O’Connell stands at the gateway to central west NSW along the line the main western road connecting Sydney with Bathurst followed in the period c.1822–1834.
The historic settlement of O’Connell was classified as a conservation area by the National Trust of Australia (NSW) in 1974 and in 1978 it was listed on the Heritage Register of the National Estate. It is protected by its listing as a heritage item on the Oberon Council Local Environment Plan. The National Trust listed O’Connell ANZAC Memorial Avenue of Desert Ash trees links several groups of historic buildings within the O’Connell Conservation Area.
A feature of O’Connell’s historic heritage is its array of earth buildings dating back to the early – mid 1800s. Some of these properties are situated either centrally in the heart of O’Connell or else located just a short scenic drive away.
The map below shows the location of five of O’Connell’s most notable and easily appreciated earth buildings. While these are all located on private property, you can get a good appreciation of them from the adjacent road verges.
Follow the links on the map for more detailed information on each of these heritage structures.
O’Connell’s historic earth buildings provide tangible evidence of the area’s heritage link to the earliest beginnings of European settlement inland from the Great Dividing Range.
Colonial settlement of O’Connell followed the 1814–1815 construction of William Cox’s Road from the Nepean River at Penrith to the Macquarie River at Bathurst.
It was the first constructed road out of Sydney and was built by 30 convicts in six months. The route passed through O’Connell as it followed the first European incursion into Wiradjuri land by Surveyor General Evans and his naming of O’Connell Plains on 9th December 1813.
O’Connell became an important staging post along the beaten track to Bathurst, Australia’s first inland European settlement. The Settlement of Bathurst was proclaimed by Governor Macquarie on 7th May, 1815.
The O’Connell Valley and environs are recognised as containing the greatest concentration of early earth buildings in Australia – rare remnants of Colonial days in a farming community. The surviving structures, some of which date from the 1820s, demonstrate the resourcefulness and skills of the builders to successfully use earth as an affordable and durable construction element in an unfamiliar environment.
Centuries old traditional earth construction methods were used, familiar to the pioneers and convicts who transferred to Australia the individual building technology of their home Counties and villages of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
The earliest settler’s first concern was to establish shelter for their families and animals. They had to build quickly and efficiently from whatever materials were at hand – earth, clay, shale and small stones, straw, grasses, manure and animal hair mixed, kneaded and trampled with water into a pliable muddy material to form solid walls. Rocks, bark, saplings and bush timbers were used in the foundations and structures of the buildings.
The use of earth as a building material was a practical and economical choice. Suitable timber was scarce on the pastoral plains and lightly wooded areas. Transport of building materials by bullock team and dray via the steep terrain of the Great Dividing Range to an isolated place was a major and expensive task.
The settlers found the ideal building material beneath their feet – earth! Cultural and technology variations in building methods between regions of the settler’s homelands have contributed to a richness of vernacular earthen architecture in the O’Connell area. Intact examples are mostly of cob construction as well as daub combined with timber slab or pole and lathe.
These precious and rare historic earth buildings convey a story of our ancestors’ toil and are an important tangible link with bygone days of early European settled Australia. They satisfy a curiosity about the development of our culture and show the resilience of the early settlers in an age of self-reliance, perseverance and optimism.
About Earth Buildings
Earth buildings are constructed mainly by combining soil and other raw materials such as straw, clay, sand, gravel, lime and chalk to form a solid wall or brick.
The principle of creating a wall or block is similar; the differences lie in the manufacturing process.
Construction by use of sod is one of the most natural methods of building. The method is to choose a grassland and cut the surface layer that consisting of grassroots and peat to form a block. These blocks are then used to build a house or structure.
The construction method of pisè differs, as it is to make a temporary shutter first out of wood, then add materials like partially dried earth, gravel, chalk and lime together and compress them between the shutter.
The technique to build a Cob structure is similar to pisè, however the framework is not needed, as after piling up raw materials layer by layer, the surface needs to be shaped by a flat shovel.
Known to the Romans as “Formacean Walls”, Pliny the Elder wrote of the watch towers constructed by Carthaginian men under the rule of Hannibal of Barca, who reigned during the 3rd Century BC.
He describes the method as being “moulded rather than built by enclosing earth within a frame of boards, constructed on either side”.
In China, some ancient rammed earth walls were found in different provinces, with sections of the Great Wall of China having been constructed with the rammed earth method.
The history them can be dated back to (1900-1500) BC. Structures by the name of “taixie“, also composed the base of their structures in a similar method.
Earth buildings are common in the Himalayas and along the Silk Road. This construction technique has also spread to Europe with the expansion of Muslims in the late-medieval period.
The application of this construction method in North America dates back to the 15th century and spread from Asia and Europe to all around the world with the mass migrations in the late eighteenth century.
In the 20th century, especially during the years after the war, due to the low cost of the earth building and the relatively simple construction process, it was widely used in the world.
The earliest known example of a pisè structure in Australia dates to 1821, when a house was constructed in Tasmania. It was not long before the Hobart Town Gazette began reporting on pisè structures and the popularity of this construction method grew across the colony.
In 1823, the Sydney Gazette printed an English translation of Francoise Cointeraux’s text Masonry En Pisè, which became a seminal piece with great influence.
As the Bathurst region was lacking in wooded areas, the methods of earth building provided the opportunity to build without the need for transporting wood and other materials great distances
Perhaps 12,000 people were living in Wiradjuri country in 1788. They maintained their country and culture by travelling throughout their land, honouring sacred connections and kinships and undertaking ceremony.
A central Wiradjuri belief is a creation unified by Baiame, who is all-powerful, all-knowing and eternal. The Wiradjuri wore possum-skin cloaks and carved trees at burial grounds and birthing sites.
Extended family groups moved seasonally around the productive Wiradjuri river basins to manage and gather food. The streams provided abundant fish, turtles, yabbies and shellfish. On the surrounding woodland plains the people hunted emu, possum, goanna and kangaroo, and collected wattle seeds, tubers and many other plant foods.
Wiradjuri country provided everything the people needed. Life changed slowly, guided by the circle of seasons and a rich and complex culture that united the land, the people and all life. But after many thousands of years the Wiradjuri had to adapt quickly when a strange new people came into their land.
The Wiradjuri Wars
In 1813 white people first crossed the Blue Mountains into the rich grazing country of the tablelands. Colonial surveyor George Evans pushed further into the ‘three rivers’ later in the same year. Settlers soon followed with their sheep and cattle and the first ‘grants’ of Wiradjuri land were made in 1818.
The Wiradjuri watched and waited. Relations were friendly at first, and the Wiradjuri showed settlers to places of good water. Governor Macquarie visited in 1815 to establish the town of Bathurst, and again in 1821 when he enjoyed two Wiradjuri ‘karauberies’ (corroborees).
Initial restraints on settlers
Macquarie was careful to control settlement and promote good relations between the two peoples. By 1820 there were only 114 whites in the Bathurst area, 75 of them convict servants. But in 1821 Macquarie was overruled from England.
Faster settlement was encouraged and Macquarie was replaced by Governor Brisbane. More Wiradjuri land was taken up; hunting grounds and sacred places were occupied. Conflict became inevitable.
From about 1822, and following their own laws, the Wiradjuri began killing stock to eat. Sometimes they killed the shepherds.
Misunderstandings lead to conflict
A breaking point came in 1824, possibly because of a tragic misunderstanding between two peoples who could not comprehend each other’s laws.
As Mary Coe writes, a farmer at Kelso (near Bathurst) offered a group of Wiradjuri some potatoes from his field. They returned the next day and took more potatoes, as was the customary right on their land.
“…the farmer roused several neighbours and with the probable intention of chasing the natives away, they ran towards them. Whatever happened, the situation got out of control and shots were fired … several natives were killed and others were wounded.”
Windradyne leads Aboriginal response
It was family of the Aboriginal warrior named Windradyne that was attacked, and he was one of the survivors. Windradyne then gathered warriors to punish the white transgressors. On May 24, 1824, they attacked at Millah-Murrah, and then at ‘Warren Gunyah’ near Wattle Flat killing seven stockmen in the process.
Other Wiradjuri attacked Bathurst settlers and their stock from the south and the west. Soldiers and settlers retaliated.
Wiradjuri wars commence
The settlers fought back indiscriminately with guns and poisoned food. In turn the Wiradjuri attacked the white murderers.
Governor Brisbane responded to pressure from white squatters by proclaiming martial law, which was enforced by Major Morisset and his 75 soldiers at Bathurst.
Morisset’s campaign relied upon these words from the proclamation: “…Mutual bloodshed may be stopped by the Use of Arms against the Natives beyond the ordinary Rule of Law in Time of Peace; and, for this End, Resort to summary Justice has become necessary…”
With no other choice but annihilation, five Wiradjuri leaders surrendered in October 1824 and a kind of peace fell over Bathurst. But Windradyne eluded the authorities for another two months. After martial law was repealed on December 11, 1824, Windradyne made an heroic journey to the very seat of British power.
With about 140 of his surviving people, Windradyne walked nearly 200 kilometres to Parramatta for the Governor’s annual feast – with the word ‘peace’ stuck in his straw hat. The gathered settlers were awestruck, and Windradyne received Governor Brisbane’s pardon.
The aftermath
Windradyne’s pardon was issued on 28 December 1824, the same day that colonial authorities in England sent a dispatch relieving Governor Brisbane of his post.
The authorities were unhappy with martial law. Colonial Secretary Major Goulburn was sacked the next day, and Major Morriset was relieved a week later.
Windradyne then lived in peace, until in 1829 he was injured in a fight with another Wiradjuri man over a woman. It is said that he left hospital with a gangrenous wound, to die with his people.
The original alignment of Coxs Road to Bathurst ran across the middle of O’Connell Plains to cross the Campbells River beside a series of land holdings granted to William Lawson in recognition of his role in charting a route across the mountains.
Around the same time as 800 acres of land on the eastern edge of the O’Connell Plains beside the Fish River was formally granted to Reverend Thomas Hassall by Governor Brisbane in June 1823, the main Bathurst Road was diverted to create a more direct route through Hassall’s new holding.
This road relocation was to set Hassall’s property apart from his neighbours in terms of its relevance in the surrounding landscape. Its location on the flat side of the river at the Fish River crossing positioned it to develop into a roadside destination of note in the following decade.
Even when the present day highway alignment was created in the mid 1830s, the old road through O’Connell and along the Fish River continued to be used by bullock teams who valued the numerous watering points it offered along the way. This in turn facilitated the ongoing development of the village in the years leading up to the discovery of payable goldfields in the Bathurst region in 1851.
Early O’Connell Developments
The soil at O’Connell Plains was fertile and well suited for growing of vegetables and farming.
Some of the earliest buildings to be built in O’Connell Plains include Milford (c1822), the Mill Cottage (1826), Salem Chapel (c.1831), Plough Inn (1833), the O’Connell Post Office located in the Lindlegreen Barn precinct) (1834).
Daniel Roberts owned the Mill Cottage, which stands on the northern side of the Fish River and was built of random rubble by convicts in 1826. He also built the first water-driven flour mill in 1837 nearby to process locally-grown wheat and was granted the first publicans license for O’Connell Plains on 3 July 1833. Roberts established his Plough Inn on the northern bank in 1833 along with a store and a blacksmiths shop. The Plough Inn was one of only 13 inns established before 1835 on the western road between Sydney and Bathurst.
Rev. Thomas Hassall was the first clergyman to establish a place of workshop (Anglican) at O’Connell Plains.
As his continued appeals to Bishop Broughton that a church be built at the village were refused due to a lack of funds, he sold his land at Sydney and purchased land in the southern part of O’Connell Plains. Hassall also acted as a local tenens for about 12 months conducting services in a temporary building at the Kelso village during the absence of the Rev. John Espy Keane of the then new Kelso parish. Rev. Hassall subsequently built at his own expense a rough mud building known as the Salem Chapel in 1831. This was located at the junction of Beaconsfield Road and O’Connell Road and no longer exists.
A police presence was established in O’Connell from 1828 and Constable William Merrick was the first policeman appointed followed by Constable Samuel Taylor in 1834.
Their duties frequently involved the apprehension of escaped convicts. O’Connell’s Post Office first opened on 14 August 1834 and for many years was located in the store at the junction of Beaconsfield Road and O’Connell Road.
Mail between Bathurst and O’Connell was conveyed using a one-horse vehicle twice a week through a mail contractor appointed in 1846. This mail contractor was John Roberts, son of Daniel Roberts, innkeeper of the Plough Inn. Two years later, an innkeeper and well-known mail contractor of Bathurst, Henry Rotton, had secured the same contract. Horse races were first held on Daniel Roberts’ property behind the Plough Inn in 1849 and it appears that they were celebrated annually on 26 January.
The first day school to open at O’Connell was likely by the Church of England faith in connection with Salem Church. The first appointed school master was William Jones and some 30 children were enrolled some days after the opening of the day school.
O’Connell experienced significant growth during the gold rush period of the 1850s-60s and by 1870s was well established with a settlement of over 300 people.
Many of the buildings remaining today were built during this period, including the St Francis Catholic Church (1866), St Francis Convent (1867), St Joseph’s Convent School (1878), St Thomas Anglican Church (1866), St Thomas Rectory (1877), O’Connell Hotel (1870), O’Connell Public School (1876), the Butcher’s Shop (1876), the Old School of Arts (1870), the Butter Factory and the Police Station. It was during the 1860s that ‘Plains’ was dropped from O’Connell Plains and in 1866, O’Connell was formed into a separate parish.
The sketch of the road through O’Connell shown below dates from 1913. It is one of a range of historic mementos on display today in the O’Connell Hotel.
The O’Connell Hotel c.1865 stands on land bought by Donald Campbell in 1863 from Reverend Thomas Hassall. Campbell leased five acres to Patrick Dwyer, a boot maker of O’Connell Plains.
The lease was conditional that Dwyer erect ‘a dwelling house, stable and other outbuildings, the walls of which shall be mud, the roof shingle, and the inside to be ceiled (sic) and plastered, and all other buildings to be erected by Patrick Dwyer to be built with slabs and roofs, exception of stables, are to be shingles.’
Most of the buildings on the site were erected by 1870. The original hotel was essentially a four room cob structure with a corridor which remains in good condition – central to additions and alterations made throughout the years. The old timber building near the hotel once operated as a bakery from the mid 1870s.
Today we look back to the construction of the O’Connell Hotel in the mid 1860s as a major example of the use of cob earth walls in local building practices.
The detail of this building material is featured in a glass reveal section of wall in the hotel bar.
There are many stories woven into the fabric of this historic building, including the way in which it has been added to and adapted over the past 150 years of continuous use as the hub of the O’Connell settlement.
The story of licensed premises at O’Connell however did not begin here at this location. Rather they arch back across to the northern side of the Fish River where by 1835 Daniel Roberts operated the one of just 13 licensed inns located along the western road linking Sydney and Bathurst.
Roberts was a significant figure in the early history of O’Connell. His enterprise in constructing a water driven flour mill on his modest 100 acre holding in addition to a store and blacksmith’s shop ensured that the epicentre of the growing settlement on the O’Connell Plains lay on the northern side of the Fish River through the 1830s–early 1860s.
One of the most precious snapshots we have of O’Connell at this formative stage of its development comes from an atlas map published c. 1843.
At this time O’Connell had just been bypassed by a major realignment of the main western road connecting Sydney and Bathurst. The old road through the settlement however still stood for use by slow travellers including bullock teams and those on foot who needed to say close by reliable water supplies on their journey.
The 800 acre land grant of the Rev Thomas Hassall stands immediately south of the Fish River road crossing. The atlas map also sketches in the 41 acre inholding he sold to the government in 1838 in order to allow for the construction of an Anglican Church on the site.
Further south along the road from here one crossed onto the 600 acre holding Thomas Hassall had purchased from his brother James. It was in this location in 1863 that the pastoralist Donald Campbell purchased the land on which the O’Connell Hotel stands from Rev. Thomas Hassall.
Campbell then leased five acres of his new holding to Patrick Dwyer, a local boot maker.
The lease required Dwyer to construct “a dwelling house, stable and other buildings, the walls of which shall be mud, the roof shingle, and the inside to be ceiled… and all other buildings to be erected by Dwyer to be built with slabs, and roofs…are to be shingles, the whole of which to be the value of 300 pounds at least.”
This initiative by Donald Campbell occurred at the same time as the liquor license for the Plough Inn on the northern banks of the Fish River appears to have been let go in 1863.
It paved the way for a new community hub to develop amongst the previously open fields that had been part of the Rev Thomas Hassall’s riverside farm. Patrick Dwyer, a boot maker by trade, took out the O’Connell Hotel’s first liquor licence in 1870.
Since this time the building has developed in a rough and ready manner through multiple decades and owners.
The additions to the original earth building generally reflect their period and the hotel does not have an overall consistent architectural style.
Some elements are distinctive, such as the Colonial Georgian entry, evident in the small-paned sash windows, simple chimneys, and symmetrical composition.
The accommodation extension (c.1930), constructed of concrete block, has other features more in line with typical 1930s detailing such as the rough cast cement render.
The modern 1990 alfresco addition, dining room and bar extension are easily distinguishable from the rest of the hotel.
Some effort has been made to integrate the historic character of the hotel into the modern work, through the retention of the shingled roof, exposed mud walls in the main bar, and retention of the small windows and door openings in the original section of the building.
The timber lattice screen at the verandah of the residence is also a new addition, but interestingly carries through some interpretation of 1920s screen formerly in the same location.
Whether this was intentional or not is unknown as timber lattice is a common building material in external private spaces.
The location of the earth walls, obvious by their distinctive thickness and height appear to show that the original layout of the building was comprised of 4 rooms around a central hallway.
The configuration of the thicker earth walls is supported by documentary evidence of typical rural dwelling layouts.
The hotel has been described in several documents, by journalists, observers and the National Trust, as a ‘wattle and daub’ structure.
However, it has also been referred to as many other construction types such as pise, brick and weatherboard. Although it is clear that the walls are some form of earth wall construction, the exact nature of the method used may not be known without more invasive investigation.
Carabella cob walled cottage, the former Butcher’s Cottage and Shop, was built in 1873 by the local butcher – George Morgan. His lease on the land required him to erect ‘a good substantial house of four rooms of which the foundation will be of stone 2 feet wide and 2 feet above the level of the ground – the walls of good tempered mud 18 inches wideon good sound sleepers – the roof of shingles and the floor board on good sound sleepers.’
The brick building beside Carabella Cottage was constructed 1n 1913 in order to bring the butcher’s shop portion of the property into line with health requirements.
The construction of a commercial premises here at this particular section of O’Connell in the early 1870s reflects some interesting changes that were happening in the settlement at that time.
Given the nature of the land grants in the district, most of the early commercial services at O’Connell were initially located on the northern banks of the Fish River on the 100 acre property of Daniel Roberts.
These included his licenced inn as well as a store, blacksmith shop and flour mill. His relatively limited land holding clearly led to him prioritising service delivery including flour milling and innkeeping, whilst his neighbours’ larger holdings led them to focus more on farming as their first order of business.
It was only with the early 1860s decision by pastoralist Donald Campbell to purchase land from the original Hassall holdings on the southern shores of the Fish River that the hub of community activity in O’Connell started to shift.
As well as leasing land to Patrick Dwyer on the basis that he construct the building now contained within the expanded O’Connell Hotel Campbell leased 20 acres of land to George Morgan on the basis that he was not allowed to erect an inn or public house on the site.
This reflects the fact that Campbell was the also the landlord for the new O’Connell Hotel site then under development across the road and he clearly did not want two competing businesses established beside each other.
Establishing a butchers shop on site however was clearly not a problem and this is just what the new lessee – George Morgan did here in the late 1860s. His lease conditions today make for interesting reading as they highlight the value that was then placed on the use of earth construction in creating quality buildings.
The lease stated that: “20 acres opposite Roman Catholic chapel together with houses, buildings and premises erected or to be erected thereon for 14 years at 5 pounds yearly and will erected a good substantial house of four rooms of which the foundation will be stone 2 feet wide and 2 feet above the level of ground – the walls of good-tempered mud 18 inches wide – the roof of shingles and the floorboard on good sound sleepers 9 foot ceilings and will erect a good substantial butchers shop and will enclose with 3 rail fence and clear land of all briars – not for purpose of inn or public house.”
The lease on the butchers shop was taken over by Richard Harris in 1873. We know little of the business over the next few decades other than that an effort was made to sell it in 1885. and made an effort to sell the plant and goodwill of the property in 1885.
The next news we have of it comes from 1913 just before the start of the First World War when the then owner Mr A. N. Hillin ran foul of the Public Health Department and was ordered to put his present shop in clean and proper order. This resulted in the construction of the brick building located immediately next to the cottage that we see in place on site today.
When Surveyor Evans came across the tract of Country he named O’Connell Plains after the colony’s Lieutenant-Governor Maurice O’Connell in 1813 he ranked it as the “handsomest Country” he’d ever seen.
Soon after this in 1815, some of the local views were recorded by the artist John Lewin when Governor Macquarie travelled along the newly built Coxs Road to Bathurst. Lewin’s view of the nearby Sidmouth Valley to the east of O’Connell captures the swathe of riverside open land that Surveyor Evans had described.
Looking at this image it’s easy to image how tempting it would have been to take advantage of the rich alluvial soils as a source of building materials. Indeed, in the same year as the Reverend Thomas Hassall took up his new 800 acre land grant here on the southern banks of the Fish River, the Sydney Gazette was arguing that earth buildings were an ideal construction approach to be used in parts of the country which may be thinly wooded such as the plains around Bathurst.
By the time this article was published in June 1823, Thomas Hassall may have already constructed a sod walled, earth house on his property at O’Connell. Hassall’s son was later to write that:
As there was no Church or parsonage, he erected a house upon his land, which after the usual fashion in the Bathurst district then, consisted of sod walls and grass thatched roof. The sods were cut out with a spade in squares, at right angles from the surface and laid upon another with the grass side downwards. The soil was a black clay. When the walls were up, the outside was smoothed down and stuccoed with lime, so that they looked as if built of brick or stone.
It appears though that the Reverend Hassall was only a brief occupant of this original cottage – the precise location of which today is unknown. Having taken up residence here in January in 1826, he was joined by his wife and children in May, and left in 1827 for Denbigh in the Cowpastures.
Active management of the property however continued in his absence and it was later in that year of 1827 that one John Barker was paid £17 for ‘putting up a barn and £2.10 for putting up a fence at the bottom of the garden’.
The barn that Barker built in 1827 is today the same one we see today before us at Lindlegreen where it is recognised as the oldest standing mud construction in Australia.
The Barn has been described wrongly as pise. The two to three feet courses and straw mixture depict a different story.
The straw in the cob is clearly visible in both the mud-rendered finish and in the areas of wall where the render has come away. This confirms the technique is cob, not pise as it has sometimes been described.
The external walls, which are eighteen inches thick at the bottom, batter to twelve inches at the top in courses that average about two feet high.
Considering the wall is not all that thick for its height, it suggests the cob was laid with the help of shuttering to maintain a constant batter. All of the buildings on site are of twelve inch thick cob, built on stone footings to prevent rising damp.
The construction process of cob buildings differs greatly to other building techniques mainly as cob is applied wet.
‘…pise is gravelly loam rammed dry without draw, while cob is a moist pug mix of clay and straw, laid in layers by hand…Traditionally cob was laid by hand in courses in a fairly wet state, in manageable blocks about the size of a large pillow. …each layer had to allowed to dry out before going higher. This meant that each rise of about three feet could not be built upon without a drying period of about three weeks, and then only if the weather was fine…It was finally painted with a whitewash, typically made of equal parts of melted tallow and slaked lime. Ideally cob walls were built on footings of stone or brick, but numerous examples were built straight on the ground.’
An interesting part of the barn’s construction is a layer of black pitch painted underneath the lime wash on the exterior walls.
This provides waterproofing to the building. There is little evidence of the black pitch left, however some traces can still be seen underneath the eaves.
The Lindlegreen Barn represents an example of one of the very few surviving cob buildings in NSW. It is also one of the oldest of this building type in Australia.
The photo below highlights the layers of earth construction that can today be easily discerned in the building.
PLEASE NOTE: Lindlegreen Barn is private property and there is no public access to the building.
Clancy’s c.1858 is a vernacular Irish cottage constructed by the Clancy family using a traditional cob building method adapted for Australian conditions. Clancy’s is associated with the earliest settlement of the crown land releases of the area which is known as Alick’s Swamp.
The cottage has been described by the Clancy family as having five rooms including an open fire cooking area in the living room. The southern wing was possibly a ‘Stranger Room’ for travellers as it has an entry from the outside and no access to the inside of the house. Clancy’s is undergoing a major restoration. It is private property and there is no public access onto the site.
Looking across to Clancys Hut today invites us to image how this site would have appeared to John Clancy when he purchased Portion 53 of ground here in 1858.
By this time Clancy and his family had been living in the district since 1844 when they arrived here from Ireland. As assisted immigrants from poort Irish communities it would have taken them some time to get on their feet in a new land in the middle of a major economic depression in the 1840s.
Eventually however, their fortunes turned such that Clancy was able to put forward the £33 needed for the land purchase in 1858.
Perhaps the goldrush years were kind to him and being resident alongside Australia’s first payable goldfields in 1851 gave him the advantage of local knowledge. We can only speculate.
What we do know is that the first gold in O’Connell was found in June 1851 on Rev. Walker’s land, which stretched from alph Plains towards the Campbells River and was named Havilah Diggings. It only created a small mini rush of diggers though as it was not as rich as first thought. By 1853 several goldfields were identified in the local area including Campbells River, Native Dog Creek, Isabella River and Winburndale Rivulet.
But then perhaps John Clancy also discovered that the safest way to make money out of gold was to stay at home and work the land. With rural labourers in short supply and an influx of new arrivals needing food and services, the local O’Connell agricultural economy would have flourished in the years after 1851. This in turn would have been an added incentive for the Clancy family to find a way to take up their own holding in this rich and fertile farming country.
The chance for them to do this came about as a result of the Government freeing up some previously unallocated Crown lands in the O’Connell district for sale. As the 1840s atlas map of the precinct shows, Clancys holding was located to the south of the major land grant blocks given out to Hassall and Walker at O’Connell in the early 1820s.
We can’t be sure exactly when John Clancy built this earth building here on his land, but we know it was sometime between 1858 – 1867. His obituary stated that he resided in this 5 roomed house, with mud walls and a thatched roofone house for forty years prior to his death there in 1907.
Today we recognise Clancys Hut as being a single story cob residence with a corrugated iron roof. It is one of the few remaining earth buildings easily identifiable as such and clearly visible for more than half a kilometre from a public road.
Clancy’s has connections with the Clancy family who were pioneer settlers in the area, and part of the assisted immigration scheme to populate NSW and upskill the colony. John Clancy and John Luke Clancy were both highly regarded by the local community. Clancys demonstrates rough and ready building styles and technology from Ireland which were then modified to suit local conditions.
Bloom Hill Cob Cottage c1858 is the only surviving early settlers residence of the historic locality of Bloom Hill. The cottage stands on a 40-acre allotment purchased from the Crown in 1858 by Thomas Rea.
Bloom Hill Cottage provides tangible evidence of the early small farm settlement of the area and the pioneers reliance upon earth as a practical and economic building material.
The earliest settlers first concern was to establish shelter for their families and animals. They had to build quickly and efficiently from whatever materials were at hand and found the most readily available and durable construction element beneath their feet – earth!
Australian hardwood was difficult for the early settlers to work with as it twisted, shrank and cracked. Suitable timbers were scarce on the pastoral plains and lightly wooded areas of the O’Connell area. Transport of building materials via the steep terrain of the Great Dividing Range to an isolated place was a major and expensive task.
Former resident of the early days, Mrs Shirley Scutt (formerly Shirley Seymour) remembers that all the small acreage farms of Bloom Hill had earth houses. “There were a lot of mud walls.”
Bloom Hill cottage, Shirley’s youth and childhood family home, tells a story of an age of self reliance, perseverance and optimism for the early settlers many of whom struggled to survive on small mostly freehold farms, some no larger than 40-acres as apportioned by the Crown for early land releases of the area.
Families of a dozen or more children were common. Children walking bare-foot to and from school was a familiar sight along Bloom Hill Road and nearby Bosworth Falls Road.
Bloom Hill School was located near the corner at the top of Bloom Hill Road where part of an old timber school building is still standing. Shirley recalled that Bloom Hill School had one teacher and was packed to capacity in the early days. There was a mighty long cane. Half the children had no shoes.
Numbers at Bloom Hill School (1869-1939) had significantly declined by the late 1920s.
Born in 1935, Shirley is the daughter of Aubrey Isaac Seymour and Doris Josh. Shirley’s brother, Jack, was 11-and-a-half years her senior.
The following information includes recollections of early 1900s life on Bloom Hill and details of family history kindly passed on by Mrs Scutt during several conversations between 2004 and 2019.
Aubrey Seymour was one of 13 children. Aubrey’s father was Stephen Seymour who settled on Bosworth Falls Road where he was granted a 40-acre land allotment. He married Edith Rebecca Wardrop of Bathurst. All the children attended Bloom Hill School.
Shirley’s father and his brothers and sisters attended the Bloom Hill Church and Sunday school when they were children, walking several miles to and from both the morning and evening services.
Aubrey Seymour married Doris Josh on 14th October 1922. They settled at Bloom Hill Cottage on a 240-acre farm comprised of six 40-acre 1858 crown land allotments. The property extended from the Bloom Hill Cottage 40-acre lot to the school house fence near the top of Bloom Hill on the northern side of the existing road.
Aubrey Seymour paid for the land with his War World 1 service entitlement of 330 pounds, 19 shillings and 40 pence received after four years away including two-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war in Germany.
Bloom Hill Cottage and farm was previously owned by Sarah Alice Rea who used her residence to conduct the Bloom Hill Receiving Office (Post Office) from 1st February 1919.
In August, 1920, Mrs Rea stated that the Repatriation Board was to take over her property and that the property was to be claimed by William Henry Josh, a soldier. (This paragraph is from information from the Australian Post Office Historical Office).
According to Mrs Scutt, her uncle, William Josh, could not afford to pay for the property and thus it was purchased by her father.
The Bloom Hill Methodist Church (formerly the Wesleyan Church) had only one marriage that of Shirley’s parents.
There was only one christening that of Shirley’s brother, Jack. Shirley has a small bible given to her mother when she was married, a gift from the ladies of the Methodist Church of Bloom Hill.
The site of the Bloom Hill Church is marked by the lone gravestone of Henry Stapley which is in a paddock alongside Bloom Hill Road, a short distance down the hill from the school site. The grave was classified by the National Trust of Australia (NSW) in 1997.
It is significant because it is the final resting place of a local identity who was a trustee of the Methodist Church. There are a number of unmarked graves in the same location. Quince trees grew in the church surrounds and the fruit was used to make jam and jelly.
Nearby, Kentish cherries growing wild along Stoney Creek were picked and preserved. Blackberry bushes grew prolifically by the old timber Bloom Hill bridge crossing Stoney Creek and were an excellent source of fruit for Shirley’s mother’s blackberry jam. Shirley recalled that a bag of sugar made a lot of jams and jellies.
Life was simple and frugal for the hard working early settlers on the small acreages of Bloom Hill.
Survival depended upon growing vegetables, crops and fruit, milking a cow, churning cream for butter, baking bread and preserving nature’s fruitful bounty.
It was a life dependant upon resourcefulness and thrift in the home and on the farm, building and making essential items from furniture to farm implements using available materials and mending things.
It was an era of waste not, want not. They had to be mostly self sufficient and penny wise to survive.
Shirley remembers her mother complaining that one of their monthly grocery bills of 13 pounds, 16 shillings and 26 pence was too much and would have to be reduced.
It included flour and sugar and a four gallon tin of kerosene (for the household lamps) purchased from the local store at O’Connell. Candles were used in the bedrooms.
Shirley’s father used to say that all they lived on was potatoes, pumpkins and rabbits. Shirley grew up setting rabbit traps for pocket money, a finger freezing job on frosty mornings, although perhaps not quite as cold as early winter mornings for Shirley and brother, Jack, who slept beneath an open lean-to construction at the back of the house.
The corrugated roof was unlined and there were no walls. There was guttering around the lean-to roof which collected water into a 44-gallon drum: Mum used the water for the pot plants. Shirley recalled that in the old days houses were a series of rooms and small outhouses. Typically, kitchens were built separately to the main dwelling in case of fire.
Shirley remembers her childhood home as two separate buildings.
Still standing and in good order on a solid stone foundation is the 1850s constructed cottage of two cob walled rooms one of which was Shirley’s parents bedroom and the other the dining room with an open fireplace and front door opening onto a verandah. The now demolished lean-to was attached to the back of the cottage.
Separated from the cottage by a two metre walkway, a second earth building contained the kitchen and pantry and family living area. This dwelling also contained a combined bathroom and laundry.
The kitchen had a big fuel stove which was connected to the hot water system. There was a drip safe. (A drip safe is a low-tech evaporative cooler for perishables.
It consists of a metal or timber frame with wire mesh panels. The walls of the drip safe are hessian which acts as a wick soaking up water from an iron tray. A drip safe was a common household item in Australia until the mid-twentieth century).
A washing copper heated by a log fire was located outside the building for safety. There were big heavy round iron tubs in the laundry/bathroom and a big bath. Ground level lime and coarse sand flooring is evidence that this building once existed.
A remnant of an underground tank is evidence of its location near the kitchen building. Shirley recalled the story of her brother falling into the tank one day. Mum grabbed a long length of wire and hooked him out by the trousers!
Farm buildings in Shirley’s day included a big raised shed for housing their Dorset Horn stud sheep in cold weather.
There was more snow then. There were sheep yards, a chook house and an area for pigs.
Bloom Hill Cottage was used continuously as a home for about a century. There was no electricity until it was connected in the mid-1900s.
The cottage was utilised as a farm building for a while before becoming a basic weekender for city people for a short time.
It was restored by the present owners in the late 1980s to retain the essence of yesteryear’s old world charm and simplicity for a self-contained accommodation business spanning 30 years.
The old lean-to at the back of the cottage has been replaced by an addition which includes a second bedroom, bathroom and spacious kitchen. Old fashioned charm and simplicity is the essence of this comfortable, cosy and peaceful place without clocks and digital clutter where one can relax by an open log fire in winter and do nothing more energetic than watch the figs grow and eat them in season.
Two very old fig trees at the front of the cottage still produce an abundance of delicious fruit. One of the trees is believed to have been planted around the time the cottage was built in the 1850s.
The other tree grew from a sucker transplanted by Shirley’s mother. Shirley’s delightful childhood memories include her swing beneath the old fig tree and her flower garden in an old tractor tyre beneath a big gum tree.
Bloom Hill is a beautiful cultural landscape and an interesting historical link between early European settled Australian life on the land and what we see today with many homes built on the early apportioned small acreages which now provide a rural residential lifestyle.
Bloom Hill Road forms an important part of the historical rural landscape and links many aspects of life of the original community including the school, the church and the Bloom Hill Receiving Office (post office).
The route of the original 1814-1815 constructed Cox’s Road crossed what was to become Bloom Hill Road near the intersection with O’Connell Plains Road. This point is signposted at the western end of Bloom Hill Road.
The meandering nature of Bloom Hill Road, flanked by remnant mature eucalypts, suggests that the road has not significantly deviated from the tracks carved by the early European settlers.
Bloom Hill School
The following report regarding the Bloom Hill School was written by J.Huffen, Inspector, dated 21.8.1876.
It is interesting to note the instruction that the building should be constructed of clay.
The original earthen school building and a teachers residence were in time replaced by timber structures. Part of one of these buildings is still standing on the site of the old school grounds.
The report read as follows …
A teacher’s residence of three rooms and a kitchen has been erected by a local committee but it still needs flooring and ceiling.
Numbers of pupils attending local school: 15 boys, 18 girls.
Expected to attend: 36 boys, 27 girls.
There is reason to believe that the population of the school district will be permanent but it is not likely to increase. Cost per child of the actual attendance is six pounds.
The building should be constructed of clay, the roof shingle.
Note, there are workmen in the district who have had considerable experience in erecting buildings with clay and buildings properly erected of such material are certainly very durable.
The residence already provided by the committee is constructed of clay and the walls are now nearly as substantial as stone walls would have been!
The charges by a local contractor for erecting clay walls of this proper thickness are at the rate of about two pounds for 10 feet square.
I estimate the cost including out offices, water supply, fencing and furniture at about 200 pounds (of this amount between 40 and 50 pounds have been raised and already expended by the local committee and I estimate that an additional outlay of 160 pounds will be required).
Miss Jelbart is the teacher of the Provisional School. The school is still carried on in the Wesleyan Chapel about a ¼ mile from the site of the proposed buildings. Questions to be answered by Inspectors when reporting upon application for establishment of Public Schools.
1. Where is proposed school situated?
At Bloom Hill (late Cow Flat) near O’Connell.
2. What is the population of the school district?
About 250.
3. Is the district likely to have permanent inhabitants?
Yes.
4. State permanent interest etc.
The people are in moderate circumstances. The majority of them are small freeholders and hence they have a permanent interest in the locality.
O'Connell
Wiradjuri country is the land of the ‘three rivers’, the wambool (Macquarie), the galari (Lachlan) and the marrambidya (Murrumbidgee). This is the largest territory of any language group in New South Wales. It extends from the Blue Mountains west to Nyngan, and from Gunnedah in the north to Albury in the south.