Geological Sites

Fossil leaves. A fossil leaf bed was reported, and the flora described (by C. von Ettingshausen) in the later 1880s. The leaves are in silcrete and were apparently found originally over an area of some acres in extent. By 1970 however it appeared that all the fossiliferous pieces had been removed. Only a single slab, preserved under glass in a shelter shed, remains. This is a specimen that had previously reposed on display outside the Dalton post office for many years. Further information on the deposit, and exactly how it was removed, appears to be unavailable. It is possibly a more complete case of fossil site destruction by persons unknown than the destruction or degradation of the Fennel Bay Fossil Forest near Fassifern.

Quarry in shale lens in Hawkesbury Sandstone. Owner J.E. Burke. An amount of 3,470 tonnes was extracted in 1990/91.

Silcrete. Various silcrete sites, mostly artefact scatters, as in the area between Eastern Creek and Bungarribee Creek. One site with large silcrete cobbles is at 302519E 6259730N to the south of Bungarribee Creek. The site has been disturbed by a woodland

regeneration project, and contaminated by rubbish dumping. The site is immediately north of an old WWII airstrip.

Shale quarry. Austral Bricks (Brickworks Ltd.). Extraction began about 1960 from this area. A smaller lease, by C.S. Johnes was also, quarried on the northern side of the area owned by Brickworks Ltd. Output went largely to the Enfield Brickworks at Juno Parade, Greenacre, or to the Austral works near Horsley Park. Faces were worked up to 12m high but quarrying ceased years many ago. The shale quarried was a thick lens in the Hawkesbury Sandstone.

Dural "white metal" quarry, Quarry Road. Volcanic breccia, thee parallel weathered basaltic dykes, indurated and prismatised Hawkesbury Sandstone.

Diatreme at the end of Derriwong Road, adjacent to Hawkebury Sandstone/Wianamatta Group contact. Weathered volcanic breccia crops out in a creek.

Old Wallgrove Road. Observed in October 2007 at the southern side of the intersection of the then newly formed Roberts Road and Old Wallgrove Road. In the cutting along Old Wallgrove Road immediately south of the intersection were exposed very good examples of teepee structure, and also a vertical weathered and ?disturbed zone, possibly a weathered dyke. Examined again in December the weathering of the shale was already obscuring the teepee structures.

Midson Road. Large quarry and brickworks in Ashfield Shale. Austral Bricks. The 1990/91 quantity mined was 8,230 tonnes, and reserves then remaining were 2.8 Mt. The site has since closed.

High level terrace remants occur along the Hawkesbury River. It appears that the high level sand deposits here might be comparable with the Pitt Town Sand. Prospecting by a company known as Bricksands Pty Ltd" about which nothing else is known. (Mine Records MR03712, 1972-1981; MR04335, 1971-1981).

Lapstone Moncline. The Lapstone Monocline is about 160 km long N-S. It is crossed west of Sydney by several routes, old and new roads, and the railway line. There is a narrow zone of steeply east dipping sandstone beds. These can be easily seen from the current highway or the former highway route. Large rock bolts are seen anchored in the dipping beds, to lessen chance of dislodgements. Parking is possible on the eastern (lower) side of this zone - put in to the junction point of the old highway with the new (old road is now closed off and is a walking track only). The nature of the zone of steeply inclined sandstone beds has been subject of disagreement. Theories on what it is have ranged from monocline to fault to a drag zone on the western side of a steep reverse thrust.

Bishop et. al (1982) carried out palaeomagnetic work which suggested that the movement on the Lapstone Monocline was earlier than Late Miocene. This was probably older than the time previously envisaged by most for the uplift of the Blue Mountains (or sinking of the Cumberland Plain), although no former means of absolute dating, apart from basalt flow ages may have been contemplated/trialled. The attempts to date the Lapstone Monocline movement by Bishop and colleagues were pioneering in this regard.

Rickabys Creek Gravel. The type section of the Rickabys Creek Gravel is in the cutting on the Main Western Railway line west of Emu Plains railway station (AMG Zone 56, GR 817,635). Here a 10m thickness of the gravel was cut through, which is close to the maximum known thickness of the formation (12m). West from Emu Plains station the railway line does a loop bending through north to south and then running southerly along low gradient along the face of the slope until it swings westerwards along the side of Glenbrook Creek gorge where it enters a tunnel on the ascent towards Glenbrook. Around the first north to south loop further cuttings show more of the gravels, and where the base can be seen it is observed that the gravel is resting on the Mittagong Formation. Also see under "Glenbrook" and "Londonderry" for further discussion of these gravels which contain clasts of porphyry, granite, hornfels, quartzite, hard claystones and 'cherts', and other rock types. Boulders range up to 0.5m diameter, and the gravels are mostly matrix supported. Many of the igneous rock clasts are completely decomposed in this cutting, whereas in the latest highway cuttings in the rise from Emu Plains to Glenbrook many large igneous boulders cut through are completely fresh (at junction of the latest highway route and the earlier now abandonned main road section). Smith (1979. NSW Geological Survey GS 1979/074) initially interpreted the old river course of the Nepean marked by the Rickabys Creek Gravel as a meandering stream, but Nanson and Young (1985. Geological Society of Australia, Abstracts 13, 25-27) interpreted a braided stream environment for the river, which they believe persisted until after 42,000 BP.

Analysis of fabric of the assumed Tertiary gravel at the Emu Plains type locality (Bishop & Hunter 1990 - GS1990/281) proved inconclusive in regard to tectonic implications (gravel pre or post folding) but did suggest the deposit was of braided stream type rather than a high energy meandering stream as others had suggested. The most common facies at the type locality is clast-supported commonly imbricate gravel with poorly-defined sub-horizontal bedding. Also present is muddy matrix-supported without imbrication or internal stratification. The length of the cutting exposure is about 100m. Bishop and Hunter stated the gravel here overies a "sub-monocline" which is characterised by varying structural attitudes. They recorded dips on Triassic entities varying from zero to thirty degrees. Dip azimuth varied from O to 089 degrees. That all results (n=14) lie in the NE quadrant is interesting, however there are no details or photos to clarify exactly what was measured.

The rationale of the test was similar as the general McElhinny palaeomagnetic fold test. It was expected that if the gravel and underlying rocks had been folded by the same event then palaeocurrent indicators should become less dispersed as the deposits are restored to the horizontal. This would not be expected if there was a post-folding age of the gravels. The pebble imbncation measurements were taken at seven evenly spaced intervals along each side of the eastern side of the cutting. At each of the 14 spots the ab-plane orientation of 30 pebbles was measured. Data unfolding was done according to the measurements from the immediately underlying Triassic strata (which the authors cited as Mittagong Formation). There was believed to be negligible plunge on the monocline at this site. In the end, the authors concluded, however, that the test "failed to ajudicate" on the matter. The unfolding of the pebble orientations to horizontal resulted in neither greater clustering nor greater dispersal of the data.

Non-gravelly Tertiary sediments. On the eastern face of the Blue Mountains west of Emu Plains, and east of the zone of steeply dipping sandstone beds (the mostly distinctive feature in the Lapstone structural zone). There are exposures, sometimes quite thick, or Tertiary sediment which is generally non-gravelly clayey sand, although some pebble bands do also occur in these sediments. No exposure has been noted of these sediments grading down into the Rickabys Creek Gravel. Nonetheless they may tentatively be regarded as similar to the Londonderry Clay in stratigraphic position.

Bishop, P. , Hunt, P. and Schmidt P.W. , 1982. Limits to the age of the Lapstone Monocline, NSW - a palaeomagnetic study. Journal of the Geological Society of Australia. 29, 319-326.

Bishop, P. and Hunter, T., 1999. Pebble fabrics in the Rickabys Creek Gravel and their implications for the relationships between the Lapstone Monocline and the Rickabbys Creek Gravel. GS1990/281 (Geological Survey of NSW collection).

Mittagong Formation. On the downthrown (eastern) side of the zone of steeply east-dipping sandstone, the main road cuttings are in Mittagong Formation. When this was fresh it was the finest exposure of Mittagong Formation near Sydney. The beds are dipping gently east and show some fine examples of small displacement normal faulting. At this location the roadway is crossed over, by bridge, by the western railway, which is also ascending Lapstone Hill but by a gentler gradient.

Emu Plains is an alluvial flat geologically continuous with the Upper Castlereagh river flats and separated only by the Nepean River itself. The river Nepean was discovered here by Marine Captain Watkin Trench in 1789.

In 1813 a party consisting of Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson, William Wentworth, four men servants and five dogs left Emu Plains (first known erroneously as Emu Island) and managed to cross the Blue Mountains and return to report fine land to the west. Later that year, in November, a survey party was dispatched to document the route, comprising surveyor George Evans, three convicts (John Cooghan, John Grover and John Tygh) and two freemen (Richard Lewis and James Burns/Byrnes).

The government was quick to commence road building to cross the mountains. In 1814 William Cox

of Mulgoa tendered for the job of building a road over the mountains and was made Superintendant for the work of road construction. Work began with stationing a gang of convicts at Emu Plains. A party of thirty men under a guard of eight soldiers were sent to Emu Plains to begin making the road over the Blue Mountains to the "Champagne Country" beyond. The construction of this road was considered an object of the first importance to the future prosperity of the Colony. While the road was being constructed his Excellency the Governor and Commander in Chief ordered that no Person of whatever description not involved with the work was to corss over to Emu Plains unless specially authorised to do so by a written Pass signed by His Excellency the Governor. Any person who should attempt to transgress this Order would be apprehended by the Military Guard and sent a Prisoner to Sydney. Even after the road across the mountains had been opened to the public, one still needed a pass to cross over it. In 1819, under Governor Lachlan Macquarie, a major prison farm establishment was commenced here. Conditions were hard:

St Paul's church hill - A low hill west of Emu Plains railway station, at Short Street, with cemetery and a beautiful small church built of large sandstone blocks. The church was built to a design by the architect Edmund Blacket (who is also responsible for the design of the Quadrangle at Sydney University).

St Paul's church (an elongate building constructed almost N-S in 1848) and the hilltop cemetery.

Short Street runs to the left and Nixon Street to right. The railway line is seen cutting the

In the triangular grassed area between monumented graves, around the sand pile, perfectly round cyclindrical subsidence has been observed similar as sometimes indicated subsurface "tunnel erosion" in loamy soils. Local enquiry found opinion that this might be an area of anomalous burials of some sort. Enquiry showed that both the local historical society was aware of this and also the Council, and it was stated that there had been "a large number of pauper burials" placed hereabouts. Subsidence over graves is usually of elongate pattern but if multiple burials have occurred this may not be necessarily the case, and occurrences of circular subsidences at burial grounds do occur elsewhere. Known burials date from 1860 on this hill. However, at the church office it was remarked that older convict burials could be somewhere in the general area - and the Historical society based at an old Inn nearby (Arms of Australia Inn) has noted that the exact site of where the early convict road gang camp ?nearby was is unknown, yet tradition tells that those who died were thrown in a pit with lime and the pit was called the "Billipot" or something similar. The later cemetery reserve originally extended further north than is now evident. It was cut when the railway was built (the railway reached Emu Plains in the 1860s). A large number of burials may have occurred in a small space from a contract which operated from 1981 till 1989. Who had this contract, or if there is any reportage on this area concerning earlier subsidence is not yet determined. As for the early church records, they were destroyed by fire in 1929.

Most references say that St Paul's was built in 1848 and mention nothing earlier there, however an entry about it in about-australia.com (seemingly by the church itself as it mentions "Our location") states that it was built in 1847 "on the site of the log prison quarters established by Governor Macquarie".

Coronation Reserve runs the length of Coronation Parade from Liverpool Road to Georges River Road. The name derives from the coronation of King George VI in 1937. To commemorate this event, Enfield Council built the a Coronation Arch in the reserve. The reserve is flanked by Coronation Parade (formerly Punchbowl Road) and what was once an extension of the Boulevard, formed the boundary to the former Redmire Estate that had been granted to James Wilshire in 1808. In 1808, some 570 acres of land in the Liberty Plains was granted to Wilshire who, using the native sarsaparilla growing abundantly on the property, established a tanning business. His estate was bounded on the east by the current Boulevard-Coronation Parade alignment. The estate was renamed the Redmire Estate at its sale in 1924. By the 1850s a track was established which later became the current Coronation Parade.

Coronation Parade was also the route of a steam tramway built in 1902, later converted to electricity. The steam tram first ran from Ashfield to Enfield and was extended along the Parade (the Punchbowl Road) in 1902. Electrification was in 1912 and double track was established by 1915. Competition from local bus lines forced the closure of the tram service in 1948, though the tracks remained until 1951.

The Arch was built in alignment with the former town hall building built in 1893.

The Municipality of Enfield was established in 1889 and the central area with the chambers shown above later merged into Strathfield LGA. The Chambers building, constructed of dark coloured bricks, was built in 1930. The building has been allocated for use by the Wesley Mission since 1998, and additions made at the rear for the use of the Strathfield Emergency Services [SES]. Located in front of this building is a War Memorial using a variety of stone, the main plaques being dark plutonic rock with large bluish feldspar crystals. Battles ranging from 1889 to 1949 are commemorated at the spot, with the names of combatants listed. The monument is surmounted by a large iron artillery piece.

The geographic name "Enfield" was once used more widely than now. To the west, the brickworks and quarry at Juno Parade, Greenacre was formerly known as the "Enfield" brickworks (not a unique name as another 'Enfield' works later arose elsewhere). The boundaries of Enfield Municipality given in the 1890 Sands Sydney Directory are: ‘From the corner of Greenhill Street and Liverpool Road; thence southerly along the west side of Greenhill Street to the George’s River road; thence westerly along the north side of the George’s River road to the Burwood road; thence southerly along the west side of Burwood road to Cook’s river; thence along the north bank of Cook’s river to the bridge on the Liverpool road to the point of commencement of Greenhill Street". In 1947, Enfield Municipality was split with the west ward of Enfield Council joining Strathfield Municipality and the central and east wards joining Burwood Municipality.

The Enfield Council at first rented premises in Tennyson Parade, then moved to a new Town Hall on the corner of Liverpool Road and The Parade in 1893. That site later became "Greenwood Hall" and was once used as the Burwood Children’s Library until sold by Burwood Council. The original Town Hall was replaced or supplemented by the Enfield Council Chambers building at the junction of Liverpool Road and Coronation Parade in 1930. The original town hall building was demolished in 2008.

In 1955 the brickpit was owned or operated by Rupert Cook (MR4081). It was noted as both a brickpit and a brickyard. The men there went on strike in March 1956 (cause unknown). It employed twelve men in trucking from the face, which was still being periodically blasted at that time. In July 1957 Burwood Council made or forwarded a blasting complaint to the State government re this pit. It was decided that the pit needed watching for the next year or so unless managment could be persuaded to adopt a new method of quarrying entirely (MR4081). It was noted that "This pit presents special problems not normally associated with the general run of pits" but what these were is not now known in detail. However it was recorded that "This pit has been robbed of easy material for years and now requires corrective treatment in the interests of safety". Apparently the contemplated improvements involved cutting a lower bench. By 1958 the tall vertical face was dangerous and needing "constant attention". A curious note of 22 October 1958 in MR4081 is " Further investigation re blasting at Cook's Pit, Enfield, and hence inspection of Malabar leases ..". This may mean that the same company was extracting clay at Malabar for use as the brickworks at Mitchell Street(?). Is so this would have been as binding clay additive.

In 1959 the pit was producing 120 tons per day for brickmaking. The face height was 70-100 ft (top 10-12 ft being clay). Twelve siderite bands were recorded in the pit face (a rare record of the number of these present).

Test boring at the floor of the pit revealed a minimum further 45 ft depth of shale. Blasted material was loaded by a half cubic yard Bucyrus power shovel into three Ford front end loaders which moved it a short distance to the base of an inclined hoist. Blasting was done by Strathfield Engineering Company (which also did blasting at the Juno Parade pit). The registered Manager in 1959 was Mr Alan Garbutt.

In 1960 production continued at about 130 tons per day. The Manager was H. Eagles in 1961 and five men were employed in pit work. This was down to three men in 1962, and production fell to 50 tons per day. Blasting ceased and the final stage of production was by dragline. The brickworks ceased operations in August 1963.

The decision to not extract all the land but rather sell it for housing was formed as early as 1959.

Clay quarry - Off Ferntree Road. Filled with waste by Sutherland Shire in 1980s.

Harrington's pits - Some of the pits abandonned in or before 1957. Area worked for pipe clay, weathering from 'blue clay'. PLLAs 393,394 (Sydney). (Papers LB 55/3916,3984). Work continued at three pits in the Engadine area in 1972, with sandstone overburden beginning to be sold for roadwork in 1972.

Patons Lane. A quarry in Bringelly Shale, operated by "Erskine Quarries". The amount extracted in 1990/91 was 24,814 tonnes and the reserve estimated at that time was 3.5 Mt.

Clay Pit, 1957 - a 15ft deep clay pit "adjacent and south of Australian Blue Metal Quarry" and "just off road opposite Erskine Park School". The clay was being taken to Punchbowl Brick & Pipe Co. works at Bonds Road, Punchbowl

An isolated area not likely to be visited by many. Most noteworthy is the presence of a Frasnian (Late Devonian) limestone, the Jones Creek Limestone. Limestone of this age is very uncommon in New South Wales. The area is also noted for sulphide orebodies, of arguable commercial significance. The main metalliferous deposit, situated in Jones Creek valley, consists of massive sulphides in calcsilicate hornfels. Both fissure lodes and bedding parallel lodes are recorded. The mineral deposits are described in McIlveen (1974. NSW Geological Survey, Records 16 (3), pp. 245-277) and the limestone in Pickett

Fennell Bay was the first site of geological significance to be declared a reserve in NSW, in the year 1904.

A large number of silicified standing Permian tree trunks, probably more than fifty, were once to be seen here exposed between tides. The site however has deteriorated greatly, and although 'declared' a reserve in name for the protection of fossil trees there has been no evidence found that it ever was effectively protected.

Fennel Bay fossil forest was for a time thought by geologists to have been discovered in 1842 by geologist W.B. Clarke. However, in 2007 it was noted that an earlier missionary, Rev. L.E. Threlkeld, had earlier noted petrified wood there. Lancelot Edward Threlkeld was a missionary at Belmont from 1825-1828, and at Toronto from 1831-1841.

He recorded an Aboriginal story of men turned to stone there. Threlkeld also recorded, when at Reid's Mistake (Swansea) that "Mullung-Bula" was the name given by aborigines to two upright rocks about nine feet high, springing up from the side of a bluff head on the margin of the Lake, which were women transformed to stone. Swansea is where the fossil forest horizon, which is in a syncline below Lake Macquarie, again rises to the surface. It would be interesting if the stone women of Swansea were upright fossil trees, like the men turned to stone at Fennel Bay.

In Fennel Bay a large number of petrified tree trunks stood in the water. This was the petrified forest, called by the aborigines "Kurra Kurran": men turned into stone (loosely - a more accurate/original copy of whatever is recorded to have been said is yet to be added). Most of the tree trunks have since been removed. Some were for many years to be seen in a fence in Venetia Avenue, Blackalls Park.

How Rev. W.B. Clarke sketched the fossil forest at Fennell Bay in 1842 (Now Public Reserve R 38237)

(Clarke, W.B., 1884. Awaba fossil forest. Annual Report, NSW Department of Mines. Pp. 156-159).

The fossil forest was sketched by the Reverend W.B. Clarke, who is also sometimes termed the father of Australian geology, in 1842. It appeared in Clarke's posthumously published main work on NSW geology in 1884 and was later described by T.W. Edgeworth David in his coalfield memoir of 1907. It may also have been seen by other Europeans before 1842 and from the recorded evidence appears to have been well known to Aboriginals. The story was told that a giant Goanna came down from heaven and commanded some of the people to assemble at Fennel Bay - which was apparently for punishment; they were turned to stone and the giant Goanna returned to heaven where he or she presumably still resides.

Various notes suggest there were in the 1980s perhaps some twenty to thirty large fossil tree stumps (0.3m-0.5m diameter) still detectable in the lake. With perhaps another 20+ represented in Mr Bear's wall, one can imagine there was easily 70 large stumps in the lake when this forest was first noted.

Mr Hubert James Bear admires his 'fossil wood fence', at his home at 23 Venetia Avenue, Blackalls Park.

Both this fence, and the fossil forest, were entered into the NSW State heritage inventory in 2004 with the following details (the fence description being the first entry [BK-01]; and the forest description a little later cloned off it [BK-04], apparently not involving any visit to the site at that time):

=== NSW Heritage Item No: BK-01 ===

Name of Item:
FOSSIL TREE SECTIONS
Item category:
Archaeological - Fossilised
Owner:
Mr. Bert Bear, 23 Venetia Avenue, Blackalls Park
Current use:
Garden Fence
Significance and archaeological potential:
The fossil pieces are important relics of an unusual former geological phenomenon of Lake Macquarie. They are the only substantial relics of this former geological formation known to exist in the district. At the original site of the fossils, in Fennel Bay, (see BK-04) there are no visible remains. There may be some fossil tree trunks still under the water. The remains concerned in this schedule items are fossilised tree trunks which have been removed from Fennel Bay, sliced into cross-section pieces, and cemented together into a garden fence. The pieces appear to be fossilised wood from several trees.
Historical notes:
The "Toronto Tourist Guide - Centenary edition, 1925" notes: "Visitors to Toronto should inspect the petrified trees which are in Fennell's Bay". Over the years since then the trees have gradually disappeared, despite being protected by a government reserve. The slices in the fence are possibly the only substantial evidence still existing in the district.
Information sources:
Nilsen, L. (Ed.), 1985. Lake Macquarie Past and Present. Lake Macquarie City Council.
Suters-Doring-Turner, 1993. City of Lake Macquarie Heritage Study.
Toronto Tourist Guide, 1925. Centenary Edition.
""""""

=== NSW Heritage Item No: BK-04 ===

Item No:
BK-04
Name of Item:
FOSSIL TREE RESERVE, FENNEL BAY, BLACKALLS PARK
Item category:
Natural area - fossil deposit
Street name:
Off Aldon Cresent
Suburb:
Blackalls Park
Postcode:
2283
Property description:
Reserve 38237 for the protection of fossil trees
Significance:
It is not known whether any of the fossilized trees, for which the reserve was proclaimed, still exist. This reserve is understood to have been covered with fossilized tree trunks, standing in the water. There is no longer any obvious trace of this petrified forest in the Reserve. Some sections of tree trunk may survive underwater.
Historical notes:
The "Toronto Tourist Guide- Centenary edition, 1925" notes: "Visitors to Toronto should inspect the petrified trees which are in Fennell's Bay". Over the years since then the trees have gradually disappeared, despite protection by a government reserve. Tree slices in a fence in Venetia Ave. are possibly the only substantial evidence still existing in the district (BK-O1).

Mr Bear collected all the pieces of fossil wood in the fence from the bay by boat in the 1940s. He was a very keen fossil wood collector in general. In a March 2007 Herald newspaper article by Mike Scanlon it is stated that all over Mr Bear's garden he had pieces of fossil wood which he had found from all across the Lake Macquarie region; and all of these bore brass plaques identifying precisely where each had been found.

On 19 September 2005 at a meeting of City of Lake Macquarie, the business papers confirm that

Mr Bear had approached Council re disposal of his fossil wood (silicified tree sections) in the fence. This is similar to reporter Mike Scanlon's version of events although it makes no mention of Mr Bear's motives and is less informative on this point that Mr Scanlon's account. Council deliberated that the Fennel Bay fossil forest was "an Aboriginal heritage item listed in the Draft Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Study". That draft referred to it as "Kur-rur-kur-rau Petrified forest at Fennell Bay, made from a single large rock that fell from the sky, where people had previously been speared to death by a long reed from heaven."

Council staff considered employing an "artist" to develop an appropriate work for re-use of the fossils. It was suggested that a local indigenous artist could design an interpretive work that is sensitive to, and reflective of, the cultural significance of the materials. It was believed that the fossils would be useful to "commemorate and celebrate local Aboriginal culture."

Council's Aboriginal Consultative Committee discussed a number of options for the location of

the proposed artwork. These included the Koompahtoo Community Centre and Mt Sugarloaf area. It was also envisaged that the Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery Indigenous Reference Committee would assist in the selection of an Indigenous artist for the proposal. Council staff considered that such a proposal provided some degree of acknowledgement by Council to the Local Aboriginal Community for the historic damage to the petrified forest.

Council declared the local Indigenous community to be the traditional owners of the fossils.

The Heritage Commission (a Federal body) was also made aware of the forest and after 1991 had the site listed for more detailed consideration. The listing stated that data was as provided by the nominator and had not yet been revised by the Commission. The Commission at that time stated that it would be upgrading statements for this and other places listed. However, to date (2007) the Commission is not known to have yet considered or revised its information on the forest (The site is noted in the records of the Heritage Commission as first registered 28/09/1982 - place id. 1232; place file 1/09/061/0008).

Fivedock Quarry. The Fivedock Quarry, in Hawkesbury Sandstone, was at the corner of Great North Road and Lyons Road. Overfilled and levelled in the late 1930s, it later became the Fivedock RSL Bowling Club. The quarry was commenced by Thomas West, a successful 1880s boom years contractor, builder and brickmaker (viz. Thomas West brickworks, Croydon). The quarry was quite deep by 1890.

And old photo shows what looks like a thin bedded sequence at its eastern wall, possibly Mittagong Formation. West was connected with the quarry management or ownership from 1884 till 1910 but how actively is not known. He was severely maimed, and rendered partially blind, by a quarry explosion. That was most likely in this quarry although he did have other quarrying associations.

Usually today, and for quite some time, the name "Maroota" is centred on where the Maroota Sand is, especially so since the increase in the sand mining industry there. However, maps that were in some usage at least up into the 1960s also show a "Village of Maroota" situated further south along Old Northern Road, at what is now called Forest Glen. This was almost certainly some form of dwelling or camping place in the time when convicts were at work building the Great Northern Road. There are remains of a large well or in-ground tank which was possibly some enlargement of an Aboriginal waterhole. Local legend also maintains that somewhere hereabouts the convicts revolted and that several were killed in suppressing them again. There appears to not be any official record of any such event, and thus there was no credence given to this story -- except that in 1998 an old map was found with the wording on it there of "convict graves". Subsequent search alongside the road detected two individual graves and what appeared to be a larger pit which could possible be a multiple burial (reference needed to this investigation).

The RTA searching for convict graves at Forest Glen (Five Mile Forest), using ground penetrating

radar. Geoff Buchan referred to the graves as being result of an uprising near the Mountain

Shale - North of Forest Glen, off Old Northern Road, is a pit on a shale lens in Hawkesbury Sandstone.

Flagging stone - Sandstone (flagging stone) was being quarried at Lot 1, Old Northern Road, in 1994.

Sandstone quarry. The sandstone quarry is quite old, and appears on an 1841 plan. The area was also known as "Glebe Hollow", and there was an early bridge there called "Lillie Bridge". It was formerly swampland of the head of Rozelle Bay, before a large part of that was infilled. The quarry and adjacent swampy flat which eventually became the Harold Park racecourse was about four and a half acres in area. It was a football field at first, after the infilling, and was later on purchased for the raceway course. The name of the racecourse was changed to Forest Lodge in 1899, and later on to Epping, and then eventually took the name of Harold Park, after a hotel there.

Footprints? Local mention of 'dinosaur prints', probably Triassic amphibian footprints.

Freeman's Reach (or more often spelled today as Freemans Reach) is a small place on the northern side of the Hawkesbury River.

Freemans Reach is both a reach of the Hawkesbury upstream of Argyle Reach, and a locality or area that is presumably named after that reach of the river(?). Today the name is used as an area name only along the northern side of the river.

Freemans Reach was possibly so named because it was first settled by free men of the Colony. The early history of the area could be taken as a subset of Windsor's early colonial history.

Freemans Reach district sent thirteen persons to the Great War and ten were lucky enough to return. Hibbert was one did return, and there's a Hibbert's Lane that runs through the area discussed here as being noteworthy for silcrete.

Freemans Reach seems to be a rather quiet place of no great note outside the area, albeit possible that the famous bushranger "Captain Thunderbolt" may have been born there(?). The population given for the area was 2,144 in the 2006 Census.

The so-far-known upcoming special events in Freeman's Reach for 2010 are at present only one: At St Marks Church (355 Kurmond Rd):

FETE & FLOWER DISPLAY - 1st May 2010, 8:30am-2:00pm. The contact for this is Muriel Gilmore, magilmore@tadaust.org.au

( "Fete in Church grounds, floral display in church. Items for sale: farm fresh produce, home made cakes and preserves, Mothers Day gifts, craft, books, white elephant stall, morning tea, hot food, cold drinks etc.")

The big event (of potential geological interest) in the recent past has been the sewer going through there, and the hope this might reveal something informational on the subsurface. This sewerage works event was the GFRWSS :-

Glossodia, Freemans Reach and Wilberforce Sewerage Scheme

Sydney Water began the GFRWSS in 2009 in order to provide improved sewerage services to around 1,660 properties in these three towns (Freemans Reach though is perhaps more aptly called a 'township' than a town?).

Just a very little of the history of Freemans Reach is gathered herein, and presumably there is much more to be learned of this.

Why it is called Freemans Reach is not certain (named after Free Men, or named after brothers Freeman?). Just possibly the most famous son of FR is Captain Thunderbolt, the bushranger, but that too might be far from certain(?).

The GFRWSS comprises three pumping stations and more than 50 km of sewerage lines. The scheme is to transfer waste to the Richmond Sewage Treatment Plant. Cleaned up or purified water can be recycled to various users such as the University of Western Sydney and the Richmond Golf Club. It is useful for things like irrigation, lessening the demand of 'pristine' river water (some note that the river water is not too pristine in their idea of things though, because towns may be downstream of upstream sewerage works which discharge back into the river - the Penrith sewerage works being particularly much discussed in this regard). Part of Sydney region's overall water planning has been to reduce back-to-river discharge from sewerage of water purification plants, and to instead direct greater amount of treated water into the growing recycled water market.

During the course of the GFRWSS, there were special local benefits available, e.g. pressure sewerage system equipment could be supplied to, and installed, on eligible properties for free if they commited to connecting while the construction crews are still in the area. The community reaction to this is not known but was presumably favourable.

Possibly/probably Aborigines were there too, since very long ago; chipping away at the large boulders of silcrete now known to occur at Freemans Reach - as a raw material for making stone tools. That bit is relatively certain as fragments of silcrete interpreted as artefacts have been found.

Some minor division of opinion has occurred in the past at Freemans Reach over building delays connected with the presence of silcrete of likely Aboriginal interest, at the high school building works or in close vicinity. This can be read about in the contemporary newspaper article text reproduced below.

Persons of the Freeman family may have lived there but this writer has not read of that yet. One early family living there was also curiously named the Freebodies.

The local Freebodies originated from Sion Clarkson Freebody. He had been transported from England for the theft of a lamb carcass. After his sentence had expired, Sion (a.k.a. Simon), along with 10 others, including Thomas Akers, was granted 20 acres of land at Mulgrave Place on the Hawkesbury River, just north of the later site of Windsor. Various of Sion/Simon's descendants thereafter were born at Freemans Reach.

There is an interesting little poem concerning the 'Freebodies' - and the woman who first increased their number here:

"Mary Wells on her person did hide
Yards of calico, but alas, she was spied
She came here in tears
And served seven years
'A free body at last' she then cried"

Mary arrived in 1792 - and became a free body indeed, for as "housekeeper" to Si(m)on Freebody (who had arrived in 1790) she bore and raised six children on the Hawkesbury. She is buried as Mary Freebody, wife of Simon Freebody, at St Matthews in Windsor.

There were Freebodies at Freemans Reach from at least the 1830s. [ More information: Pat Freebody, f.freebody "at" bigpond.com ]

The Freebody story may serve to give a general picture of early settler life in the district. The original Sion Freebody farm was at his 1794 grant, on the banks of the river, just north of the future site of Windsor. From at least 1795 Freebody lived with Mary Wells. By August 1800 the couple owned 14 pigs and had cultivated 24 of the 30 acre grant in wheat and maize. They were supporting themselves and two children, and were off the public rations. But Freebody later suffered financial difficulties (probably from flood losses - for which the Hawkesbury was notorious). He had to more than once assign his farm, stock and effects to secure debts. Fortunately, in 1804 he was granted a further 100 acres near South Creek (in trust for his children). After further losses, in the 1809 floods, his family was allowed back on government rations until January 1810. His financial difficulties continued for years, yet by 1822 he was holding 35 acres by leasehold from which he was producing wheat, maize, barley and potatoes. He owned 2 horses and 60 hogs and held 10 bushels of wheat and 50 of maize in store.

Although exact locations involved are not known (at least not to this writer), it is interesting to note that in October 1799 Freebody was one of four emancipist farmers, together with free constable Edward Powell, who were put on trial for the brutal murder of two teenage Aborigines. The boys, known as Jemmy, aged 15, and Little George, aged 11, apparently lived among or close to the settlers. They were equally members of a tribal group which a little time before had murdered two local white men (one of whom was John Winbow). Freebody and other settlers seized and then murdered these boys after they had visited a neighbouring farm, returning one of the dead men’s muskets. The motivation of the murder was essentially one of taking retaliatory vengence - in payback for the killing of the two white men previously. The court found the defendants guilty of murder, and also found that the Aboriginal boys had been innocent of involvement in the earlier murder of white men by the natives. The defence of the accused men was that government itself had supposedly issued orders encouraging retaliatory killing of Aborigines, and various testimony to this effect was given to the court. In these mixed circumstances, the colonial legislature was unable to decide on nature or validity of punishment. It referred the sentencing back to London, to the Home Secretary. The matter then grew stale and lapsed, or maybe the decision in England was that the men be pardoned of the murders. In any event, none of the convicted were ever kept in custody or were later proceeded against in any way (apart from Constable Powell being henceforth dismissed from the police force). [Exactly where in the district did these murders take place?]

As for "Captain Thunderbolt" (Frederick Wordsworth Ward), maybe he wasn't born at Freemans Reach at all, as one usually reads that he was born at "Windsor". However his father, convict Michael Ward, actually had a small farm not at Windsor but rather at or near 'Wilberforce'. Some believe Frederick was born in a slab hut at Freeman's Reach, about 1833. Frederick lead a chequered career, largely imprisoned over various offences, until he and one other (Frederick Brittain) escaped from Cockatoo Island, Sydney. Their escape was somehow assisted by his wife Mary Ann, who was half-caste Aboriginal. They fled with Mary's children to the remote Culgoa River beyond Bourke (at least according to one version), and soon Frederick Ward was to become well known as "Captain Thunderbolt".

As Captain Thunderbolt, Ward ranged widely across NSW as a bushranger. Mary Ann followed Ward whenever possible; at Stroud in March 1866 she had been sentenced to six months for vagrancy but was released in April, probably because she was pregnant. Mary Ann died on 24 November 1867 in a settler's home near Muswellbrook. Ward had taken her after she became ill (perhaps with pneumonia?). She was only 28. On 25 May 1870, 'Captain Thunderbolt' was shot and killed by Constable Alexander Binney Walker at Kentucky Creek near Uralla (however the identity of the man shot by the police is debated). Thunderbolt was the last of the Australian bushrangers and there is a stature erected to his memory at Uralla.

The Thunderbolt story has been extensively researched by one of his descendant, Barry Sinclair, who is sympathetic to Ward and to why he may have become a bushranger. This may be found at: http://users.tpg.com.au/users/barrymor/thunderbolt.html

Barry's belief is that Frederick Wordsworth Ward was really the son of Sarah Ann Ward (who was passed off as his sister), and that he was raised by Sarah's parents, Michael and Sophia Ward. His real father was probably John Haswell (a convict servant of William Everingham of the district of Lower Portland Head). Haswell's attempted marriage to Sarah had been consented with, to Rev. M. D. Meares, by Michael Ward, but it would not be officially approved. Sarah was about 16 years old and apparently the authorities did not consider the couple could become self-supporting(?). Haswell was in his twenties. If Sarah was pregnant and the marriage was blocked by officials then most likely the birth would have been at Sarah's parents' place, thought to have been at Freeman's Reach.

Re "Mrs Captain Thunderbolt" Mary Ann, her father was a shepherd and her mother was an Aboriginal woman called Elizabeth who had saved his life when he had been attacked by the local Aboriginal group, near Gloucester. Viz: http://www.thunderboltsway.com.au/resources/thunderbolt_mary_ann_bugg.pdf )

In her early teens Mary Ann worked as a domestic in the Stroud area where she was 'made' to marry Edmund Baker, a worker with her fathers company. She married at the age of 14 and they moved to "Cooyal" Station just north-east of Mudgee, which at that time, was owned by the Garbutt family. Now Mrs Sarah Garbutt was Frederick Ward's mother ("sister") and during his visits to his mother's ("sister's") home this is where he would have met Mary Ann. They were of similar age and obviously formed an attachment towards each other. However in 1856 both Ward and Garbutt were sentenced to Cockatoo Island prison for ten years, for receiving stolen horses. Whilst Ward was in gaol, Baker died, and after Ward's release he married Mary Ann. The entire Thunderbolt legend however is complex and disputed in various places. Barry Sinclair's treatment shows the complexities.

Thunderbolt was involved in several shootouts with police, so the fact that he never killed anyone may have been luck. However, this and his reputedly polite treatment of those he robbed led to the legend of Thunderbolt the 'Gentleman Bushranger', and the last of the professional highwaymen. The illusion of the gallant highwayman suited Thunderbolt as he was regularly assisted by a sympathetic public it seems. He apparently encouraged this illusion through courtesy to his victims and the striking image he made on his magnificent stolen horses. Thunderbolt is credited with committing up to 200 crimes. It is surprising that during so many hold-ups not one person was killed, although he did shoot at police and was once wounded himself.

Suffice it to say that maybe this famous bushranger was born at Freemans Reach (?).

According to the Freemans Reach Rural Fire Brigade, the area around Freemans Reach today is "a mix of commercial farmland, small hobby farms, horse studs and a village area consisting of approximately 600 houses, a high school, primary school and a handful of small businesses".

The floodplains would have attracted early settlement. The Hawkesbury area had long been Sydney's 'breadbasket' for farm produce. The area is also suited to turf growing. Turf was probably first cut along the Hawkesbury in about the 1920s and some early operators (Charlie Courtney and John Polley, 1930s) used miners' rights for occupancy purposes to 'extract' couch turf at Long Neck Lagoon . Turf growing at Freemans Reach may have began in the 1970s. A big expansion of the turf growing there happened after 1985, by Bill Galea, John Galea, the Muscat family, Earnie Chambers and the Salliba family. It was apparently not till 1993 though that administration of the turf industry was changed in important ways from deemed extractive industry to agricultural industry, incredible as that may sound (fide the Turf Growers Association of NSW) [ http://www.tgansw.com.au/images/hawkesbury_history_all.pdf ] Bird watchers like to check the turf farm areas for Brown, Stubble and King Quail sightings.

Major broodmare farming is well known at Freemans Reach, and the Buckskin Horse Association of NSW Inc. is also based there.

( House photos thanks to Alan Bennet, Ben Sharif, c-n-b; other to War Memorials Association NSW. ) Some of

the charming old houses that come up for sale at Freemans Reach are deemed to be beyond repair but come

with acres of flat arable land well suited for horse studs or growing crops. Grasses grow prolifically at

Freeman's Reach and the area exports a considerable amount of cut turf for instant lawns.

Sydney Water per Amber Gibbins is thanked for some of the information herein. Information on silcrete at Freemans Reach has come from Tessa Corkill and Robin Woods. (The present writer has not yet visited the area.)

Teardrop shows Streeton Lookout reserve, one place where silcrete fragments have been observed. (Map: per Sydney Water)

Looking west from near Streeton Lookout on a mistly day, over the river lowlands from relatively elevated land atop of the terrace near Terrace Road. The river from this point, upstream, curves over towards the Blue Mountain then trends south along the face of such

- changing its name to Nepean River. Note the "V" shaped area of more elevated mist that is hanging in the valley of the Grose

River, which flows into the Nepean-Hawkesbury. Traditionally it's at the mouth of the Grose that the river 'changes name'.

[Due to initial explorations from different directions it was not at first certain that the two rivers were one and the same.]

Freemans Reach is just right of centre. (Source: 1:100,000 Penrith Geological Series Sheet 9030; per Sydney Water)

According to the geology above on the 1:100,000 Penrith Geological Series Sheet 9030 the Lowlands Formation continues to a scarp against shale on the northern side of the river with no presence of the higher Pleistocene terrace (Claredon Formation) as seen on the southern side of the river. The Claredon Formation terrace is 20m below the Tertiary terrace and a steep scarp 10m high often separates the Claredon formation terrace from the lower Lowlands Formation surface. That higher Quaternary sediment is absent along the northern side of the river, as depicted in the above map, is now thought to be wrong, based on the evidence herein that there is much clay, with silcrete, which is not weathered Ashfield Shale, along the scarp at the back of the Freemans Reach river flats. After this conclusion has been reachd, following knowledge of what had been encountered in sewerage works, it was run across that in a 1926 paper "The psyiography and geography of the Hawkesbury River between Windsor and Wiseman's Ferry" by Lesley D. Hall, she had produced a map therein which depicts a narrow strip of the upper terrace sediment extending west from Wiberforce along the scarp front

Six numbered Freeman's reach silcrete locations - as noted by Tessa Corkill on a visit there in January 2010.

1. Primary School: It is here that In situ boulders were seen as early as 1999. That area now seem to have been covered up with some introduced earth and grass; yet there are small fragments of silcrete seen near the parking bay on Kurmond Road, outside the school.

2. Park to the east of the school: Silcrete fragments and occasional loose cobbles were seen on bare patches.

See photos below of a big boulder that lies beyond the fence here (earlier photographed by Robin Woods).

3. A loose boulder laying next to Burgess Road (see photo below).

4. A pile of several cobbles besides Burgess Road.

5. Streeton Lookout. There are silcrete fragments seen on the surface here.

6. There is some exposed ?Tertiary material here, along Kurmond Road; also a silcrete cobble

GPS AMG Grid Refs recorded at Freemans Reach last week. Locations shown on Wilberforce 1:25K map

The NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change’s (DECC) Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System (AHIMS) has 15 recorded sites around Freemans Reach (including abovemented "1" at the Primary School):

Aboriginal sites recorded around Freemans Reach. (Source: per Sydney Water - Glossodia, Freemans Reach and Wilberforce sewerage scheme - EIS; some first recorded during an archaeological survey in Glossodia by Jo McDonald in 1991)

Streeton Lookout Reserve is situated at the junction of Terrace Road and Cliff Road overlooking the Hawkesbury River. It comprises Lot 2 DP 212263. It is so named because it is a is a short distance from the place where Sir Arthur Streeton painted his famous landscape painting, The Purple Noon's Transparent Might in 1896. This is a southwesterly view over the Hawkesbury River looking towards the Blue Mountain.

The Purple Noon's Transparent Might (Arthur Streeton, 1896) and a modern view westwards from Freemans Reach (Photo: Joe Cartwright). The Actual site where Streeton painted from is now inaccessible, being at the Terrace Road end of Wire Lane.

Close-up of above (Photo: LandArc Pty Ltd); illustrating the much higher northern bank or terrace. LandArc P/L has

reported "Streeton Lookout is believed to have significance in terms of Aboriginal archaeological and cultural

heritage as a natural resources site (eg. silcrete deposits utilized by the Darug people

The majority of the Aboriginal sites at Freemans Reach are artefact sites, most (11) of which are open camp sites. The other sites include scarred trees and "quarries" or stone working sites. It is thought likely that further quarry sites and scarred trees might be identified. Of special interest is silcrete at Hawkesbury High school land (viz. easternmost diamond symbol above).

ARTEFACT SIZE AND RAW MATERIAL SOURCES IN THE SYDNEY REGION ...

Re the last-mentioned above ( attenbrowetal_poster_ 2004.pdf ), Tessa Corkill (pers. comm.) thinks that she learned of the occurrence from Jim Kohen. Thus the 'earliest' that anyone knew of silcrete at Freemans Reach has possibly not yet been learned of.

Tessa Corkill visited the site (FR/1, registered as NPWS site 45-5-2493) in January 1999 and took photographs (added below) of in-situ and loose silcrete during her MPhil research. She recorded the site as FR/1 in her compilation of sites. She does not remember then seeing a nice apparently free-standing boulder like the one which Robin Woods photographed (see below), so it may be that this was excavated later (did it turn up in a ditch dug in 2000-2001? ... or was silcrete first noted in 1989 or earlier?). Tessa did photograph one other large silcrete boulder at the time. Of some pieces collected at that time, from the primary school area, one is noted to have circular impact marks on it.

Tessa's visit had been on 11/1/1999 and at that time there were a number of silcrete cobbles seen on top of an ant heap, outside the school fence. It looked as if they might have been thrown over the fence(?). There were also pieces that looked to be naturally fractured lying around, however on that visit Tessa saw only one fragmentary piece which definitely fitted the criteria for identification as an artefact - a flake with a nice "bulb of percussion" about 5cm long. She did also see a possible heat treated fragment, however (photo below). Tessa also recorded another noteworthy silcrete occurrence (FR/2) about 1km north from FR/1, on Creek Ridge Road, plus a third one in the area ca. 1km west of there, at Glenroy (G/A-C). [Site C/A-C is at location 6 on Kurmond Road on the locality map above].

One of four pieces Tessa collected in 1999 (from on top of an ant heap outside the playground fence, where they appeared to have been thrown) measures about 12 x 7 x 5 cm. Part of this piece, which seems to have been broken off a boulder, has a very smooth and shiny outer surface/cortex with numerous circular "impact" marks, probably caused during river-rolling over many millennia. Some of these have weathered away until they are level with the surface (pers. comm. Tessa Corkill, 2010).

This probable Aboriginal silcrete working site, with flake scatters and suspected (but still unproven?) cores, lies on the shale rise within the school grounds (Hawkesbury High and Freemans Reach PS), located at the corner of Hibberts Lane and Kurmond Rd.

Same view zoomed out, looking SW towards Windsor. The cultivated fields are the Lowlands Formation

terrance that is not far above the river level. Beween it and the school might be the eroded remnants

of the next higher terrace of the Claredon Formation. The Tertiary terrace is still higher and a remnant

(Photos: per Hawkesbury High School - where the principal is Ms Beverley Powell).

Hawkesbury High is a co-educational public high school. It is the youngest of the public high schools in the Hawkesbury district.

It was first established in demountable buildings at Wilberforce in 1983 and moved to its current site in 1989.

Normal N-orientation aerial view of the site (the school being just above left of centre - NB: in this photo "H" refers to non-indigenous

heritage). Note that the road running 'below' the school is Burgess Road (see below).

A relatively "erosive"-looking small catchment coming off the scarp face between

This occurrence is recorded by NPWS as site No. 45-5-2493. There is a report by Dominic Steele (Mary Dallas Consulting archaeologists) for an application for consent to destroy part of the site (May 2002).

Big boulder, at Tessa Corkill site 2 of Jan. 2010 - Park to east of the school. The boulder is beyond the fence at the south
end of of park. Photo by Tessa Corkill. Earlier photos of the same boulder by Robin Woods are below.

A large flat-elongate boulder-sized well rounded silcrete clast. (Photo: From Robin. )

A somewhat core-like fragment seen lying at the site. The upper left corner is sharply broken but the other edges

perhaps are not. If near ditch or other digging its origin may be dubious. It may be rather core-like but is not

Track downhill from the school shows some 'strata' exposure. (Photo: Tessa Corkill, January 1999)

Large silcrete boulder from which protuberances have been broken off. (Photo: Tessa Corkill, January 1999)

No silcrete is currently (2010) known to be visible at the Primary School and it is thought that it may have been covered up. According to one local informant this may have been done by an "environment group" (Robin Woods may know more about this?).

A small fragment which shows a surface suggesting it has has "potlidded" during heating at some time.

This could have happened via bushfire, hazard reduction, or Aboriginal heat treatment).
(Photo: Tessa Corkill, January 1999)

Two May 2001 reports concerning the site's discovery in ?2000 are in the Hawkesbury Gazette, as below. The first of these might suggest discovery in 2000 when digging, however the second report states that Mr Gale said NPWS had invited his association out to look at the site about four years ago. That might put discovery at ca. 1987. School construction work was underway by 1989.

"""""""

PARENTS at Freemans Reach Public School claim their families’ safety is being put at risk because of a one-metre-wide ditch - regarded as an Aboriginal site.

According to the parents, they’ve already waited 10 years to get the go-ahead for curbing, guttering and a footpath along the school's Kurmond Road frontage.

Work was to be completed over the Christmas break, but the whole project ground to a halt when the Aboriginal site was discovered.

Five months later, the school community is still waiting.

P&C president Robyn Hile said she and other parents were stunned when they discovered work would not proceed.

"Parents are angry," she said. "They keep coming up to me and asking where's the curbing, guttering and footpath?

"The safety of the children and parents should come first."

Mrs Hile showed The Gazette where water rushed down the edge of Kurmond Road, scouring out a deep ditch where parents had to park to drop off and pick up children.

She said it was not safe to let children out of cars on the side of passing traffic, so mothers were forced to stand in the ditch - filled with rushing water during rain - to get their babies, toddlers and school-aged children in and out of vehicles.

One mother, Michelle Jowsey, described how late last year she fell into the deep roadside ditch with her baby, Emily.

"She was lucky she didn't break her leg or injure her baby," Mrs Hile said.

School principal Barry Boon said the Department of Education and Hawkesbury City Council finally agreed last year to split the cost of the works.

"We began lobbying for this before we moved from our old site down the road 10 years ago," he said.

He believed a teacher from neighbouring Hawkesbury High School had invited the National Parks and Wildlife Service to investigate the site's flora and fauna, and it was then the service discovered the Aboriginal site.

Council's asset services and recreation manager Chris Daley said NPWS claimed the whole Freemans Reach Public School site and Kurmond Road frontage could be an old Aboriginal quarry.

FREEMANS Reach Public School's plans for a long-awaited footpath, and kerb and guttering to replace a metre-wide ditch of Aboriginal significance appear to be caught in a three-way standoff.

Hawkesbury City Council maintains it awaits National Parks and Wildlife Service to arrange on-site meetings with local Aboriginal groups to determine if work can proceed, while Darug leader Colin Gale says the ball is in Council's court.

Mr Gale told The Gazette on Monday, part of the school's grounds were registered with NPWS as of Aboriginal heritage significance because it was one of the few silcrete sources west of the Hawkesbury River.

"Silcrete is a very, very hard silica-based rock which my people used to flake off to make small implements," he said.

"The (Freemans Reach school) site contains one of the few outcrops of this rock."

Mr Gale said NPWS had invited his association out to look at the site about four years ago. But as far as he was aware, he had not received a recent invitation to investigate the site to consider roadside works.

He said because it was Council's development, it was up to local government to contact the relevant Aboriginal groups.

Mr Gale advised there were three Aboriginal groups which should be invited to inspect the site – his association, the Deerubbin Land Council and Darug Custodians.

"I've seen nothing about building any footpath," he said. "My association wouldn't deliberately hold up this project, or any development.”

Council's construction and maintenance manager Richard Vaby said NPWS had offered to act as mediator.

“Under normal circumstances it’s up to the developer - in this case, Council - to facilitate a meeting with Aboriginal groups and National Parks,” he said. “But in this case National Parks clearly offered to facilitate." Mr Vaby phoned to check with NPWS yesterday, but was yet to hear back from (them) any representative.

The Gazette has attempted to contact the relevant NPWS personnel for comment.

"Council is not aware of its responsibilities under the NPWS Aboriginal Cultural Heritage and Integrated Development Assessment Process," he said.

"There's a lot of misunderstanding by Council and failure to contact Aboriginal groups."

As reported in last week's Gazette, Council's construction and maintenance manager Richard Vaby said NPWS had advised Council there were two groups to be involved.

"(Out of all the Aboriginal groups) we respond the quickest of all and have the most successful investigations of land."

It is not known from the meagre reports above if Colin Gale or others went back there since - however the Dominic Steele 2002 report has not been seen. Dominic's contact:.

In 2006 the Hawkesbury High School received a NSW Government (DECC) grant to further work on and preserve the site:

Hawkesbury High School
Preserving Aboriginal Heritage and Our Cross Country Track

Imagine an Aboriginal heritage site, a silcrete quarry, listed with the National Trust, in open sclerophyll woodland on a beautiful sloping site. Through this has been driven a two metre wide cross country track, an error of the bobcats of school constructors in 1989, and across the site surplus water has been drained from a sealed road one hundred metres away. The site is infested with privet as an understorey and lower storey. Water has caused deep erosion through the site and the track as it climbs the slopes. Every week, for three years, fifteen or twenty student volunteers have devoted their sports afternoon to cutting privet and poisoning the stumps, and shifting tonnes of soil ten vertical metres uphill to repair erosion damage. An abattis of soil and privet loppings have halted the damage and enabled natural vegetative cover. It is now time to build the deviation to the cross country track. This will allow the Aboriginal quarry to slumber peacefully under the trees while nearby students can race each other up and down the slopes.

Hawkesbury High School was enquired to seeking more information on this in 2008 but no response could be got. Further enquiry was made in 2009.

The Sydney Water sewerage pipeline was planned to pass along Hibbert Lane, running transverse to the terrace face trend and to have a vent shaft at Freemans Reach petrol station, 30 m west of Hawkesbury High boundary fence. Work began today (5 January 2009) on the scheme in so far as a A "Notice of Entry" letter was posted by Sydney Water each property owner in Freemans Reach, stating that they will be serviced by the sewerage scheme or may be impacted by construction, and formally advising that Sydney Water may need to enter the property to carry out work.

When Sydney Water will dig the pipeline across the terrace besides the school is not yet known. Information on the project is at

As to the origin/source of the many large silcrete boulders found around the present-day Nepean-Hawkesbury River and in the deposits of Sydney's "Great Lost River" which may be the ancient Nepean-Hawkesbury system, 'source' has been something pondered over for many years but near Sydney region no silcrete has ever been found actually in situ where it could have formed. There may actually be no one particular source, and more recent thinking is that the silcrete may have formed along the very course of the river valley and within alluvial sand - so that movement of the clasts over time may have been somewhat 'downwards' with respect of their horizon of origin but not necessarily all that long-distance laterally (which if true would greatly contrast with other rock types found in the river deposits). This thinking has been influenced by the work of P. Shaw and D. Nash published in 1998 as "Dual mechanisms for the formation of fluvial silcretes in the distal reaches of the Okavango Delta fan, Botswana" ( Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, v. 23, no. 8, pp. 05-714) - To read more about this, see "Sydney Silcrete", http://www.lachlanhunter.deadsetfreestuff.com/JB/silcrete.htm .

In following up with Sydney Water on what their digging and drilling works in the area were revealing the most interesting thing to come to light was said to be the above (photo above by Amber Gibbins, and the specimen itself was later forwarded by Amber for examination). It was found at Rose Crescent, Glossodia. According to the map shown above (1:100,000 Penrith Geological Series Sheet 9030) Rose Crescent should be Ashfield Shale. However this concretion (or coated cobble as Amber thought it might be) does not look like anything usually seen deriving from Ashfield Shale. It was reported by the finder that others similar have been found, and that the one found before this one had a soft clay centre (which is suggestive of concretions more than iron oxide over cobbles). If there are several of these things, and one had a soft centre, then this probably is akin in origin to the "box-concretions" found on shale landscapes. This particular specimen however is not really box-shaped. The white-coated flat and 'truncated'-looking face on the dense core (facing bottom right) is the only planar surface on the specimen. The core is much more compact than would be usual for box concretions and the specimen is quite heavy. Therefore it is probably weathering proceeding in a very dense siderite hard band. Presence of such a band would be consistent with an Ashfield Shale origin (although similar bands possibly occur in the Bringelly Shale too).

Hall, L.D., 1926. The physiography and geography of the Hawkesbury River between Windsor and Wiseman's Ferry. Proceedings Linnean Society of New South Wales, 60, 555-591.

AND LOCALITIES,

WITH THEIR POINTS

OF INTEREST

( D-F )

( Some collected sites and leads for geological

interests - particularly for ones close to Sydney. )

Glossodia, Freemans Reach and Wilberforce Sewerage Scheme

ARTEFACT SIZE AND RAW MATERIAL SOURCES IN THE SYDNEY REGION ...

"""""""

Safety ditched: Aboriginal site halts school work

Ditch standoff

Hawkesbury High School
Preserving Aboriginal Heritage and Our Cross Country Track

GEOLOGICAL SITES

AND LOCALITIES,

WITH THEIR POINTS

OF INTEREST

( D-F )

( Some collected sites and leads for geological

interests - particularly for ones close to Sydney. )

Glossodia, Freemans Reach and Wilberforce Sewerage Scheme

ARTEFACT SIZE AND RAW MATERIAL SOURCES IN THE SYDNEY REGION ...

"""""""

Safety ditched: Aboriginal site halts school work

Ditch standoff

Hawkesbury High School Preserving Aboriginal Heritage and Our Cross Country Track

Hawkesbury High School
Preserving Aboriginal Heritage and Our Cross Country Track