will travel around museum’ by building exhibits that visited since the Maritime Museum to schools, other museums and reach out to its 14 floating vessels opened in 1991. cultural centres in order to in Darling Harbour. educate people on the Government has said that the $8 significance of the Dabee people million to $10 million required for in the local area. the project over a six to 8 year cycle would need to come substantially “In the local area, many people from commercial partnerships, are under the incorrect grants or foundations. assumption there are no more Dabee people remaining in the Later stages not yet costed, include district,” Ms Syme said. a new exhibit to complement the museum’s replicas of the HMS The exhibition will include Endeavour and a maritime photographs, stories and artifacts archaeological centre where visitors and will also include information could don a wetsuit and step into about the descendants of these the harbour to explore wrecks Dabee ancestors who were a already owned by the museum. large community in the Kandos Leesha McKenny, The Sydney Plans to float HMAS Onslow Morning Herald area. Laueren Stanford inside museum

HERITAGE 14 July - August 2013 CRONJE, THE BRUMBY BRIGAND by John Low, OAM – Local historian PIET CRONJE was a Boer General, rough of manner, ruthless, courageous and a thorn in the side of the British in South Africa.

At the same time in the vicinity of Jenolan, in the mountainous back country of the Cox and its tributaries, a brumby stallion was causing similar disruption among the European settlers.

Life in this isolated part of the Blue Mountains demanded a tough resilience from its inhabitants.

They were skilled bushmen and expert horsemen, every bit as daring as the Snowy River men.

They recognised in the wild stallion It is claimed “...on one occasion Cronje hurdled to freedom over two the characteristics of the Boer mounted men.” Cronje and bestowed that name 1903) absorbed the stories of the by drought, gradually reduced the upon him with genuine, if grudging, wild brumbies sweeping down from numbers of the marauding horde. respect. the mountains at night, killing tame horses and making off with the By the end of the century one The story of Cronje is documented mares to replenish their breeding dominant stallion remained, the last in that splendid book, stock. of a “long rebel line”, a magnificent Cullenbenbong; by Bernard O’Reilly horse, “a brigand and a killer” but so whose family settled at Long He learned of the brumby runners, coveted by the mountain horsemen Swamp in the second half of the those men of “reckless courage and that they set upon a reckless nineteenth century. riding ability” who fought these determination to capture him. depredations with their skills in At the feet of his father and the pursuit and capture and the use of Drives were organised and older men, young Bernard (born assorted firearms and who, aided strategies planned, issuing in dramatic displays of skill and courage, near success, injury and even death, but always failure.

Cronje was equal to the challenge, usually with a surprise in reserve.

He out-ran them, charged through lines of shouting, stockwhip wielding riders, ran pursuers into wombat holes (a rider “spinning along the ground like a football”), crashed out of timber enclosures and on one occasion hurdled to freedom over two mounted men.

The climax came when Cronje, cornered at the edge of a precipice, leapt “in a beautiful arc and disappeared into the blue air”, traversed a landslide prone scree On the gently-swelling ridge in the fork of two creeks stands a house – slope and in a “thrilling wild-horse the type of house which has disappeared from the Australian scene run” escaped to the bottom of the along with the generation who built it. It is of slabs silvered by the gorge, leaving only “the ring of his weather; it has a thatched roof and a great stone chimney, and like hooves and the clatter of the rocks nearly every other pioneer home it faces the north-east.’ Bernard he took with him”. O’Reilly’s Cullenbenbong still stands today in Kanimbla Valley, the Continued page 16 quintessential slab hut. Photograph courtesy of Ian Jack

HERITAGE 15 July - August 2013 New Aboriginal heritage tour at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah

AN AUTHENTIC new Aboriginal tour focusing on the Indigenous use of plants was launched at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden recently. The Aboriginal heritage tour provides visitors with a unique opportunity to experience the culture and plant resources of the Indigenous people of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, led by an expert Aboriginal guide. Brenden Moore, Aboriginal horticulturalist at the Garden who has developed and will be leading the tour says: “The Aboriginal heritage tour offers an opportunity for visitors to learn about the rich heritage and culture of the Aboriginal people of the region. “Although this was thought to be an impassable mountain range by early Europeans, Mount Tomah and the surrounding Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area provided important trade routes for Aboriginal people. “With a diverse array of flora and fauna, ample fresh water, rock shelters and views to the coast, it was a safe haven for many local Aboriginal people for thousands of years.” Aboriginal tour guide, Brenden Moore playing the didgiridoo at Mt The one and a half hour walking Tomah. Photograph by Michelle Leer. tour takes visitors around the Garden highlighting plants that were Cost: $36.50 pp. $275 minimum Bush Tucker is available at an extra traditionally used by Aboriginal tour cost (except Friday 10 am - charge, at the end of the tour if pre- people for food, medicine or tools. 11.30 am). $16.50 student/child. booked. The tour concludes with a Friends and Foundation discount on For further details telephone didgeridoo performance by request. (02) 45 67 3000 or e-mail: Brenden. [email protected] Bush tucker can be arranged if booked in advance. The tour is available on request but Cronje bookings are essential. Continued from page 15 Apparently, Cronje escaped the That was enough and the pursuit of devastating bushfire of 1904-1905 To view Brenden talking about the Cronje came to an end. and was last seen, still wild and Aboriginal heritage tour free, years later in the ranges at the visit: www.youtube.com/user/ It’s a great story, even if perhaps head of the Kowmung River. BotanicGardensTV . grown a little more colourful in the Tour details telling. If you look at your map you will find When: Book anytime. him remembered in Cronje The isolated life of men and women, Mountain, Cronje Ridge and Cronje No minimum fee on Fridays tour thrown back so often on their own Gully. runs 10 am - 11.30 am. ingenuity, fosters a rich tradition of legend and story. This article was first published in All tours must be pre-booked at Hut News of the Blue Mountains least 24hours ahead. Conservation Society.

HERITAGE 16 July - August 2013 “The Biggest Estate on Earth: how Aborigines made Australia”

by Bill Gammage, 2011 A Blue Mountains critique

by Andy Macqueen IN HIS BOOK “The Biggest Estate Govett’s observation that the Govett describes the vegetation on Earth”, Bill Gammage seeks to mountain summits were “clothed elsewhere on Tomah in similar demonstrate, particularly through with grass, which circumstance, terms to George Caley, who back in historical artworks and writings, that considering the barrenness and 1804 wrote that “The brush seems virtually every inch of Australia was excessive sterility which pervades to occupy the whole of the summit, managed by Aboriginal people by all the connecting ridges, and that as well as most of the other parts ... the systematic and scientific use of region of the mountains, is certainly fire. very extraordinary … In general … The part which was void of brush the ranges are covered with short was thickly covered with timber”. He discounts the role of natural timber and scrub.” (Govett 1977, (Andrews 1984, pp61-2) wildfire arising from lightning pp3,4) Govett was referring to the ignitions. (Gammage 2011) basalt-capped Mounts Hay, Banks Thirdly, on page 207 Gammage Whether or not all aspects of his and Tomah. cites the “small piece of ground, thesis are beyond challenge, his which was destitute of trees, and no book is important in highlighting the However, he was working in the herbaceous brush” mentioned by significance of the traditional area in 1831, by which time there George Caley, as evidence of a Aboriginal custodial role. had been European impacts. clearing created by Aboriginal people. (Andrews 1984, p71) Gammage draws from a number of As Govett himself explains in the the journals of early Blue Mountains same piece, the top of Mount Hay The place concerned is not really explorers and surveyors, using had been totally cleared of all but “above the Grose Valley”, as them to provide examples of the one tree for survey purposes Gammage suggests, but on the sorts of landscape management in (Figure 1), while the eastern side of west flank of Mount Tomah South, which the traditional custodians Mount Tomah “has been cleared traversed by Caley on November engaged. and cultivated, and a large house 13, 1804. and buildings have been erected”. Continue page 18 As a person familiar with the early journals and the country they concern, the writer was naturally interested to examine the references which Gammage relies on. These are all addressed below:

Firstly, on pages 72, 188 and 207 Gammage refers to two locations mentioned in the journal of Surveyor George Evans on November 30 and December 17, 1813, to support ideas concerning manufactured clearings in the Blue Mountains.

Unfortunately, neither location is in the Blue Mountains. The former date relates to the Fish River country, as Evans observed it from the Great Dividing Range near Cheetham, while the latter relates to a place on the Macquarie River 30 kilometres north-west of Bathurst. Both are today Figure 1: William Govett’s “View of the gullies of the Grose River from represented by farmlands. a cataract named Govett’s Leap” (National Library n/a.pic- (Weatherburn 1966) an3364840_v). The mountain on the right is the basalt-capped Mount Secondly, on page 7 Gammage Hay, one of Govett’s “extraordinary” features. As shown by the points out Surveyor William drawing, it had been cleared of all but one tree for survey purposes.

HERITAGE 17 July - August 2013 Aboriginal clearing. (Richards 1979, significant than the hundreds of The hardest p71) other known sites, many of which are situated in shelters in scrubby, day of Caley’s Again the location is wrong: the wooded areas. place is not “north of Katoomba”. remarkable Fifthly, on page 159, Gammage It is the northern part of Kings quotes selectively from Evan’s Tableland, a windswept place with account of a fire on the Blue expedition shallow sandstone and stony soil, Mountains in January 1814, Cotinued from page 17 typical of many natural heaths on concluding that it was an example That day was one of the hardest of the plateau of the upper Blue of a cool summer burn by Aboriginal Caley’s remarkable expedition, Mountains. (Figure 2) people because Evans “walked involving scrub so thick that in close behind the flames. places they could “scarce force a Today it is mostly characterised by passage”. heath species of banksia and He could not have done so behind casuarina, whereas the early any of Australia’s recent big fires”. His reason for remarking on this descriptions indicate a This interpretation does not stand spot was that it offered respite from predominance of “coarse grass”. scrutiny, and it is worthwhile to the scrub and a view of the terrain reproduce Evans’ complete ahead, including Mount Bell. It is therefore apparent that the area description: had been subjected to more fire in His precise route is impossible to the years prior to 1813 than it has 3 Jan [near Katoomba]: The determine, but there is no doubt been today. mountains have been fired; that for a time he sidled above the had we been on them we sandstone rim of the mountain To that extent, it may be relevant to could not have escaped; the (below the basalt) and in doing so Gammage’s thesis, though it should Flames rage with violence would have encountered some of be understood that today’s low fire through thick underwood, the natural swamps and small bare frequency is largely due to the fact which they are covered with. rock areas to be found there today. that authorities actively prevent fire Bad travelling the stick of the there. Baker (1997, p67) has Bushes here are worse than if There is a bare rock area some 15 suggested that “it is possible that their leaves had not been metres across about 850 metres this heath was kept in a low state by consumed; they catch my south-west of Tomah South Trig fire management perhaps to partly Chain which makes the which appears to fit all the allow for ease of movement through measuring very fatiguing; also necessary requirements with the area which is known for its tears our clothes to pieces, regards to Caley’s account, and Aboriginal occupation and industrial and makes us appear as there are probably others. sites”. Natives from black dust off them. The Marks in the Trees Fourthly, on page 207 Gammage That hypothesis relies on an are burnt out; therefore am mentions the “about two thousand assumption, perhaps not an obliged to go over them again; acres of land Clear of trees” unreasonable one given the place’s Our Horses now want Grass; described by Blaxland (and others) accessibility and views, that the the herbage in this spacious in 1813, as further evidence of sites at Kings Tableland were more Valley [Jamison Creek] is destroyed; we cut some sweet Rushes for them that grow on the edge of a stream of Water which runs through it. distance, 4 Miles.

4 Jan: The Mountains are as yesterday; fired in all directions; at 11 o’Clock I was upon the high hill: all objects Eastward are obscured by thick smoke; We stopped where there was feed for the Horses and Water. [Lawson vicinity] distance, 5¼ Miles

5 Jan: Still in thick Brush; the leaves of it are burnt. The weather is disagreeably warm and boisterous, which has Figure 2: The open heath country of Kings Tableland is extensive but been the case for the last 3 not unique. It is associated with exposed and shallow rock, as is this days. … distance, 4½ Miles open area on the Mount Hay Range. The grooves prove that the [stopping in Linden vicinity] people clearly lingered there, but whether they fire-managed the place Continued page 19 comprehensively is speculative. A. Macqueen 1996.

HERITAGE 18 July - August 2013 6 Jan: The fires have been in Given the extensive thick scrub Baker (1997, pp67-68) noted the my favour, otherwise it would which Blaxland and Evans evidence for Aboriginal burning in be impossible to measure; the previously reported, and the “warm that vicinity and along the flames have consumed the and boisterous” weather, it is hard associated Hawkesbury Ridge. foliage from the highest Trees. to imagine that the fire could have (Figure 3) The Ridges continue as usual been anything other than intense. until the latter part of my The large summer fire that Evans journey which is Forest Land Gammage proposes it was a cool encountered was not unique in [Springwood] for ½ a Mile; the fire because Evans was able to early accounts. timber on it is chiefly lofty walk close behind it. stringy Bark and Oaks; there Caley’s men accidentally started a are small patches of grass left However, Evans does not say that November bushfire when lighting that the fire missed. … he walked close behind it. He may their campfire during his 1804 distance, 5¼ Miles have been several days behind the expedition. flames. 7 Jan: The Forest land He described the subsequent continues a Mile farther; Perhaps Gammage interprets the inferno which raged across the hills, afterwards the brushy Ridge present-tense clause “the Flames causing trees to fall with the sound commences again, the thickest rage with violence through thick of gunfire. (Did not Aboriginal of it consumed, which I underwood” to mean that Evans campfires ever similarly escape?) consider fortunate, had it not I was witnessing those flames, Francis Barrallier observed what should be obliged to have whereas Evans may only have been appeared to be a large wildfire in given off measuring; at the end making a general statement about the southern Blue Mountains in of today’s Journey is a Lagoon the character of fire in scrub. December 1802, while William Parr of good Water, with tolerable Incidentally, Evans’ “forest land” encountered an enormous fire in grass round the edge of it. with its “small patches of grass that the Wollemi in November 1817. [Glenbrook Lagoon] distance, the fire has missed”, was situated 5¾ Miles. (Mackaness 1965, on the rich Wianamatta Shale These are discussed in Macqueen pp30-31) around Springwood and (2004, ch4). This was an extensive fire, ranging Faulconbridge—an area noted by Sixthly, and finally, on page 197 at least 36 kilometres in a west-east Blaxland for its open grassy nature. Gammage raises matters from John line and apparently well to the south That is the only part of the entire Wilson’s 1798 expeditions. and north. Blue Mountains Ridge between These were not in the Blue It occurred in the heat of summer, Lapstone and Mount York not Mountains as we now generally and burnt through the thick scrub of characterised by soils derived from understand them, but as he which Evans, and Blaxland, Lawson the sandstones and interbedded traversed rugged country of similar and Wentworth, had previously claystones of the Triassic series. Continued page 20 complained.

On December 29, when still in the Hartley Valley, Evans had commented that “The Natives seem to be numerous; there are fires in many parts not far from us”.

This statement, together with his opening words on January 3, seems to imply that he thought Aboriginal people were responsible for the fire.

However, it is not clear whether he thought they did it deliberately, and he makes no comment on why they might have lit it or whether they were managing it in any way.

His description of the fire seems quite consistent with what one might expect from an uncontrolled summer wildfire sweeping across the Blue Mountains today: shrubbery reduced to blackened Figure 3: John Lewin’s depiction of Macquarie’s 1815 party at sticks, with the leaves on the Springwood (NSW State Library). This was the grassy forest land highest trees being consumed in which Evans (and Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth before him) places. remarked on. It corresponds to the rich shale-derived soils of the area which contrast with those of the surrounding sandstone country.

HERITAGE 19 July - August 2013 These were not in the Blue Mountains

Continued from page 19 geology, and because the accounts are some of the earliest of any value, it is relevant to consider the matters raised. Gammage states that on his first expedition Wilson

reached the Wingecarribee- Wollondilly junction northwest of Berrima. In what is now mostly dense forest, they crossed “fine open country, but very mountainous”, grass Figure 4: Rural scene near Berrima. This is the country crossed by meadows, thinly timbered John Wilson on March 19, 1798, which Gammage states is “thick of plains. And scrub and vine timber” today. A. Macqueen 2011 brushes, including Bargo “a most beautiful country, This is not inconsistent with Brush, soon notorious for poor being nothing but fine large Gammage’s thesis. He soil, stringybark, and tangles meadows with pools of water acknowledges that “people burnt of scrub and fallen timber. in them; fine green hills, but the most useful land most and the This interpretation relies on very thin of timber.” They are most sterile or sensitive land Cambage (1920) and Chisholm thick of timber now. perhaps not for generations”, and (1955). that they might only have burnt dry The “most beautiful country, being ridges “every 15-25 years”. Subsequent analyses by Andrews nothing but fine large meadows …” (Gammage, pp162, 165) (1990) and Brownscombe (2004), was nowhere near the party’s Mount and also by the writer Towrang terminus. However, if dry ridge country of the (unpublished), discount that view. Blue Mountains were left alone for It was reported by the diarist on such periods one would expect that March 19, 1798 just south of The terminus of the first expedition fire from lightning ignitions, Berrima, in today’s aforementioned was almost certainly in the Berrima- accidental ignitions, or escaped open farmlands. It is certainly not Bong Bong area, which now fires, would attain more “thick of timber” today. (Figure 4) features open farming country. significance. To conclude. The archaeological The particular “fine open country, This would be consistent with record tells us that the sandstone but very mountainous” country palaeoenvironmental research terrain of the Blue Mountains was of mentioned in the above quote was which suggests that the frequency great cultural significance to the actually encountered on January and intensity of fire on the Blue traditional owners. 27, 1798 when the party appears to Mountains mainly reflected the have been travelling up the long climate. (Mooney & Martin 2009) However, the pattern, frequency ramp which forms the watershed and purpose of their occupation or between the Bargo River and the Setting those questions aside, it is visits is not well understood. Nepean system. unfortunate that Gammage’s above (Attenbrow 2009) acknowledgement is relatively The surface geology for much of the hidden in the book. Nor is the nature of their burning way consists of Wianamatta Shales practices. and would, if burnt frequently, have By the manner in which he presents produced open grassy forest (as at examples from the Blue Mountains However, it can be said with Springwood). historical record, he implicitly invites reasonable certainty, based on the the reader to think that attention early historical accounts and on the Much of the area, such as around would have been given to all the botanical evidence, that most of the Yerrinbool, is now occupied by mountains on a detailed and sandstone country was covered in small farms, not scrub. frequent basis. the scrubby vegetation that we still see today, rather than the open Gammage further states (still page However, from the above discussion grassy woodlands that many 197): one is entitled to conclude that the imagine. (Macqueen 2004, ch4; pieces of evidence cited have not In March 1798 Wilson led Benson & Redpath 1997) been properly examined with another party to Mt Towrang respect to their context or east of Goulburn… He found relevance. Continued page 21

HERITAGE 20 July - August 2013 ‘…systematic and scientific use of fire…’ Continued from page 20 In terms of their usefulness in supporting Gammage’s thesis that all of the country was managed by the systematic and scientific use of fire, they are variously not applicable to the Mountains, misleading or doubtful.

While the cited evidence suggests that part of Kings Tableland and places on the Nepean Ramp may have been burnt frequently to Figure 5: The explorers came across many natural clearings promote open landscape, such associated with swamps, such as this one (Burralow Swamp) practice can simply be associated encountered by Caley in 1804. Elsewhere on his journey Caley with the particular geological described the same scrubby vegetation that we see today. environments to be found there, in A. Macqueen 1996 the same way that frequent burning may have been applied to the Wianamatta Shale country at References Springwood, the alluvial flats of the Andrews, Alan E.J. (ed.) (1984) The Chisholm, Alec H. (1955) “How and Burragorang and other large incised Devil’s Wilderness: George Caley’s when the lyrebird was discovered”, Emu valleys, the alluvial flats of Putty Journey to Mount Banks 1804. Blubber 55, 1955, 1-15. and Mellong, the volcanic diatremes Head Press. Hobart. 1984. and the upland swamps. (Figure 5) Gammage, Bill (2011) The Biggest Andrews, Alan E.J. (ed.) (1990) “Mount Estate on Earth: how Aborigines made Those examples say nothing about Hunter and Beyond: with Hunter, Bass, Australia. Allen & Unwin, 2011. traditional management on the vast Tench, Wilson, Barrallier, Caley, King, area of rugged sandstone country and Macquarie, 1790-1815.” JRAHS vol. Govett W.R. (1977) Sketches of New with its scrubby woodland. 76, 1990. South Wales : written and illustrated for the Saturday magazine in 1836-37. It is not intended to deny that the Attenbrow V. (2009) The Mountain Renard. Melbourne. traditional owners managed their Darug. In: Stockton E. & Merriman J. country throughout the Blue (ed.) (2009) Mackaness, George (ed.) (1965) Mountains. Fourteen Journeys Over The Blue Baker, Margaret (1997) ‘Fire and the Mountains of New South Wales 1813- However, the evidence educed by Pre-European Cultural Landscape of the 1841. Horwitz-Grahame. Sydney. 1965. Gammage is unhelpful in Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment.’ In understanding the nature of that Science and Technology in the Macqueen, Andy (2004) Somewhat Environmental Management of the perilous: the journeys of Singleton, Parr, management. Howe, Myles and Blaxland in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment, Northern Blue Mountains. Andy Proceedings. Geographic Society of The writer Macqueen, Wentworth Falls. 2004. Andy Macqueen has spent many NSW Conference Papers, No. 14. years analysing Blue Mountains Mooney S.D. & Martin H.A. (2009) explorers’ accounts and following in Benson J.S. & Redpath P.A. (1997) “The Environmental Conditions in the Past in their footsteps. nature of pre-European native the Blue Mountains. In: Stockon E. & vegetation in south-eastern Australia: a Merriman J. (ed.) (2009) He has also been closely involved critique of Ryan, D.G. and Starr, B.J. in the survey of remote Aboriginal (1995) The Australian Landscape – Richards, Joanna A. (ed.) (1979) Observations of Explorers and Early Blaxland—Lawson—Wentworth 1813. cultural sites. Blubber Head Press. Hobart. 1979. Settlers.” Cunninghamia 5(2) His knowledge of fire in the Weatherburn, Alan K. (1966) George mountains derives from Brownscombe, Ross (ed.) (2004) On William Evans: explorer. Angus and observations as a bushwalker, and Suspect Terrain: Journals of Exploration Robertson. 1966 in the Blue Mountains 1795-1820. wide reading and briefings in the Holey dollars - a great course of his 18 years on the Forever Wild Press. 2004. NPWS Regional Advisory memento of the bicentennary Committee. Cambage, Richard H., (1920) of the Blue Mountains “Exploration Beyond the Upper Nepean crossing celebrations He is not a fire ecologist, but neither in 1798”, JRAHS vol. 6, 1920. [email protected] is Bill Gammage. or telephone (02) 4757 1425.

HERITAGE 21 July - August 2013 Focus on the George Evans story FOCUS WILL be on the George William Evans story, explorer, surveyor and artist seconded by Governor Macquarie to survey the newly found route over the Blue Mountains in late 1813 when Associate Professor, Ian Jack speaks at the mid-year dinner of Kurrajong-Comleroy Historical Society.

The dinner will be held at Loxley circa 1833, on Bellbird Hill Kurrajong on Friday evening, July 26. Evans’s house, 1806-1810, front. Photograph, Ian Jack 1989 The cost is $55 per person and The surveyor, in short, was also an to live on the quite large bookings should be made with explorer, and the first European to Hawkesbury farm which he had Suzanne Smith on 4567 7410 by stand on the Bathurst Plains. been granted in trust for his two July 19. infant daughters in 1804. George William Evans was a well- George Evans lived in the educated Englishman, who came to Evans’s 519 acres was immediately Hawkesbury area, near the present New South Wales via the Cape of adjacent to the 200 acres held by day RAAF base. Good Hope. the young children of William Cox. This is half-way between Windsor Along with Surveyor Meehan, Evans He had eloped to Cape Town in and Richmond: the present assisted in the survey of the five 1798 with a fifteen-year old bride Richmond Air Base. Macquarie Towns. and moved on to Sydney in 1802, where he was soon appointed The association of Evans and Cox He was the man who did the all- Acting Surveyor-General while did not begin with the planning of important surveying and mapping of Charles Grimes was in Britain. the western road, but had begun a the route blazed by Blaxland, decade earlier, with an unexpected Wentworth and Lawson. Evans’s story is not, however, a intimacy. simple one of colonial success. They had turned back at Hartley Both the Cox and Evans farms were Valley, but the surveyor went much He was dismissed for some largely rich arable land on the further west and created his own unspecified fraud in 1805 and went Hawkesbury River flood-plain, with route to what became Bathurst. a small strip of high land at the south end, adjacent to the common.

THE SEX LIVES OF AUSTRALIANS: The two farms, looked towards the river with the Blue Mountains A HISTORICAL REFLECTION evocatively in the distance.

(and other topics) When the rains come in earnest, all For those interested in topical The History Forum will be held that lowland as far as the Blue history beyond the Blue every second Saturday until Mountains can be under water, even Mountains, the Blackheath History October 26, at 4pm at the today. Cox prudently built his Forum will be hosting the first of Blackheath Public School hall. house, Clarendon, on the strip of its 2013 lectures on Saturday Anyone is welcome. Entry is just $5. high land. 1 August 3. For more information on this year’s Reference The speaker will be Frank program visit 1. Bongiorno, author of the recent www.blackheathhistoryforum.org.au Jack, RI. In an Australia Day 2013 book “The Sex Lives of address to the Royal Australian Australians: A History”. Historical Society.

Walk to the Cattle Rustlers’ Yards with members of Glenbrook & District Historical Society on Saturday 10 August For information Doug Knowles 4751 3275 or Tim Miers 47439 2384

HERITAGE 22 July - August 2013 Lynn Collins to facilitate museums workshop THERE ARE still some vacancies • skill based workshops (eg for those wishing to register for the interpretation/display Museums Workshop being techniques, collection sponsored by Blue Mountains management issues, Association of Cultural Heritage marketing) Organisations Inc. on Saturday, July 20. • combined displays and promotions, linking with The workshop is to be held at the tourism industries Mt Victoria & District Historical Society’s Museum, Station Street, • research and publishing Mt Victoria and will commence at opportunities 10am and finish at about 3pm. • collection development This workshop will be facilitated by Each participant is asked to come to • Lynn Collins,(pictured at right) the the feasibility of well- the workshop with three issues BMCC Museums & Galleries appointed, shared storage presently concerning their group Adviser. and/or where your society/ • building numbers and organisation is/will be in five years’ users Lunch will be provided by time. BMACHO, at the Blue Mountains • succession planning and Manor House, Montgomery Street, RSVP to Jan Koperberg by email: support Mt Victoria. [email protected] or by phoning 02 4751 5834 (if • making best uses of all The objectives of the meeting is for unanswered, please leave a resources in the Mountains members of other societies/ message). organisations to exchange and beyond information, and to identify possible joint ventures, for instance -

Jim Low is a singer/songwriter and author. He presented Across the Blue some of his songs and observations of the region at last year’s Blue Mountains History conference produced by Mountains ... the new BMACHO Across the Blue Mountains is his latest CD released on CD by Undercover Music’s Rouseabout label and it contains 18 songs about the area and its history.

Jim Low Many of Jim’s songs have been inspired by the Blue Mountains where he lives.

The human impact has made the Mountains rich in history.

Jim has captured some of it in his music with songs about exploration (Cayley, Evans, Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth) road and rail building (Cox and Whitton), travellers (Mrs Elizabeth Hawkins) and bushfires.

Also included are songs in response to the natural beauty of the landscape.

Along with the CD there is a website which is also called Across the Blue Mountains. It can be found at: http:// acrossthebluemountains.com.au

As well as links to the songs, it contains articles and resources pertaining to the Mountains and the Crossing.

The CD is available from the website, selected Blue Mountains outlets and digitally on iTunes.

HERITAGE 23 July - August 2013 Western crossing commemoration 2013-15 great ideas - thoughts - just being talked about or it’s really going to happen! Coins still Aboriginal insight in crossings available walk A Gundungurra Ancestral Pathways More than 14,000 school students Mountains, connected to and Walk will take place in the Blue and teachers throughout the area walking their country, looking after it Mountains later this year as part of have received a set of and uttilising it for cultural purposes. the bicentenary commemorations. commemmorative coins as part of It recognises the ongoing stories Businesses Supporting the Participants will walk from west to and beliefs that account for Bicentenary co-founder Scenic east following the Aboriginal Country.” World owner Philip Hammon’s pathways. lasting legacy of the Blue Mountains The walk is also open to “non- Crossings Bicentenary 2013-2015. The walk which is expected to take Aboriginal people to participate and place in October will make use of experience the Blue Mountains from The holey dollars will be a reminder the traditional and post-contact a different perspective”. of the first recognised European Aboriginal pathways and cover 67 crossing of the Blue Mountains by kilometres of country in seven days Participants will experience first- explorers Gregory Blaxland, William and six nights. hand Aboriginal cultural heritage Lawson and William Charles and tradional sites of the Wentworth in 1813. The official Crossings website says Mountains, the website states. the walk “affirms the ongoing Mr Hammon personally underwrote presence of Aboriginal people in the the cost of the holey dollars. which he and descendants of the explorers, presented to students at Bathurst looks to 2015 special school assemblies.

Each holey dollar accompanied by proclamation celebrations an inspirational message to students from NSW Governor Her The crossing of the Blue Excellency Professor Marie Bashir. Mountains was significant for the development of inland Australia. In The coins are also available to the same year that a route was individual members of the found, the explorer Evans mapped community at $10 plus postage. the way to the plains which he Orders for 6 or more are free of named the Bathurst Plains. Monica postage. Morse Bathurst Regional Council is All enquiries to looking forward to acknowledging [email protected] or the importance of the first crossing telephone (02) 4757 1425. in opening up of the towns of first flag was raised, the site of a inland Australia. Between 2013 new town to be called Bathurst was Festival of Walking and 2015 a series of events and proclaimed and the first divine activities will be developed to service was held west of the Blue The bicentenary Festival of Walking follow on from the celebrations Mountains. The flag staff which was will be launched in The Gully, and re-enactment of the success erected on May 7, 1815 remained in Katoomba in conjunction with the of the first explorers. place until the 1850s and served as Gully Traditional Owners, the survey point for all exploration Gundungurra Heritage Association, We look forward to history buffs inland. National Parks & Wildlife Service and tourists retracing the steps of and Blue Mountains, Lithgow and those brave men who made that I am sure that the energy and Oberon Tourism at 9am on first crossing and the subsequent enthusiasm which have been Saturday, October 9, 2013. road builders. We have already generated by the interest in the welcomed surveyors to come to early crossing of the Blue Activities will include: self guided Bathurst to recreate and replicate Mountains will continue until 2015 interpretive walks, indigenous the original surveys using old and when we plan to have many gallery exhibition, bush tucker, modern techniques. celebrations to mark the history of cultural performances and launches Australia’s first inland settlement. of Aboriginal Cultural Experience The first Sunday in May is called Guide, iconic Six Villages Walk and Proclamation Day in Bathurst CLR MONICA MORSE the latest bush trackers guides for which marks the date when the Mayor of Bathurst children.

HERITAGE 24 July - August 2013 Ancient Syrian sites imperilled by war Across much of Syria, the country’s archaeological heritage is imperilled by war, facing threats ranging from bombing and bullets to opportunistic digging by treasure hunters who take advantage of the power vacuum to prowl the country with spades and shovels,

Ebla has been celebrated for insights it offers into early Syrian civilisation. Now it is a prime example of the scores, if not hundreds, of archaelogical sites often built and inhabited millenniums back, because of their military value, puts them at risk as they are once more put to military use. Part of the excavated city of Ebla The latest disruption came after war began in 2011. In the 1960s and 70s Ebla became well known among Once the rebels pushed the army back and into nearby archaeologists when the city-state’s long-buried garrisons, the outcrop which is Ebla made it ideal for archives of more than 16000 stone tablets were spotting government planes that in turn the MiG and discovered. Elba was the most important kingdom in the Sukhoi jets have repeatedly bombed on towns that era of 3000BC. have fallen from Assad’s control

Translated from cuneiform script, these tablets have Maamoun Abdul-Karim, who leads the Directorate- shed light on life in a city from another time General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria, has appealed to combatants on both sides to avoid using First settled more than 5000 years ago, Ebla became a ancient sites for military purposes, and to protect the fortified walled city whose residents traded olive oil and ruins from vandals, looters and thieves. beer across Mesopotamia. Destroyed about 2200BC it flourished anew centuries later and was then destroyed “A whole civilisation belonging to all humanity is being again. destroyed,” he says. New York Times BLUE MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ORGANISATIONS INC. REGISTERED OFFICE 1/19 Stypandra Place, MEMBERSHIP The following organisations are members of Springwood, 2777 (02) 4751 5834 BMACHO: Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mount Tomah, E-mail: [email protected] or Blue Mountains City Library, Blue Mountains Cultural Heritage Centre, Blue Mountain Education and Research Trust, Blue [email protected] Mountains Historical Society Inc., Blue Mountains Family Website: www.bluemountainsheritage.com History Society Inc., Blue Mountains World Heritage Institute, ABN 53 994 839 952 Eskbank Rail Heritage Centre, Everglades Historic House & THE ORGANISATION Blue Mountains Association of Gardens, Friends of Norman Lindsay Gallery, Glenbrook & Cultural Organisations Inc. (BMACHO) was established District Historical Society Inc., Hartley Valley District Progress in April 2006 following a unanimous response to a Association, Kurrajong-Comleroy Historical Society Inc, proposal from Professor Barrie Reynolds at the 2004 Lithgow and District Family History Society Inc., Lithgow Blue Mountains Local History Conference which sought Mining Museum Inc., Lithgow Regional Library – Local from Blue Mountains City Council the creation of a Studies, Lithgow Small Arms Factory Museum Inc, Mt Victoria cultural heritage strategy for the city. and District Historical Society Inc., Mt Wilson and Mt Irvine BMACHO in its constitution uses the definition: “Cultural Historical Society Inc. (including Turkish Bath Museum), heritage is all aspects of life of the peoples of the Blue Mudgee Historical Society Inc., National Trust of Australia Mountains which was later changed to cover Lithgow and (NSW) - Blue Mountains Branch, National Trust of Australia the villages along the Bell’s Line of Roads. It therefore (NSW) - Lithgow Branch, Scenic World – Blue Mountains involves the recording, preserving and interpreting of Limited, Springwood & District Historical Society Inc., information in whatever form: documents, objects, Springwood Historians Inc., Transport Signal and recorded memories as well as buildings and sites.” Communication Museum Inc., The Darnell Collection Pty Ltd, The objectives of the organisation are: Valley Heights Locomotive Depot and Museum, Woodford i. To raise public consciousness of Academy Management Committe, Zig Zag Railway Co-op Ltd. the value of cultural heritage. The following are individual members: Ray Christison, ii. To encourage and assist cultural Associate Professor Ian Jack, Joan Kent, John Leary OAM, heritage activities of member organisations. John Low OAM, Ian Milliss, Patsy Moppett, Professor Barrie iii. To initiate and support cultural Reynolds, Dr Peter Rickwood and Dr Peter Stanbury OAM. heritage activities not already covered by member organisations. One of the aims of BMACHO is COMMITTEE The committee for 2013-14 is: John Leary, to bring the various bodies into closer contact, to OAM (president), Ian Jack (vice president), Jan Koperberg encourage them to work more closely together and to (secretary), Kevin Frappell, Wendy Hawkes, Doug Knowles, provide a combined voice on matters of importance Dick Morony (public officer),Scott Pollock and Jean Winston. within the heritage sector. DISCLAIMER Views and opinions expressed in AFFILIATIONS BMACHO is a member of the Royal HERITAGE originate from many sources and contributors. Australian Historical Society Inc. Every effort is taken to ensure accuracy of material. Content does not necessarily represent or reflect the views and HERITAGE BMACHO’s official newsletter is edited opinions of BMACHO, its committee or members. If errors are by John Leary, OAM. found feedback is most welcome. Blue Mountains History Journal is edited by Dr Peter Rickwood.

HERITAGE 25 July - August 2013