Windsor Bridge
Iain Stuart
Dear John,
Given that the Thompsons square/Windsor Bridge thing has been going on at least since 2009 it is a bit unfair to blame Gladys for what is happening – earlier Governments and notably the ALP (should have stopped it and have been pathetic in their opposition) also have to share blame for this debacle.
I might also point out that sites of earlier farms and settlements along the Hawkesbury have all succumbed to development pressure with little or no consideration of the historical archaeology wiping out just as much as the Thompsons square/Windsor Bridge development. Overall it a big loss for our heritage.
Cheers
Dr Iain Stuart
JCIS Consultants
P.O. Box 2397
Burwood North
NSW 2134
Australia
(02) 97010191
john.p...@bigpond.com
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Gazza
Gary Vines
HAWKSBURY GAZETTE, JANUARY 18 2018 - 3:30PM
Brick drains Australia’s first: report
· Krystyna Pollard
Protest: Signs that were put up during the recent rally to stop the archaeological dig at Thompson Square. Picture: Geoff Jones.
Man-sized brick barrel drains discovered at Thompson Square last month could be the oldest government infrastructure in Australia, according to a decades-old report compiled by a highly respected archaeologist.
In 1992 Dr Edward Higginbotham, of Edward Higginbotham & Associates Pty Ltd., compiled an historical and archaeological assessment of the brick culvert in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens, built in 1816.
In a table contained within the report, Dr Higginbotham points to the earliest example of brickwork in culverts and drains in the former colony of NSW as being the brick barrel drain in Thompson Square, dating from 1814.
Dr Higginbotham’s report is being used by Thompson Square supporters to lend weight to calls for the drains to be preserved in situ, rather than salvaged and stored.
Hawkesbury architect and historian Graham Edd has forwarded the information to local, state and federal representatives, including Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg to provide “significant additional criterion to substantiate the nomination for emergency National Heritage Listing for Thompson Square”.
“The barrel drain is a most significant archaeological find and potentially the earliest piece of government infrastructure constructed in Australia,” he told the Gazette. “The NSW Government and the RMS should regard this barrel drain as far too significant to salvage and destroy and must stop work, evaluate it professionally, establish it true significance to Australia and stop the Windsor Bridge Replacement Project.
“This piece of archaeology together with other archaeology that has not yet been uncovered has huge tourism potential for the Hawkesbury.
“Its destruction must not be contemplated.”
Macquarie MP Susan Templeman raised the issue on radio last week, saying the discovery proved the need to stop the archeaological work until after the current NSW Upper House inquiry releases its findings, and the federal emergency heritage listing request is decided.
“They’re convict bricks, hand dried,” she said. “They’re big, man-sized tunnels from what we understand. [The RMS] plan is to remove those drains, to take them apart … and put them off in a warehouse somewhere.”
Ms Templeman agreed the find could present the area with more tourism opportunities.
“It could become a real opportunity to reinvent Windsor, to showcase how Australia’s colonial forebears put this colony together,” Ms Templeman said.
”It’s an outrage, anywhere else this work would be stopped, it would be on hold given the historical and archaeological significance of what’s there.”
Gary Vines
https://www.hawkesburygazette.com.au/story/5332021/hearings-for-windsor-bridge-inquiry-to-start-this-week/
Hearings for NSW Parliament inquiry into Windsor Bridge set to begin
Hearings for the NSW Parliamentary inquiry into the Windsor Bridge Replacement Project are due to start on April 13.
Lobby group CAWB – which will appear before the inquiry on Friday – stated the 338 submissions it has received overwhelmingly support its long-held position that the “deeply flawed” RMS plan would irrevocably destroy a significant colonial heritage location while “simultaneously and spectacularly failing to deliver strategic infrastructure”.
CAWB has called on state MPs to urgently support its call for work on the project to cease until the inquiry is complete.
“Opposition to this project from the community and from experts has been both longstanding and broad in scale,” a CAWB statement said. “Since 2008 countless experts in traffic, roads, engineering, architecture, planning, landscape design, heritage, history and archaeology have told the RMS [Roads and Maritime Services] the only solution with merit for Windsor is to build a bypass.
“The longstanding recognition of the Thompson Square Precinct for over 100 years as one of great historic significance led to its protection under a Permanent Conservation Order (No. 126) of on July 2, 1982 ‘to control the demolition or alteration of buildings or works; damaging or despoiling a relic, place or land; excavating to expose or move a relic; development of land….’
“Pushing on with their disastrous plan the RMS has not allowed any public viewing of the recently unearthed and extremely significant archaeological finds - including rare early Telford road paving and a complex system of convict built drains and barrel vault drains, perhaps the most significant examples of colonial infrastructure in Australia. ‘Relic, place and land’ are currently at risk of not just despoiling, but complete destruction by the RMS with significant impacts already observed.”
CAWB president Harry Terry said the state government should listen to community and expert advice or “risk being remembered as the government responsible for the wanton and needless destruction of Australian heritage”.
”CAWB’s continuous occupation of the Square is now into its fifth year. What will it take for the NSW Government to pause and listen?” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Macquarie MP Susan Templeman has written to Roads MInister Melinda Pavey requesting public access to the nearby Thompson Square archaeology site.
Ms Templeman said she had viewed the archaeological work associated with the Windsor Bridge Replacement Project during a recent visit to the square, describing what has been uncovered as “unprecedented”.
“I have certainly never seen such a large body of handmade convict bricks and drains,” her April 4 letter stated. “I am advised that they are as old as the sample of brick barrel drain preserved in Parramatta, but this is a much larger area showing far more about early infrastructure.
“Given that the NSW government’s plan is to fill in the site and locate a road across it, the opportunities for the community to view this site are rapidly diminishing.
“It is neither overly costly nor unprecedented to allow public viewing of such a unique site, and on behalf of the local community my request is that, is you refuse to save it in perpetuity, then it be immediately prepared for a short period of public access.
“That access has been extended to other communities in similar circumstances, and should be extended to my community.”
A reply to her letter has not yet been received, she stated.
john...@ozemail.com.au
Hello,
Thanks. Re "A reply to her letter has not yet been received", that would, I think, be not all that unusual.
Would there be anyone here interested in the old covered drains like the one present at Windsor bridge?
Also just a short distance from there, up Cornwallis Road on Argyle Reach, I've suggested some signage be put up to the Aboriginal killings of late 1700s.
Maybe outside Constable Powell's former property. Anyone interested in that sort of thing?
By my reckoning, that area is the biggest concentration around of WELL DOCUMENTED incidents.
This is also now depicted on a "massacres map" type compilation being done by an academic (who from memory is at Newcastle Uni.).
At first, Constable Edward Powell denied knowing anything ... but eventually he and other settlers were convicted jointly of murder.
For that, he was discontinued from the police force and he thereafter returned to Liberty Plains to operate his "Half Way House inn" on Parramatta Road just west of what was later called Powell's Creek.
He was buried in the orchard behind his inn. A sixteen year old daughter who suicided is also buried there.
Very near the grave/s, of late the NSW "Transport Access Program" has been for quite some time working on a new lift, and a new street crossing, to improve things for commuters there.
They call it the "Homebush Station Upgrade".
I had been writing and calling to the Transport Access Program ('please watch out for pioneer grave/s when you are digging there' sort of stuff). But so far no reply has been received, and it has proved impossible to contact anyone at all yet in the Transport Access Program by either email or phone.
Myself and another local historian both did speak to the workmen on the job, to advise them that we believe the first settlers of Liberty Plains (now called Homebush) are buried there. So please be careful! They said they would be careful and thanks for telling them.
Council was contacted re seeking any communications had with Transport, but zilch still on that as well (similar too as with Randwick Council re light rail goings-on in Randwick).
Cheers, John
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https://www.hawkesburygazette.com.au/story/5332021/hearings-for-windsor-bridge-inquiry-to-start-this-week/
Hearings for NSW Parliament inquiry into Windsor Bridge set to begin