Discover Bundanoon

Before Bundanoon: settlers and the railway

Before the railway village developed, settlers and travellers used the Jumping Rock locality along the road from Sutton Forest. Philip Morton’s account identifies early families and small inns there. Railway earthworks beginning in 1865 shifted activity towards Barren Ground, where contractors Forster and Roberts established a workers’ camp. The account also follows Samuel and Emily Tooth, who selected land in 1863 and cleared it for a family home. It draws on Society and Bundanoon History Group material; original land and railway records can add detail to individual holdings.^[22]

Before the name Bundanoon became established, the railway locality was known as Jordan’s Crossing. A Society article tracing postal services describes the platform and siding built in 1868 and residents’ later requests for better mail arrangements.^[13]

A petition signed by 62 people in 1871 described the difficulty of collecting mail from Sutton Forest, especially after rain. In 1872 the Postmaster-General approved an unofficial office at railway fettler James Cambourn’s home, with mail sent and received by train three times a week. Philip Morton’s article draws on correspondence transcribed by Bundanoon History Group archivist Liz Walker; the original file can be consulted for the petition and subsequent decisions.^[21]

Philip Morton’s account of postal services, drawing on Postmaster-General correspondence, follows the village’s campaign for more reliable mail and telegraph facilities. George Osborn became postmaster in 1876; the post office was renamed Bundanoon in 1881. Residents later debated whether postal business should remain at a central shop or move to the railway station, before the first official combined Post and Telegraph Office opened on 5 October 1899.^[20]

Bundanoon History Group’s school history identifies Emma Harriman’s private school in 1867 and a provisional government school run by Dinah Osborn from 1871 in the first Primitive Methodist church building. It became a public school in 1876; a timber classroom and teacher’s residence followed in Church Street in 1880, and a larger two-room brick school opened in 1909. The school used the Bundanoon name while the railway station and post office were still called Jordan’s Crossing, an important distinction when searching records.^[24]

A village grows around the station

Wingecarribee Shire Council places Bundanoon among the settlements that sprang up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries after the Main Southern Railway transformed the district. The Council’s local-history publication dates Bundanoon’s development from after 1873 and describes it, like Robertson, as a service centre for small farmers that also acquired boarding and commercial establishments linked to tourism. This makes the railway, rural production and visitor economy connected themes rather than separate histories.^[9]

The 1991 heritage study adds agricultural context: potatoes became important from the 1860s in the Robertson, Kangaloon and Bundanoon districts, while orchards became commercial enterprises and fruit trees, houses and packing sheds survived in places including Bundanoon. These broad patterns should not be used to assign an industry to a particular property without more direct evidence.^[10]

The State Library lists a Summer Hill Estate plan dated 27 September 1884 (Z/TP/B15/1) and a Station Heights Estate plan dated 19 April 1924 (Z/TP/B15/2). Their listed street boundaries provide leads for tracing the growth of the railway village. The plans have not yet been examined.^[14]

A survey of Portion 90 dated 1878, reproduced in Council’s heritage study, shows the railway and a route marked towards the Gullies. The study suggests an early track may have existed but dates the public gazettal of Gullies Road to 1903. The plan carries later annotations, so its survey date does not date every mark.^[17]

The Bundanoon History Group’s catalogue identifies an Erith Street subdivision plan for a May 1884 land sale, connected with auctioneer Henry Taylor. Its description records different lot counts for the advertisement and the plan, so the original documents should be compared before drawing conclusions about the subdivision or sales. The catalogue is a research lead; it does not provide the plan image.^[27]

Guest houses, the Gullies and early photographs

The Bundanoon History Group’s guest-house research, reproduced in Society newsletter 586, identifies Mountain Home, Springvale and Summer Hill among the early places accommodating visitors. It describes family labour, locally produced food, excursions to the Gullies and the effect of railway travel on holidaymaking. The article traces later uses of Lynbrook and other guest houses; consult the fuller History Group publication for individual properties and sources.^[15]

The Society’s account of Bundanoon Gullies connects the area’s industrial and recreational histories. It describes timber tramways and the Ringwood and Erith coal mines, then the work of local people and the reserve trust in improving tracks, lookouts and amenities. Newspaper reports and the Bundanoon History Group’s A Place of Deep Gullies offer further routes into the history of workers, visitors and the landscape.^[16]

Early tourism was promoted through photographs as well as railway connections and guest houses. Philip Morton describes William Augustus Nicholas producing stereoscopic cards at Fern Mount, with paired views of the village and Gullies that appeared three-dimensional through a viewer. The Society held a set, and copies were made for a Bundanoon History Group display; the issue reproduces two examples. Collection staff can advise on access to the original cards and their captions.^[25]

The Society’s museum holds printing blocks used by Bundanoon photographer and homeopath William Augustus “Gus” Nicholas to advertise his Golden Cross products. Its 2017 account describes Nicholas and Sarah Mardon settling at Jordan’s Crossing in the 1870s and a later two-storey building where he operated a studio and printing workshop, with a laboratory above. The surviving advertising blocks illuminate a local business and its promotion; their claims are historical evidence of marketing.^[19]

Community and recreation in later years

The sandstone entrance pillars at Bundanoon Gullies commemorate Dr Guy Gurney, a local medical practitioner who died in 1953. Philip Morton’s Society account traces his work in Bundanoon and Moss Vale, the district-wide memorial fund, and the 1958 unveiling. The pillars were designed by R. Newton-Tabrett and built by Bundanoon stonemason Frank Hayman using local sandstone.^[18]

Bundanoon’s swimming pool grew from a community campaign. A 1959 Four Mails report reprinted by the Society describes fifteen local people lending £100 each interest-free, further fundraising and a contribution from Randwick Lions. Sydney’s Lord Mayor turned the first sod in February 1959; Moss Vale contractor Adolfo Pittolo had been selected to build the pools. The account records the start of the project and its funding, rather than the eventual completion date.^[23]

Jack and Lily Hepher’s bicycle shop was part of Bundanoon’s visitor economy. The Society’s tribute says they bought the business in 1976 and moved to the village in 1980; Jack hired out bicycles, rode a penny-farthing in Brigadoon parades and sold the shop in 1984. Their 2007 interviews for the Bundanoon History Group oral-history project are a lead for first-hand memories of local business and recreation.^[26]

Bundanoon has an unusually useful documentary trail. The Wingecarribee Public Library Archives Collection holds Bundanoon Public School records from 1872 to 1961, including admissions, attendance, visitors and punishment books. The collection also preserves historic local-government records across the former municipalities and shires, offering ways to investigate families, land and institutions with a dateable record trail.^[11]

Bundanoon History Group adds another route into local history. In 2009 its archivist Liz Walker described a collection of photographs and documents gathered since the group’s formation in 1984, as well as work on local guest houses and the honour rolls in the Soldiers’ Memorial Hall. The Society’s report is a useful historical snapshot; contact the group for current collection access.^[12]