Caley’s Repulse is the name given by Governor Macquarie in April 1815, on his inspection tour over the new Bathurst Road, to the ‘cairn of stones’ discovered by Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson during their first crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813. Blaxland, on Wednesday, 19th May, 1813, wrote that after passing the site of to-day’s Linden Railway Station, they ascended the second ridge of the mountains and at a little distance from the spot where Mt. Banks bore NW, Grose Head NE, Prospect Hill E by S, The Seven Hills ENE and Windsor NE by E, they “found a … Continue reading Caley’s Repulse

Walter Henry Bone was born at 52 Crown St Sydney in 1863, his father was Robert Bone, printer, aged 30 of London; his mother was Sophia Mary Lymings, age 29 also of London. The parents had married in 1853 and immigration records show they arrived in Australia on the ship Herald of the Morning, as assisted immigrants in 1858 with their daughter Augusta 3, and the body of their infant son Robert, who had died on the voyage. At the time of Walter’s birth there was a living son Robert Jnr, born 1860, named after his dead brother and his … Continue reading Walter Henry BONE (1863-1934)

Beginning in 12th century Europe, towns and monasteries built clocks in high towers to strike bells to call the community to prayer. Public clocks played an important timekeeping role in daily life until the 20th century, when accurate watches became affordable. Today the time-disseminating functions of town clocks are not much needed, and they are mainly built and preserved for traditional, decorative, and artistic reasons. Blue Mountains City Council had originally intended that a town clock be incorporated into the superstructure of a proposed rail overbridge to replace the level crossing at Katoomba, but as this did not seem to … Continue reading Katoomba Town Clock

The cricket season now drawing to a close has marked for cricket fans the 100 year point since the legendary “Ashes” were created amid the excitement and enthusiasm of those “golden years” of cricket at the end of the nineteenth century. It is perhaps of some interest for those of us who live in the Blue Mountains to know that our region has had some connection with a number of the people who helped shape the early contours of the story a century ago. When, on that sultry and overcast August day, in 1882, players came onto The Oval at … Continue reading The Blue Mountains and the Ashes

Most of us recall the story of Miss Appleyard and her College for Young Ladies depicted in the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock”. Located at Macedon in Victoria this story could just as easily have played itself out in the dramatic scenery of the Blue Mountains where, in the late 19th and first half of the 20th Centuries, many private-venture schools run by idiosyncratic, sometimes eccentric, educators were established. One such school was the Osborne Ladies College, which moved to Blackheath from the Sydney suburb of Epping in 1923. The college established itself in a large, three-storey building that had … Continue reading “We polished everything” Osborne Ladies College, Blackheath