Mittagong

The old road and early travellers

Heritage NSW’s account of the Mittagong railway station places Lower Mittagong among the district’s earliest colonial pioneer settlements. From 1820 to 1835, traffic south used the old road through Mittagong; when the new Great South Road through Berrima opened, that route over the Mittagong Range and through Bong Bong lost traffic. The next major shift came with the railway: Transport NSW dates the railway’s arrival at Mittagong to February 1867, prompting subdivision and a new phase of growth across the district.^[19]

At Lower Mittagong, George Cutter’s Kangaroo Inn and windmill formed part of a small roadside economy on the old South Road. Society researchers reproduce an 1831 advertisement offering the inn, a wooden post mill, workshops, outbuildings and livestock for sale or lease. They suggest that the new road alignment through Mittagong reduced traffic on the old route. A later 1838 advertisement for Captain Sturt’s estate describes a windmill as stone-built; the difference from descriptions of Cutter’s wooden mill needs investigation against original records rather than being silently reconciled.^[51]

The 1838 estate advertisement described land bounded by the new and old roads, a house, cottage and cultivated land. The Society’s account says Thomas D. Rowe purchased the property, and his stepson George Taylor Rowe later advertised the windmill for lease in 1852. Such advertisements reveal how the property was presented to prospective buyers or tenants, while land titles and surveys are needed to trace its boundaries and ownership precisely.^[51]

The Commercial Hotel, later known as the Lion Rampant, is among the inns documented by Shylie Brown. A Society newsletter reproduces part of her research into the hotel’s history at the corner of the Old Hume Highway and Victoria Street.^[26]

Iron, land and a growing settlement

The Fitz Roy Iron Works is another window into Mittagong’s industrial past. In 2009 the Society reported that local resident and former mining engineer George Thirkell had built a scale model of its furnace works after several years of research. The model depicts the phase in which a blast furnace was erected in 1864 under iron-maker Enoch Hughes; it was unveiled at Berrima District Museum.^[24][47]

Blacksmithing and foundry work connected industry to daily life. Philip Morton’s 2010 article describes William Brazenall and his sons establishing blacksmith and iron-foundry businesses at Nattai and later Mittagong, with advertisements offering castings and machinery repairs.^[25]

Rowes Hill Cemetery and the adjoining church and school land are part of Lower Mittagong’s history. The Society’s cemetery feature recalls the research of Carol Nolan and reproduces a local sign describing land donated by farmer Thomas Troy.^[28]

The Oaklands estate illustrates changing land use at Mittagong’s northern entrance. Philip Morton traces its former inn and boarding school, the sale of the estate in sections from 1887, and the brickworks and milk depot that operated nearby. The Malting Company of NSW acquired a large undeveloped portion in 1898; its first malthouse opened in 1899 beside the railway and Nattai Creek. Tooth & Co bought the works in 1905 and expanded them over the following years. Estate plans and land records can help trace the individual parcels.^[40]

The railway and healthy mountain air

The railway station and yard are a useful landmark for tracing this change. Heritage NSW records that the later opening of the Yarrawa Brush for farming in the 1860s increased the importance of the railhead at Moss Vale for produce and freight, while the Council’s heritage overview says Mittagong, Bowral and Moss Vale grew quickly with the Main Southern Railway. The 1991 heritage study also identifies the Bessemer Street timbermills and the Mittagong Maltings, opened in 1899, as significant evidence of the town’s industrial history.^[19][23]

The railway also helped make Mittagong a centre for dairy processing. A contemporary account reproduced in the Society newsletter describes the two-storey stone creamery beside the station, with its own railway siding. Milk came by rail from Moss Vale and by cart from Bowral and nearby farms; butter was sent to Sydney in refrigerated railway cars.^[54]

The Willows illustrates the early health-tourism economy north of Mittagong. A Sydney Morning Herald account from 1869, reproduced by Philip Morton, describes a visitor arriving by train at Rush’s Platform and walking to Bartholomew Rush’s boarding establishment, set among gardens and fields. The newsletter says the property had previously been the Prince Albert Inn. The contemporary account records how the place was presented to visitors; maps, directories and land records can help establish its precise site and later history.^[44]

The Society’s Lee and Dawson family history connects stonemason Joseph Lee with the railway tunnel, local churches and the school building. His family home, Leslie Cottage in Queen Street, bears the date 1879; the account also follows Albert and George Dawson’s store and Claude Lee’s music and civic work. The newsletter notes uncertainty about Joseph’s relationship to Frederick Lee, which should be checked against family records.^[32]

The Society’s account of builder Charles Grove records his work on the stone public school opened in Queen Street in 1878, now the library. It places the school on land in the New Sheffield subdivision and connects Grove’s earlier work to the Fitzroy iron mines. Consult the article and original records for the separate stages of the building’s history.^[33]

Community, music and the lake

The State Library lists an 1884 township sale plan for lots around Mittagong railway station, Z/TP/M4/25, and a 1906 Mittagong Land Company plan, Z/TP/M4/7. The catalogue lists streets and sale dates, providing useful starting points for locating the individual plans and tracing later development.^[31]

The 1884 township auction poster places the railway at the centre of a planned land sale. Richardson & Wrench advertised numbered lots on both sides of the line for 26 April, showing Alexandra Square, streets and the Fitzroy Iron Works as landmarks. The plan and its payment terms reveal how the land was offered; title and sales records are needed to establish which blocks changed hands.^[41]

Mittagong Town Band was a fixture at public gatherings for generations. Philip Morton records fundraising in 1881, practice in a rotunda erected in Alexandra Park in 1891, and the band’s presence at wartime farewells and the return of servicemen at the railway station. Its bandmasters included George Vincent, who also led Bowral’s band, and Victor Yields, who served until 1970. The account says the band ceased in the mid-1970s, with later community bands continuing the tradition.^[46]

Lake Alexandra and the old tramways show how industrial works shaped the landscape. Railway historian David Kemmis proposed that the lake began as a creek dam associated with a cable tramway built around 1874, before water was drawn for the ironworks in 1876. He based this interpretation partly on the alignment shown on maps and distinguished it from an earlier account dating construction to 1876. His proposal remains an interpretation to test against contemporary plans and records.^[49]

Mittagong’s School of Arts began with a reading room in 1886. According to the Society’s account, the committee moved through several proposed sites before opening its brick building at Main Street and Bowral Road in 1899, with help from brewer Arthur Tooth. The hall opened behind it in 1911. The article cites committee correspondence identifying sandstone from the Fitz Roy Iron Works and describes the purchase of materials from a Joadja hall; accounts of the stone’s origin differ, so the surviving correspondence offers an important lead.^[53]

War, memorials and new development

Railway history in Mittagong also includes industrial sidings. Philip Morton’s 2017 account describes the Australian Kerosene Oil Company’s Joadja siding and another private railway approaching the town.^[27]

The Mittagong war memorial was unveiled on 18 December 1920 after local fundraising. Ian Mackey’s retrospective describes the trachyte name tablets, the electric clock and the community events that supported construction.^[34]

The Mineral Springs subdivision shows how land around the spring was promoted for development. A Robertson Advocate report reprinted by the Society says its roads were complete in August 1918 and lots were offered through local agent J. Napier. It names Henderson Avenue after a company director and Rainbow Road after assistant shire engineer H. Rainbow, whose suggested curve joined the roads. The report establishes an offering and road names at that date; it does not establish which lots sold or when they were built on.^[37]

The McBean family’s story links Mittagong to the First World War and its aftermath. The Society records that brothers Donald and George lived in the district; George was killed at Gallipoli in 1915, while Donald served in the Light Horse and returned in 1919. His descendant Glenda Miskelly contributed family information and described a collection of his wartime photographs. The article also follows Donald and Maud’s daughters and later moves, providing leads to compare with service and family records.^[42]

The twentieth-century town

Mittagong’s airfield grew from an emergency landing ground into a wartime airstrip. A Society article recounts a 1928 Aero Club visit interrupted by fog and says the field was constructed in 1944. Local resident Alan Worner recalled trucks carrying gravel and shale and associated the work with the 1942 maltings fire, suggesting an earlier completion date. The same issue reproduces a 1940s RAAF landing-ground plan showing taxiways and dispersed aircraft bays. These differing dates warrant checking against contemporary defence records; the plan is available in the newsletter and a larger copy was reported in the Society archives.^[43]

Talgarno private hospital operated in a house at the corner of Alice and Edward streets during the 1920s. The Society’s history uses contemporary newspaper reports to describe Matron Drummond’s care for patients unable to pay and the resulting Mittagong Hospital Relief Trust Fund. The hospital had closed by 1933 and the property was advertised for sale; the building subsequently served as a boarding house and later as a residence.^[52]

John McColgan’s reminiscences of Mittagong in the 1930s add a personal view of everyday life: neighbours chatting from verandahs, bread and milk delivered by horse and cart, ice-boxes and reused kerosene tins. He also recalled picture shows, community singing, children’s games and remains of the Joadja tramway. His account is a retrospective and its dates and details should be checked against other records.^[36]

Newspaper extracts reveal the pressures of the Depression on Mittagong households. The Mittagong Star reported that Tooth & Co’s maltings began rotating employees off work in December 1930. In June 1931 it described a Toc H soup kitchen in Main Street, supplied with food and firewood by local donors and supervised by unemployed chef George Dennis. The report also records soup being sent to Colo Vale. These contemporary accounts provide names and dates for further research into relief and working life.^[39]

In 2018 Society researchers assisted the Museum of Fire with the centenary history of Mittagong Fire Station and Brigade. The newsletter reproduces a Southern Mail report of the station’s opening on 12 September 1918 and a later account of its equipment: a horse named Sundowner pulled a turbine fire engine, and a motor engine arrived in 1926. The two newspaper accounts offer different kinds of evidence-the first contemporary, the second a retrospective.^[30][35]

Changing places and memories

Mittagong’s northern approach was reshaped by a long campaign to avoid the Drabbles and Maltings railway bridges. Philip Morton traces delayed road proposals, concern over the bowling green and golf links, and the bowling club’s move to Alexandra Square, where its new green opened in 1960. The deviation opened in June 1963 on the western side of the railway, with a raised crossing over the still-operating Loop Line. Its construction altered the frontage and entrances of the town’s recreation grounds.^[38]

Local historian Claude Lee recalled the loss of the old Fitzroy ironworks blast furnace, describing people removing bricks and other material before the remaining structure was sold for demolition. John McColgan’s account, reproduced in the Society newsletter, says the furnace material was used in cottages and notes that the works lay within Mittagong Municipal Council rather than the Nattai Shire for which Lee was clerk. His recollection is a valuable contemporary perspective on industrial heritage, to be checked alongside demolition and council records.^[45]

The Mittagong Moon Rocket in Winifred West Park is recalled in a Society history of playground equipment. Linda Emery describes the structure and its manufacture by Dunlop Steel Fabrications of Bowral.^[29]

A railway dam on Nattai Creek later became a place for recreation. The Society records that George Boswell, his son Reg and other volunteers worked with the council from 1930 to clear the site and build dressing sheds and a kiosk. Mittagong Baths opened on 7 February 1931, followed by a swimming carnival and diving exhibition; the pool was upgraded in 1959.^[55]

For people-and-place research, the Library Archives Collection holds Mittagong Municipal and Shire Council minutes, valuation and rate books, licences, registers and an infectious-diseases register. The Society’s own database indexes a Mittagong infectious-diseases register for 1898-1938; use it as a lead and check the underlying record’s scope.^[21][22]

The State Library of NSW lists historical subdivision and auction plans for this town, with estate names, streets, dates and catalogue references. The listings offer leads for tracing proposed land sales; consult the individual plans and other records to establish what was actually sold or built.^[31]