Field Inspections Heritage Items, Archaeological Sites ... · Figure 6.1: ‘The Grange’ at Mt Victoria (Blue Mountains LGA heritage item MV033), shown here as a guest house in

140 Phase 2, Final Draft

________________________________________________________________________________ Casey & Lowe Corridor Options, Historic Heritage

Mt Victoria to Lithgow

6.0 Field Inspections Heritage Items, Archaeological Sites, Visual Analysis and Curtilages

6.1 ‘The Grange’, Mt. Victoria This is an important heritage precinct in Mt Victoria that is located within the red and orange corridors. Originally known as Piddington Grange it is a former private home, a mountain retreat, designed by noted architect Horbury Hunt and built in 1876 for William Piddington who was twice Colonial Treasurer under Premier Parks. During the first half of the twentieth century it was used as a guest house. The house and grounds are listed on the LEP which identified a curtilage based on the current land holding as there has been no analysis of visual issues associated with this property as part of the heritage study or its review. The inventory sheet identified this house and grounds as being of State heritage significance. It would seem that the generous curtilage took into account both the main dam and the smaller dam and grotto at ‘fairy dell’, and the Fairy Dell track which were all constructed by the original owner, William Piddington, c. 1879.

Figure 6.1: ‘The Grange’ at Mt Victoria (Blue Mountains LGA heritage item MV033), shown here as a guest house in the early twentieth century.

Figure 6.2: Part of a plan showing ‘The Grange’ drawn by Jim Smith from How to See the Blue Mountains, 1989. Note the location of the Fairy Dell track and the dam.




Figure 6.3: ‘The Grange’: the arrows indicate the viewing points from which the following photos were

taken.




Figure 6.4: Map 1 - This aerial view shows The Grange (MV033) in relation to the township and the

railway station (at right). Note the substantial valleys on each side of the ridge on which the house (arrowed red) was built. The main dam (blue arrow) is located in the northwest sector, Fairy Dell (yellow arrow) in the far northwest corner, and the former effluent treatment plant (green arrow) in the northeast.

Figure 6.5: G1 - Entry courtyard to ‘The Grange’ with (BM heritage item MV033), main building at left.




Figure 6.6: G2 – ‘The Grange’ (BM heritage item MV033), viewed from the northwest.

Figure 6.7: G3 – ‘The Grange’ (MV033), viewed from the oval, to its north.




Figure 6.8: G4 - The oval, viewed from the house, with a very distant view of the mountains beyond.

Figure 6.9: G5 - Looking north into the valley and mountains beyond from the central section of ‘The Grange’.




Figure 6.10: G6 - Typical bushland between the dam and the house.

Figure 6.11: G7 - The former effluent treatment plant in the northeastern sector of the property has been decommissioned, and the site rehabilitated.




Figure 6.12: G8 - The main dam, considerably downslope from the house.

Figure 6.13: G9 – The main dam, with original retaining wall. It was used as an early water supply for ‘The Grange’ as well as a swimming pool.




Figure 6.14: G10 – Track leading down to ‘Fairy Dell’ in the lower northwestern part of the property.

Figure 6.15: G11 - The grotto at Fairy Dell. Photo courtesy of Graeme Dawes, Barker College, Hornsby.




Figure 6.16: G12 - The small dam at Fairy Dell. Photo courtesy of Graeme Dawes, Barker College. Discussion of the Proposed Curtilage for The Grange The property known as The Grange comprises two main sectors, namely the upper (southern) sector where the Horbury Hunt-designed mansion stands with its grassed forecourt to the north of it, and the rugged bushland downslope, to the north of that (Fig. 6.17). The bushland sector – much the larger – has a benched sandstone ridge or spine down the centre, with steep gullies running downslope on the east and western sides of it. The western gully was dammed at two places, the northern-most close to a grotto named Fairy Dell and the larger, southern one upstream of it. The larger dam is quite evident on aerial photographs, but not that at Fairy Dell. There is no conclusive evidence that the dams were built by the original owner and builder of The Grange, William Piddington. What is known is that the larger dam was shown on a county map of 1909. Professor Ian Jack concluded in a short history of the dam prepared in June 2009 that:

The dam is therefore likely to have been built either by Piddington himself before he died in 1887 or by the next owner of the property, F.C. Jarrett, editor of the Building and Engineering Journal.1 The dam was entirely private, the largest of all the private dams in the Mountains and is likely to have been recreational.2 The railway had already solved their most acute water problems at

1 Reynolds, Muir and Hughes, John Horbury Hunt, 135. 2 Jim Smith, David Beaver &Chris Betteridge, ‘Tracks into History: Conservation Management Plan for Walking Tracks of State Heritage Significance in the Blue Mountains’, report to National Parks and Wildlife Service, July 2004, 79.




Mount Victoria station by diverting the source of the Grose River along the Darling Causeway and bringing it to a small reservoir to the east of the station.3

Professor Jack added that:

When The Grange became a guesthouse in the early twentieth century, it passed through a number of hands. Around 1912 the local Progress Association was advertising an attraction of the Fairy Dell as ‘large dams’4 (the second dam is under the Falls themselves to the north of the dam under current scrutiny). In 1924 Mrs M. Grosvenor advertised swimming as an attraction for visitors at The Grange, along with tennis and billiards.5 The dam is likely to have been this swimming facility. The property went into decline during the Depression in the 1930s and there is no evidence that the dam was used by the Scripture Union or by Barker College, the present occupants of The Grange.

In short, there is no record of the mansion having been dependent on water from either dam for household purposes; they were, however, useful as part of the ‘entertainments’ offered when the mansion was used as a Guest House. As the photographs show, however, the higher, larger dam is very photogenic, has engendered its own micro-habitat, and is a delightful stopping-off point along the walking track created by Piddington. (This was used subsequently as a fire trail and for access to a sewage treatment plant located at the far northern end of the property.) An alternative track to the treatment plant was subsequently created down the eastern side of Piddington’s lot to provide more direct access and avoid intruding undesirably onto The Grange land. The treatment plant has been dismantled very recently, and the site has been rehabilitated, so that this track has lost its principal purpose. It is presumably a useful alternative track by which to return to The Grange on the eastern side. The bushland these days is used mainly for exercise and careful environmental monitoring by a dedicated group of ecologists. Small-scale adventure equipment for teenagers from Barker College is located just north of the expansive grassed forecourt to the mansion. These various uses may be said to have a little (low) historical significance, but insufficient to warrant being included in the principal curtilage for the mansion. That is why an outer curtilage was proposed. Although the above reasons can be advanced in favour of retaining the two dams, the walking and fire access track linking them with the mansion, and the bushland monitoring, the low heritage rating determined for them may not be sufficient to rule out severing them from the mansion by a major highway across the centre of the lot. Nevertheless, it is hoped that an effort would be made both to preserve the two dams and Fairy Dell intact, and to enable access to them by a small tunnel below the highway. Alternatively, if a viaduct for the highway is needed to cross the western gully, access could be retained beneath it.

3 C.C. Singleton, ‘Station Arrangements on the Blue Mountains’, Australasian Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, XXIII no.143, September 1949, 33. 4 Mount Victoria Progress Association, Mount Victoria Directory, Mount Victoria [c.1912], 2. 5 Gwen Silvey, Happy Days: Blue Mountains Guesthouses Remembered, Kingsclear Books, Crows Nest 1996, 31, 106.




Figure 6.17: Suggested curtilage for The Grange. Mayne-Wilson & Associates. 6.2 Mt Victoria and Hassans Walls Stockades and Lockyers Line of Road 6.2.1 Mt Victoria Stockade Site Victoria Stockade housed more than 200 convict road-builders from 1830 to 1833, with less consistent use during the rest of the decade.6 Surveyors Nicholson and W.R. Govett published good descriptions of the Stockade in 1833 and 1836 (below and Section 2.4.3). Nicholson’s description was paraphrased in Lavelle 1999:

The convicts were housed in bark huts arranged along two and a quarter sides of a square, with sides 45 metres (150 ft) long. The rest of the 81 metres (270 ft) of the perimeter of the square was taken up by overseers’ accommodation, stores, a cookhouse, a tool-house and blacksmiths’ shops. The square was initially surrounded by a fence similar to the one at No. 2 Stockade which was made of split timber some 4.5 metres (15 ft) high. Adjacent were the soldiers barracks, constables huts and a small cottage for the officers.7

6 S. Rosen and M. Pearson, ‘The No.2 Stockade Cox’s River – its Life and Times: an historical and archaeological investigation’, report to Pacific Power 1997, 20, 23, 30-1, 204. 7 Lavelle, Siobhan 1999: 4.




The convicts were housed in a fenced stockade above a swamp. Huts for constables, barracks for soldiers and a cottage were nearby. A bridge, probably a corduroy, led across the swamp to the neatly thatched cottage of the commissariat officer and a storehouse built of logs.8 The site has been disturbed by subsequent farming activities, including the building of dams, and Mr Leckbandt has removed and disturbed a good deal of physical evidence in his series of visits to the site.9 The 1999 Heritage Impact Statement included a sketch plan, an interpretation of the 1973 aerial photos, suggesting the stockade was immediately south of the eastern dam on Butlers Creek (Fig. 6.19). On a visit to the site with Marcia Ostenberg-Olsen, whose family used to own this property, she indicated a similar location to that identified in the 1999 report to Mary Casey. This area is located on sloping ground to the south of a dam which replaced a former swamp (Fig. 6.18). There are a number of stone mounds in this area and Mrs Ostenberg-Olsen said her brother-in-law knocked down the house of a gardener and created these mounds. Ollie Leckbandt has also located the site in approximately the same place and has interpreted these mounds as being part of the stockade.10 It is possible they were reused stones from the stockade site. Govett the surveyor, described the Mt Victoria Stockade in 1836:

The narrow valley between the high ranges of Mount Vittoria and Mount York, is noted for being the situation of the first Stockade erected for the use of iron-gangs, and men employed to work in chains upon the roads for punishment. It was situated about half a mile from the Pass, upon a gentle rising ground above the swamp at the bottom. Near the Stockade were the barracks for the soldiers, constables’ huts, and a small cottage, &c., for the officers; on the opposite side of the swamp was the residence of the commissariat officer, a neat thatched cottage, and a store-house built of logs. In wet weather it was very inconvenient to cross the swamp, and the officers, together with their men, contrived to build a bridge across, which no doubt remains in good preservation to the present time. From a point on the top of the mountain, near where the new road branches off from the old, a bridle-path commences, which admits of a very fair descent into the valley. Many travellers would admire the romantic beauties of this descent between the two mountains as they went along. Its narrow windings and grotesque passages, sometimes overhung by huge masses of rock, and again overshadowed by most luxuriant shrubs, the water in places trickling down from the sides of a rocky indentation forming a small pool at the base, icy cold, tend at any rate to remove the tediousness of the way which one might otherwise experience. Although the situation of this Stockade was undoubtedly the best to be procured in the neighbourhood, yet very often the men were badly off for the water in the dry seasons. The little that made its way down the ravine was sucked up by the swamp, so that wells were here and there dug, which afforded a supply, but not of good water. This swampy flat continues in a north-westerly direction, about two miles, to the base of Mount York, where it opens into a wide expanse of flat forest-land, of a sandy soil. As soon as the principal difficulties had been got over at Mount Vittoria, and the road had begun to assume its proper form, this Stockade was deserted, and another formed under Mount Walker, about twelve miles to the westward, where another considerable cutting was necessary to complete the road. As this latter Stockade was on a larger scale, and I had occasion to visit the scene now and then, I will conclude this paper by giving a description of it... This Stockade [Mt Walker] was built, as that at Vittoria, nearly in the form of a square, the huts for the prisoners being erected of bark, facing inwards, and joined together, except at the entrance. The inner square is divided into several compartments for the different companies of prisoners, by rail-fencing, on which they hang and dry their clothes, &c., after washing; and, about four yards from the back of these huts, on the outside, was erected a strong fence of split timber all round, about fourteen or fifteen feet in height, having two great gates at the entrance. Fronting this gateway, on either side, were erected the soldiers’ barracks, in two rows. These were also built of bark and split wood, with mud chimneys, and some of them were plastered and

8 W.R.Govett, ‘Sketches of New South Wales, no. XI’, The Saturday Magazine, 12 November 1836, 190-2, reprinted as Sketches of New South Wales, Renard, Melbourne 1977, 46-50 9 Leckbandt, Convict Stockades, 72-93. 10 Leckbandt, Convict Stockades, 72-80.




white-washed inside; and at the head of these barracks stood the officers’ quarters, forming a kind of parallelogram with the Stockade. These quarters consisted of a shingled cottage, with two tolerably-sized rooms, back kitchen, &c. having a verandah in front. The guard consisted of a captain’s company. On one side was the hospital and storehouse, and the tents of the commissary; on the other were the cooking-shed, and butchers’ and bakers’ houses, the overseers’ and constables’ huts, &c. These buildings, all erected in a hurry, and in a very little time, being of course merely temporary, formed, as it were, a little town, and contained generally between seven and eight hundred inhabitants. The prisoners are guarded by day and night. They march out of the Stockade in the morning in companies of twenty-four each, guarded by two soldiers and a constable. Every man receives at the gates the implements he uses when at work, shovels, pickaxes, iron bars, hatchets, and the like, and these are again returned to the proper person when they enter the Stockade at night. A lamp is fixed at each corner of the outer fence, and at the entrance, so that any one could be seen attempting an escape, and sentinels are placed at night both inside and out, commanding every way, who call the word every half hour, - ‘No. I. All’s well, ‘ – and so on throughout the whole number. Before these lamps were put up, fires were kept burning at the corners, to give light, which was attended with great inconvenience. A soldier would be tried by a court-martial if a prisoner escaped, - so strict is the military duty on these occasions. At noon, the prisoners are marched in to dinner, for which they are allowed an hour. They often grumble at their mess, and refuse to touch it. In these cases, the commissariat officer, whom they call their ‘head cook,’ is sent for, who decides whether the ration and meat be sufficiently good or not. If his decision be in favour of the ration, the prisoners will commence eating, and laugh at the trouble they have occasioned, for they frequently object, merely to annoy the overseers and others over them. The whole body connected with the Stockade are rationed by contract for the year, and at so much per man, for which tenders are submitted to the commissariat department, in Sydney, at a fixed time. The lowest tender is taken, if proper securities can be given by the parties tendering. A pound of fresh beef, and a pound of bread is the allowance, I believe, for the prisoners, per diem¸ in addition to which they get soup every other day. Two men, selected by the prisoners themselves, inspect the meat before it is cooked, and they have the power of objecting if they please; but what is termed ‘tip,’ and a fig of tobacco, very often, no doubt, silences their objection. The prisoners amuse themselves in various ways when shut up, - some are seen polishing the horns of bullocks, others cutting devices and figures thereon, as a ship, a crown, an anchor, as well as a few lines of rhyme; and these, when finished, they make into a spirit-flask, and either sell or present them to some one. Some may be seen reading, others writing, - some making saws out of a rude bit of iron, and otherwise employed, according to their genius, while others may be seen listening to a long story, told by a shrewd fellow whom they call a lawyer, - some playing the fool, and some doing nothing. When the Stockade was first formed at this place, the prisoners were allowed fires in the inner square, around which they used to sing at night - all joining in chorus, which made a most tremendous uproar. But they abused this indulgence by doing mischief, and their fires and singing were not allowed. Frequently when they marched out of a morning to their several stations, a company would strike out into a song, which the magistrate on duty (a surveyor of roads) objected to, and gave orders to the overseers to stop them. They could not succeed, however; but one morning the magistrate happened to be present when they were marched out, and, soon after they had passed his tent, one or two prisoners commenced a loud song in defiance. The magistrate immediately halted the whole party, - inquired, and found out the man who commenced singing, and had him severely flogged on the spot; this put an end to their singing. It might naturally be supposed, that with such a number of able men and means, the most stupendous undertaking might be overcome in a reasonable short time, but the case is otherwise; the generality of these prisoners are an idle, lazy set, who merely raise the axe to let it fall again, without any exertion on their part; and it is only when the overseer is present that they appear busy and in earnest. There are some amongst them, however, who at times work well, as if they took an interest in the undertaking, or in expectation of receiving an advantage. But some of them often refuse to work at all, and choose rather to stand a flogging every other day, until both magistrate and flogger are tired of them. The soldiers merely remain with them on guard, but neither speak, nor interfere with the work. They find it an irksome duty, but the prisoners think it




scarcely a punishment. This Stockade, altogether, formed a peculiar scene of animation amid the solitude of the mountains.11

While not all of this description is of the Mt Victoria Stockade site, the details of the Mt Walker site are relevant to the nature of the archaeological resource and potential archaeological remains likely to be found at the site. In summary, the Mt Victoria Stockade, based on the Govett description above and the Nicholson detail in Section 2.4.3, may include archaeological evidence of the following:

It is situated on rising ground above the swamp. Large stockade fence 15 feet (c.5 m) high possibly with two large gates and possibly with a

ditch around the outside. Inside the fence were: - An outer square of bark-clad huts for the convicts. - Central square used for various activities. - Cook house, tool house, overseer’s house and blacksmiths’ shops.

Two rows of soldiers’ barracks situated at the front gates to the stockade, possibly the down slope to the north or to the west where there is some evidence of terracing.

Constables’ huts Small cottage for officers Hospital? Present at Mt Walker and may also have been at Mt Victoria. Food preparation area: cooks shed, butchers’ and bakers’ houses. Overseer’s house?

On the opposite side of the ‘swamp’ were:

Residence for the Commissariat officer – probably the ‘neat thatched cottage’ but not certain. Storehouse built of logs. This would have been for the government rations and would have

been near the road rather than across Butlers Swamp. Bridge across the swamp. Wells.

Other features may include:

A bridle path commencing near the junction of Coxs Road and Mitchells Road at the top of the mountain.

The location of the Commissariat officer’s cottage and the storehouse is probably to the north across Butlers Creek. The reasoning for this is because there is no access down the highway as the convicts are building Victoria Pass and therefore rations are bought down by pack horse on the bridle track presumably to the closest point. This would suggest that they were using the made road to Mt York and then coming down the gully, presumably on the northern side of the swamp and so the Commissariat buildings were located there.

11 Govett, William Romaine, 1977 (ed.) Sketches of New South Wales, written and illustrated for The Saturday Magazine in 1836-37, Gaston Renard, Melbourne, pp. 47-50.




Figure 6.18: View of the Victoria Stockade site from Berghofers Pass. The possible eastern ditch line of the stockade is arrowed. Tony Lowe, April 2009.




Figure 6.19: Sketch plan of Mt Victoria Stockade. Taken from Great Western Highway Upgrade, Little Hartley, EIS, Vol 2, Technical Papers, Historical archaeological and heritage assessment, Upgrading of the Great Western Highway, Little Hartley, NSW, p. 11, fig. 4.




Figure 6.20: 1943 aerial photo showing the area to the south of the eastern dam on Butlers Creek. The

red outline is the approximate position of the stockade site identified in 1999. Lands Department

Figure 6.21: Arrows indicate the line of the ditches thought to show the location of the Mt Victoria

Stockade site.

dam

Butlers Creek




Figure 6.22: Possible terraced areas for the soldiers’ barracks, to the west of the likely stockade area.

Figure 6.23: Looking north across Butlers Creek and the eastern dam. Note the raised ground which falls to the right. This is thought to be the mound and ditch associated with the eastern side of the stockade. The Commissariat officer’s residence and storehouse may survive across the creek or dam.

Figure 6.24: Western ditch and mound thought to be of the stockade.

Figure 6.25: Quarried rock outcrop near the possible terraced areas.




Mt Victoria Stockade Curtilage The identification of a curtilage at the Mt Victoria convict stockade site is difficult. There is no plan of the stockade and few clear above ground remains. The written descriptions describe a large complex of temporary buildings on both sites of a swamp. It also presumes that the three main sources of information on the identification of its location are accurate. While it is likely that the main stockade site has been located reasonably accurately its extent is uncertain. Admittedly Ollie Leckbandt had found a range of metal artefacts on this site: military and non-military buttons, nails, spikes, nuts, bolts, wedges and broken tools. The white outline on Figure 6.26 is considered likely to incorporate most of the remains of the stockade site. The purple outline for the Commissariat buildings is purely guess work. Ollie Leckbandt did find more metal artefacts adjacent to the northern wall of the dam which were probably associated with the site of the Commissariat buildings. He also found some artefacts in the area of the nearby ‘natural’ spring.12 If the proposed route within the corridor crosses through this curtilage then further work on this site will need to undertaken as part of the next stage to define the limits of the stockade.

Figure 6.26: Curtilage for Victoria Stockade site (green line) based on the identification of the site as discussed in Section 6.2.1. Note that the white line is considered to encompass most of the main stockade site while the purple outline for the Commissariat buildings is based on no physical evidence.

WP0096 Stone outcrop at Mt Vic Stockade WP0097 earthworks?, southern end WP0098 Northern end of embankment, 97-98 WP0099 northern edge of ditch, line parallel to 97-98

12 Leckbrandt 1998:97-101. Please note that the presence of a ‘natural’ spring must be questioned by the early descriptions of this stockade as having a poor water supply in summer. It is possible the spring is actually one of the wells sunk for the stockade which has hit the water table and provides plenty of water.




6.2.2 Hassans Walls Stockade and Lockyers Road Hassans Walls Stockade, the No. 3 stockade, was located adjacent to the line of Lockyers Road near where it crossed Mitchells new line of road, the current highway (Fig. 2.12). Little is known about this stockade but it operated between 1835 and 1837 (Section 2.4.2). The extent or size of it is also not known. It is unlikely to be as large as the Mt Victoria Stockade or the Coxs No. 2 Stockade near Mt Walker. The Parish plans indicate that there were four to six ‘huts’ to the north of Lockyers Road. The archaeological evidence shown to us by Jim Sheehan on 4 May 2009 included two sites with some evidence of stone wall lines. One was to the south of the creek and west of Boxs Road (modern access road) – indicated by the red dot on Figure 6.34. The nature of the Hassans Wall Stockade is not very clear but a recent PhD thesis by Dr Sue Rosen “That Den of infamy, No. 2 Stockade, Cox’s River”: An historical investigation into the construction, in the 1830s, of the Western Road from Mt Victoria to Bathurst by a convict workforce (2006) provides some additional clues. Additional historical material based on this thesis has been incorporated into Section 2.4.2:

In March 1832, while the first huts were under construction at Coxs River, a bridge party of 83 men under Overseer Charles Hewitt was at Hassan’s Walls.13

May 1835 - men in irons moved to the recently completed stockade at Hassan’s Walls. This was a move that had been originally proposed in September 1834.14

Boxes for the accommodation of an ironed gang were placed at Bowen’s Hollow in 1835 and Hassan’s Walls in 1835. By 1838 wheels had been added which were considered to be indispensable, whereas previously when enclosed in stockades they had been fixed for months or even years. The Western Road references imply semi-permanent camps rather than a nomadic convict workforce, inching snail-like along the route to Bathurst.15

- Each box could accommodate from 18 to 24 convicts. They were usually 14 feet long and varied in width from 7½ feet to 10 feet. Gang members slept on the floor and on two shelves with each man having about a 17 inch width of space to himself.16

- Boxes Creek which runs north-south through the stockade site is reputedly named for these boxes.17

Possible shift in location of the stockade away from the ‘damp’ ground between May to December 1835 with the construction of:18

- Officers’ quarters - Barracks - Guard room - Shed - Buildings for cooking and use of overseers - Stockade fence and ditch - Hospital

Ollie Leckbandt in his removal of archaeological relics from the site unearthed a range of artefacts which confirms the location of Hassans Walls Stockade in the general area. He found numerous metal artefacts, as well as animal bone and ceramics. Among the metal objects were: Commissariat buttons, lead weights, suspender buckles, and a range of military buttons including examples from the 28th and 80th regiments. 13 Rosen 2006:94 14 Rosen 2006:107 15 Rosen 2006:127 16 Rosen 2006:127 17 Rosen 2006: 125 18 Rosen 2006:145, 52




Also Warren Merrick said that reputedly there were Aboriginal burials north of waypoint 95. These were denoted by the presence of dips in the ground which he saw when he was a young man. No evidence of these was obvious during our site visit.

Figure 6.27: Lockyers Road crossing Boxes Creek, looking south.

Figure 6.28: Looking north over the Lockyers Road crossing.

Figure 6.29: Rubble material near the creek crossing, including modern building materials, reputedly the results of action by Mr Vlazney,

Figure 6.30: Rubble stone footings to the north of Boxes Creek, supposedly the site of the Commissariat store.

Figure 6.31: Stone footings in the Sheehan property to the south of Boxes Creek.

Figure 6.32: Other stone footings in the same area, south of Boxes Creek.




Figure 6.33: View across from the Sheehan property westwards into the Vlazney property, showing the possible area of the stockade immediately north of the dam. The dam embankment is on the left. The Sheehan property is considerably more overgrown than the cleared Vlazney property.

Curtilage for Hassan Walls Stockade Figure 6.33 indicates the approximate location of the section of Lockyers Road adjacent to Hassan Walls Stockade. A preliminary curtilage for the stockade has been identified which hopefully includes the possible range of potential buildings. The three areas where ruins have been identified are included within the curtilage. Refining of the curtilage will require detailed survey, perhaps use of a metal detector/magnetometer as many corroded metal objects were left lying in the ground, and machine testing in areas considered to have potential to confirm the presence of substantial remains. The curtilage includes the Vlazney house as the Parish plan (Fig. 2.12) indicated that the original huts were to the north of Lockyers Road and this may have been the original site and it was then moved to the east as the stockade expanded. It is unlikely that Lockyers Road has moved much in this area because of the evidence of the creek crossing but this would need to be confirmed by detail survey. The aim of the current curtilage is to try to provide a large enough area to encompass the predicted site but it is quite likely that the site could be smaller, or indeed larger. The location of the site can only be clarified by the further work as outlined above. It is acknowledged that there have been impacts on the integrity of the resource within this curtilage by the construction of the dams and the Vlazney house and ploughing of the ground over the years.

Table of points on the aerial photo (Fig. 6.34)

WP0091 creek crossing, Lockyers Road WP0092 stone rubble - probably moved from nearby, includes twentieth-century building materials WP0093 Lockyers Road at GWH - red gate WP0094 Section of Lockyers Road, on the fence line just inside the Sheehan property WP0095 view to N, of Aboriginal burials, next to Commissariat


Figure 6.34: Aerial photo with GPS points marked. The initial curtilage for Hassans Walls Stockade is marked in white, while the yellow area indicates the location of

the stockade site indicated by Leckbandt and Rosen. Point 95 is supposedly the Commissariat store and the yellow dot is supposed to be the blacksmith’s shop. The basis for this reasoning is from the findings made by Ollie Leckbandt. Nos 91-92 is the crossing of Lockyers Road over Boxes Creek.




Lockyers Road at Hassan Walls Stockade The main evidence for the presence of the road is the creek crossing which is a cutting which created an earthen embankment (Fig. 6.27, 6.28). Other sections of road which are likely to be part of the early line appear to be nothing more than rural dirt tracks. There was a bridge (Fig. 2.12) where Lockyers Road crossed Mitchells line (current highway) but both Mr Merricks said that this had been removed when roadworks were undertaken on the highway a few years ago. The highway was been cut down in this area apparently removing evidence of this bridge. Mr Bob Merrick observed that up until a few years ago the line of the road could still be seen to the south of the highway on the Fernhill property. This appears to be visible in the aerial photos (Fig. 6.34). Generally, the line of Lockyers Road, if extrapolating from this example of the road, did not involve major construction works, such as Mitchells Line did. Where Lockyers Road was useful it was subsumed into the modern unsealed and private access road system, where its alignment could be ignored as it was on private land and the owners could choose the sections they thought best or bypass it. For example on the Sheehan property there is at a second substantial line of disused road, indicating that road building on private land was to do with personal preferences. Mr Warren Merrick did say that up until a few years ago surveyors would come out every four years and re-peg the line of Lockyers Road. We have placed enquiries with Bill Evans who said that this was not done by RTA surveyors but may have been done by Department of Lands surveyors. He is chasing up this lead.

Field Inspections Heritage Items, Archaeological Sites ... · Figure 6.1: ‘The Grange’ at Mt Victoria (Blue Mountains LGA heritage item MV033), shown here as a guest house in

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