R lan Jack. J. Jervis, A History of the Berrima District , rev. ed. Sydney 1-973, 26.

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1 BONG BONG TOWNSHIP: A REPORT TO WINGECARRIBEE SHIRE COUNCIL, DECEMBER 1993 R lan Jack History The decision to layout a township at Bong Bong on the north side of the great bend in the Wingecarribee River was taken in March 1821 and the site was surveyed in November of that year. l There had, however, been earlier occupation of the site by Charles Throsby who built a hut in 1817 close to the river, to the east ofthe present Moss Vale Road. 2 Already by 1820, when Governor Macquarie visited the area, Throsby had moved south of the Wingecarribee to the property which Macquarie named Throsby Park and was grazing a substantial herd of cattle there. 3 His hut to the north of the river remained but otherwise the site of the township was undeveloped when it was reserved by the government in The site lay adjacent to the original south road. This road, developed under Macquarie, gave access through county Camden south to County Argyle and is usually known as the Old Argyle Road. 4 By 1820 it had been completed as far as Sutton Forest and Macquarie with his baggage-carts used the road on his trip to the southern counties. On 18 October 1820 the governor noted in his journal that 'the country we passed through today, called Mittagong, is generally a very poor soil and not very fit for small settlers but a tolerable good grazing country. It improves however as we come nearer the Wingeecarabie River and immediately at that river it becomes really beautiful, being fit for both cultivation and grazing. ' J. Jervis, A History of the Berrima District , rev. ed. Sydney 1-973, 26. A.E. Stephen, Bong Bong Commemoration, 14th November th Januruy 1947, [1947], 7, 14; R.B.B. Gibbes, Silken Whispers from Sutton Forest, 1959, 8. Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales: Journals of his Tours in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land , Sydney 1979, Jervis, Berrima District, Macquarie, Journals, 145.

2 2 The line of the Old Argyle Road from Bowral to Bong Bong followed the approximate line of the present Moss Vale Road with one council difference: above- 400 metres north of the present bridge over the Wingecarribee, the Argyle Road turned sharply to the west and crossed the river where there is a small island, then turning sharply to the south following the course of the river and joining the present road line again close to Bong Bong church. 6 Macquarie commented in 1820 that the road crossed the Wingecarribee, there some ten metres broad, 'by a good sound pebbly ford',? On his return journey to Sydney, Macquarie again forded the river, on 2 November 1820, and 'encamped on a very pretty bank on the north side of the river'.8 Macquarie camp-site is almost certainly within the area planned for development by the Council. Over the ten years after Macquarie's visit, Bong Bong was developed as a government establishment.' Thirty acres (12 hectares) south of the Argyle Road and fronting on to the great bend of the river were reserved in 1821 and in the course of the 1820s a number of buildings, primarily to maintain law and order, were erected. Police constables, military personnel and prisoners in custody had to be accommodated. The soldiers, (who numbered 14 in 1833), were initially housed in huts but a barracks had been erected by The gaol built by 1826 was originally roofed with bark but late in 1829 it was decided to reroof it with shingles. lo A Commissariat store was erected, despite labour difficulties, between 1829 and 1831: this also provided accommodation for the subaltern in charge of the small contingent of troops housed in the barracks.ii Essential services were supplied by a See the composite modern map in Stephens Bong Bong, The best contemporary map of the part of the Old Argyle Road to the east of the river is by Dixon in 1829 (Archives Office of NSW, Aa Map 1386); for the turn south on his west bank (which was closer to the river than Stephen shows), see Larrrier's fieldbook of 1837 (AONSW, 2/5081 p. 91)../"'. Macquruie, Journals, 145. Ibid., 164. Jervis, Benima District, 26, 27. Ibid., 27. Dixson Library, notes on correspondence concerning public works , Add i

3 3 blacksmith's shop, housed, it is said, in Throsby's Street hut,12 and in 1829 a postal facility was opened.13 In 1827 a school'house was opened, with a resident teacher.1 4 The eleven children on the roll came, however, from the surrounding pastoral properties, not from the town itself. In the following year, 1828, Alexandra Macleay, the Colonial Secretary, remarked to the local magistrate John Fitzgerald, that the 'community' at Bong Bong was 'comprised of Stock Keepers residing at some Distance from the Magistrates'.15 It is clear that the township had no residential area but was merely a focal point providing certain amenities to a scattered rural population. Outside the township rectangle but within the area proposed for current redevelopment was the earliest public house in the area. William Bowman, a young Sydney weaver had taken up a five-acre (2 hectare) grant to the worth of the township rectangle in He immediately built an inn, which was licensed in This Argyle Inn lay at the top right-hand corner of Bowman's small grant: it was a simple rectangle, shown by the surveyor Hoddle in 1832 as being some 24 metres long by 14 metres broad (though the notebook may exaggerate the size of the building).18 The orientation of the long sides of the rectangular inn seems to be north-west/southeast in Hoddle's notebook, but more nearly north-south according to Dixon's general map of 1829'(where a small projecting structure is shown on the south-west corner)19. There is no warrant for the north-west wing shown on A.E. Stephen's composite map Gibbes, Silken Whispers, 8. Jervis, Berrima District, 28. Mitchell Library, despatches of Governor Darling, A1205 (reel CY 538), pp. 688, 691. Mitchell Library, letters from government officers, A664 (reel CY POS 871), p Jervis, Berrima District, 26. The five-acre grant is shown on the 2nd edition of the Mittagong parish map of 1884 but not in subsequent editions (Mitchell Library, parish maps). 17 Jervis, Berrima District, Hoddle's fieldbook 1832, AONSW, Surveyors' Field Book 374, 2/4999 p AONSW, AO Map Stephen, Bong Bong, i

4 4 The approximate location of the inn in relation to the Argyle Road shown on Dixon's X829 map,21 and according to S.A. Howard the distance between the road and the inn was 180 paces. 22 Howard's paces mud have been rather short, for a preliminary field survey shows that the inn cannot have been further than 150 metres from the road. Another element in the early occupation of the study area is the group of three paddocks with huts on the east bank of the Wingecarribee River just north of the crossing-place for the Argyle Road, the probable site of Macquarie's camp in These are called farms on Stephen's composite map, but there were no separate lantl grants there and they are more likely to be enclosures each with a hut for necessary equipment. They predate Bowman's 640 acre grant of 1832 (which included this area), for they are shown on Dixon's map in They lie in two separate groups, separated by an unfenced area also with a small square hut. 23 Immediately to the east of the southernmost of these four huts was a burial ground (shown on Stephen's modern map mistakenly as a hut). None of the surveyors other than Dixon plotted in these graves: Dixon's general map, however, shows the burial ground some 150 metres north-north-east of the north-east corner of the rivercrossing. 24 James Jervis, writing in 1962, claimed that the mounds of earth over the graves may still be discerned'.25 The occupation of the site in 1831 had therefore the following features: (i) the township reserve of 30 acres (12 hectares) with a straggle of public buildings on a roughly east-west axis, consisting, from west to east, of a gaol with adjacent huts for the constables, a soldiers' barracks, a commissariat store with subalturis quarters, a post-office and, to the south, a smithy AONSW, AO Map S.A. Howard, "'New Lamps for Old" - or, "Chronicles of Bong Bong: "', typescript, 1947, in BelTima and District Historical Society, 1. Stephens, Bong Bong, 14-15; AONSW, AO Map They are not shown in any of the surveyors' fieldbooks. AONSW, AO Map Jervis, Berrima District, 28. i

5 {. 5 (ii) the curve of the Old Argyle Road running east-west north of the township reserve to cross the Wingecarribee (ill) along the river to the north of the crossing from four huts and three enclosures associated with grazing and agriculture (the probable site of Governor Macquarie's camp on 2 November 1820). (iv) crossmg a small burial ground some 150 metres from the river, north-noith-east of the (v) William Bowman's 1826 inn perched on higher land at the extreme north of the study area: and no more than 150 metres west of the present Moss Vale Road. This year 1831 saw the beginning of the end for Bong Bong. The construction of Mitchell's new line of south road from Mittagong to Berrima diverted through traffic from Bong Bong and created a new township at Berrima which developed the urban features lacking at the earlier centre. The plan of Berrima was approved in 1831 and the development of the township lots there slowly gathered pace through the 1830s.26 The area's post office was moved in 1837 from Bong Bong to Berrima.27 William Bowman and his young wife Elizabeth gave up their inn in 1832 and although Richard Lozeby and John Richards held the licence in succes~ion up to 1837, the licence then lapsed and William Bowman in the 1840s used the inn-building as his homestead on the large grant given as compensation for the by-passing of Bong Bong in The opening of the court-house at Berrima in 1837 removed the magistrate's functions from Bong Bong also. By 1843 the judicial and gaol buildings at Bong Bong were disused and in disrepair and the entire 30-acre township site was sold to Charles Throsby (the~fthe original builder of Throsby Park).29 The Commissariat store.r. on the eastern side of the township remained and was occupied by a storekeeper called 26 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., 29.

6 J. 1 6 D ey in the 1860s.3 0 DO~y was able to prosper because of the revitalisation of the Old Argyle Road and the coming of the railway. The Argyle Road was redirected in 18~ to bypass the ford of Macquarie's time (which had become a causeway and bridge in the 1820s). A substantial wooden bridge was built in 18~ just to the west of the present bridge 31 and the roadway ran to the east of the present Moss Vale Road past the present Bong Bong obelisk curving under the present bridge approaches down to the river.3 2 The railway from Mittagong opened two years later, on the west side of the river.33 The importance of the alignment of the railway bypassing Berrima is, paradoxically, that road traffic increased on Moss V al~ Road: there was no station at Bong Bong but the growth of Bowral, and Moss Vale, made possible by the railway stations there, had an increasing impact on local traffic. This is part explanation for the modest success of Dovey's store at Bong Bong just at the time of these changes in lines of communication. The realignment of Moss Vale Road cut right through the centre of the original Bong Bong township. The old Commissariat store on the east side of the new road survived as Dovey's store but the buildings to the west went into terminal decay. The 1876 bridge was replaced in 1916 by another low-level bridge designed in concrete by Arthur Hart. This bridge used the 1876 roadway and the development of. successive road surfaces can be clearly seen today in a drainage cutting opposite the Bong Bong obelisk. In the present bridge to the west of the earlier structures, with a realignment of Moss Vale Road was constructed and the 1916 bridge was demolished, with some difficulty, in December Soon afterwards in 1978 a commercial airstrip for light aircraft proposed by Eric von Nide was approved for the central area of the study area. The objections to this development turned entirely round noise pollution and the threat to the Hoskins. wildlife reserve adjacent to Bong Bong on the north-east. No discussion of the site of the historic township was reported in the local press and the preparation of the runway. - ~ 30 Gibbes, Silken Whispers, 8; Howard, "'New Lamps for Old''', Stephens, Bong Bong, Field inspection, 6 November Jervis, Berrima District, Berrima District Post, 6 December 1976: i

7 L... \~ \' 7 came close to the area once occupied by the gaol. 35 By and large, however, the runway area was clear of the historic area, lying to the west of Bowman's Inn, to east of riverside enclosures and to the north of the gaol. It did, however, cut across the original line of the Old Argyle Road as it swung westwards towards the Wingecarribee. The airstrip did not prosper and in recent years has been used for radiocontrolled model aeroplanes. The club house for the enthusiasts is located well away from any known historic site. Very close to the likely site of Bowman's inn, however, recent excavation for a structure and subsequent erosion have disturbed the historic area; and the Telecom coaxial cable trench has cut right through the study area from approximately north to south. This trench cut across the line both of the Argyle Road and the government buildings and is known to have disturbed a bottle dump at some point. 36 The fmal stage in the history of the area is its development as a recreation area with roadways and tree plantings by Wingecarribee Shire Council. As the history demonstrates, the recreation area contains a number of features all with a high archaeological potential and an equally high tourist potential. Recommendations: 1. That the following areas be protected from any development, either by the making of pathways or the planting of new trees: A. the site of William Bowman's inn and an adjacent dump area for nineteenthcentury glass, ceramics and iron artefacts. This site A adjoins the boundary fence with the Briars, to the west of the westernmost of the two rows of pine-trees. It is suggested that the entire rectangular ship, however from Moss Vale Road to the eroded site on the western slope of hill, metres long by metres broad be protected, with sp~cial attention to the area west of the pines. B. the site of the four huts associated with the enclosed paddocks of the 1820s, the burial ground and the Macquarie camp site on the east bank of the Wingecarribee in the 35 Ibid., 10' February 1978; Southern Highland News, 11 January Information supplied by Linda Emery.

8 8 area 560 metres north of the old river crossing. All these historic sites lie in a rectangle 560 metres by 160 metres, as shown on the accompanying map. I C. the line of the Old Argyle Road across the paddock to the river-crossing. This is probably the straight indentation which shows clearly on the recent aerial photograph supplied by Council. Consideration should be given to reusing this earliest of the local roadways as a central feature of the developed area. D. the river-crossing, which is of prime importance. The basaltic stone used to improve the ford crossed by Macquarie in 1820, the horizontal ironbark logs used to define the crossing on both sides of the island in the 1820s, and the vertical posts used on the western part of the divided river to support a low-level wooden bridge, probably, before 1829 (when Dixon marked the crossing as a bridge) constitute a highly visible and impressive heritage item. Old surviving features must be preserved and a conservation plan preferred. The tourist potential of this river crossing is as high as its heritage importance. E. the area along the south of the first terrace near the river where the foundations of four and possibly five of the buildings scrupulously drawn and measured by the surveyor James Larmer in 1837 are likely to have left underground remains. This was the heart of thejudicial and peace-keeping aspect of earlies{bong Bong and must be preserved untouched for 'possible archeological excavation in ~e future. In the meantime appropriate signage should be created and the entire area in the south of the development area fenced off. F. the traces of the 1865 roadway leading to the successive bridges of 1865and The bridges themselves have left little trace thanks to the 1916 demolition by explosives, but the area deserves protection. It comes within the area proposed in E.

9 1 N i 80ng 80ng surveyed in 1837 by Larmer 0.. o 100 m Source: AONSW p. 91 IJ9861 mb HS=1 28/10/96 B I.Jack History I

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