Nepean River

Nepean River Cobbitty c. 1900-1910 (Camden Images)

The Nepean River

The Nepean River is one of the most essential waterways in the Sydney basin and has particular significance for Sydney's southwestern rural-urban fringe. Its catchment extends south and east of the Sydney Basin to take in areas near Robertson and Goulburn. West of Wollongong the tributaries including Cataract Creek, Avon River, Cordeaux River that flow north-west and then into the deep gorges of Pheasants Nest and Douglas Park.

The river opens up into a floodplain and flows past  Menangle and crosses the Cowpastures and southern Cumberland Plain past Camden and Cobbitty. The river then flows north through the gorge adjacent to Wallacia and enters Bents Basin before it is joined by the Warragamba River and changes its name to the Hawkesbury River.

The Nepean River is economically vital to the Sydney Basin and is used for mining, irrigation, recreation and other activities. It is ecologically significant to the area and has several rare and endangered species of plants.

Cultural importance

The river has a significant meaning in terms of its intangible cultural heritage to the local landscape. It defines the landscape and the construction of place in the localities along the river, including Menangle, Camden, and Cobbitty.

Learn more

There is the  Little Sandy at Camden, which was a favourite swimming spot for the local community.

The river floodplain is partly covered in Cumberland Woodland an endangered species in the Sydney Basin. Another endangered species in the local area is the Elderslie Banksia Scrub and the  Camden White Gum.

The river catchment is the most important in the Sydney basin and has significant cultural significance in the area.  One example is the 1925 Nepean River flood at Camden.

The Macarthur Bridge across the Nepean River is one of the most critical pieces of economic and social infrastructure in the Macarthur area.

In times of high rainfall, the river has particular characteristics which make flooding a problematic event for the local population. 

In 2006 Camden Council designated the historic Camden town centre in the Nepean River floodplain as a Heritage Conservation Area, and later incorporated it in the 2010 Local Environment Plan.

There is a local walkway located on the river floodplain called the Miss Lewella Davies Memorial Walkway.

Originally posted 2016 Updated 30 August 2020

Forum Celebrating 40 Years of the NSW Heritage Act

Yamba Cottage on Camden Valley Way at Narellan has been at the centre of community concerns around heritage matters in the local area for many years (Camden Images)

Luke Foley Announces Heritage Policy

At State Parliament on Tuesday, 18 April 2017, Opposition Leader Luke Foley made several announcements on heritage matters that the Labor Party will take to the next state election in 2019.

Amongst the announcements from  Mr Foley were:
1. Development of a 10-year heritage strategy for New South Wales that will be a roadmap for heritage management;
2. Restrict the s32 provisions so that the state government cannot plead economic hardship on heritage matters like they have on the Sirius project;
3. Restrict the ability of the Minister for Heritage to ignore recommendations from the Heritage Council;
4. Strengthen the provision of the Heritage Council;
5. Move the Office of Premier and the Cabinet Office into the old Chief Secretary's building on the corner of Macquarie and Bridge Streets.

For those who want to read the speech, click here

Heritage Forum Speakers at Parliament House

The forum was introduced by Shadow Minister for Heritage Penny Sharpe MLC and invited a number of speakers to reflect on the 40th anniversary of the Heritage Act passed into law by the Wran Government in 1977.

Speakers were:

1. Meredith Burgmann 

Meredith Burgmann is the former President of the NSW Legislative Council and co-author of the book Green Bans Red Union - the Saving of a City. She spoke about the history of the Green Bans in the 1970s in a legal environment where there were no legal protections for heritage matters.

She went on to outline: the development of resident action groups and the conditions conducive to developing heritage legislation in the 1970s.

These conditions included
(a) community activism around the Vietnam War,
(b) Anti-Apartheid,
(c) environmental issues, and
(d) anti-discrimination legislation.

2. Reece McDougall 

Reece McDougall is the former CEO of GML Heritage Consultants and Executive Director of the NSW Heritage Office from 2006 to 2008. He spoke on the history of the 1977 Heritage Act introduced by the Wran Government.

He maintains that the conditions that allowed the introduction of the Heritage Act included
(a) the legislation supported for the National Trust in 1960,
(b) international factors, including travel by Australians witnessing overseas activities, and
(c) the green bans.

McDougall also outlined the 1998 amendments to the Heritage Act that introduced the State Heritage Register and the advantages of having a separate heritage office in the state government.

Gilbulla is the house built in the late 1890s by JW Macarthur Onslow at Menangle built in the Arts and Crafts style  (Gilbulla)

3. Shaun Carter 

Shaun Carter is the immediate past president of the NSW Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects. He has organised a crowdfunding effort and taken the state government to court over the decision to demolish the Sirius building in The Rocks.

Carter spoke about the benefits to the community of retaining its built heritage. These included
(a) acting as a marker that allows stories to remember,
(b) containing cultural heritage, and 
(c) the need to know who we were and who we are.

Carter bemoaned the loss of the best of 20th-century buildings, and many are not listed on local heritage registers.

4. Paul Connell 

Paul Connell is the organiser for the Public Sector for the CFMEU, who led the campaign to save the NSW Heritage group within Public Works from privatisation, that is, keeping the Stoneyard at St Peters (Alexandria).

The Stoneyard is the home of the stonemasons who oversee the maintenance of the state government's stock of sandstone buildings.  The Stoneyard also has heritage roofing plumbers and carpenters who, until the Baird Government, used to work with the Government Architect.

The Stoneyard is the site of
(a) apprentice training in traditional trades,
(b) stockpiles of Sydney yellow sandstone, and
(c) the centre of WHS.

Former 1940s Stuckey Bakery building in Argyle Street Camden is an example of Camden Modernism (I Willis)

Originally posted 18 April 2017. Updated 7 August 2023.

Anarchism and libertarianism is alive and kicking in Newtown with lots of great posters

Anarchism and libertarianism are alive and kicking in Newtown with lots of great posters in an around the King Street precinct.

A host of anarchist posters were spotted at various locations in the King Street precinct of Newtown on a visit by this author.

It is good to see that rebellion and revolution has not died out under the weight of neo-liberalism or neo-conservatism.

For the uninitiated anarchism is, according to Wikipedia,  a political philosophy that advocates self-governed societies based on voluntary institutions.

Anarchists believe that the state is undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful. There are a few capitalist entrepreneurs who would agree with this position.

Another term to describe an anarchist is libertarian, and there are some self-styled libertarians. 

The birth of anarchism appears around the French Revolution and the first 19th-century philosopher to label themselves anarchist was Frenchman Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

The Newtown anarchists want to smash capitalism and re-invent the world.

The birth of anarchism can be traced to the 6th century BC and the influence of Taoism. Modern anarchism emerges from the time of the Enlightenment.

The want-a-be nationalists, neo-liberalism and neo-cons would have you believe that they rule the world.

It is refreshing to see that pluralism is alive and well in Australian democracy. The other side still gets a go.

It is a wonder the neo-cons haven't spat-their-collective-dummies and chucked a wobbly and declared war on Newtown.

Maybe all the Newtown anarchists are just blow-ins in sheep's clothing.

What-ever the situation Australia, it is good to see that there still free speech and it is being practised loud and clear.

Originally posted 1 May 2017. Updated 16 August 2020.

Pansy Old Right-of-Way at Elderslie

Vellas Fresh Produce Market Gardens

25-85 Camden Valley Way, 

Elderslie 

DA  010.2016.00001366.001 

Old Right-of-Way for Camden-Campbelltown Railway

The Old Right-of-Way for Camden-Campbelltown Railway viewed from Kirkham Lane looking towards Camden at the proposed Vella Market Gardens site. 2017 (I Willis)

Camden-Campbelltown  Railway Locomotive at Camden Railway Station

Pansy Locomotive on the Camden-Campbelltown Railway Branch Line in 1950s  seen here at Camden Railway Station (Camden Images)

There is a re-development of a rural property adjacent to the Cowpastures Bridge at Elderslie on the Camden Valley Way (formerly the Hume Highway) with the old right-of-way for the Camden-Campbelltown Light Railway.

The Camden-Campbelltown Railway was an essential part of local transport infrastructure from 1881 to 1963 when the New South Wales Government closed the branch line.

The Vella Markets Garden development site not only has the old right-of-way. Some culverts still exist from the 1950s.

Old Right-Of-Way for Camden-Campbelltown Railway view from Camden Valley Way looking towards Kirkham Lane. The horse's location indicates the line of trees that marks the ROW on site for proposed Vella Market Gardens. 2017 (I Willis)

The old right-of-way is clearly identifiable by the line trees that follow it to Kirkham Lane.

Unfortunately, the developer does not mention this old right-of-way in any of the development documents.

View of Old Right-of-Way for Camden-Campbelltown Railway view from Kirkham Lane looking towards Camden. Camden Valley Way is visible on left of the image. The presence of the embankment for tracks are clearly seen in this image in the proposed site for Vella Market Gardens .2017 (I Willis)

Read more

Read more about Camden-Campbelltown Railway here and here.

Read more in Camden History the Journal of the Camden Historical Society and visit the
Camden Museum to view several artefacts from the railway days.

The Camden-Campbelltown Railway has been the subject of the recently published Pictorial History of Camden & District seen here on the book's back cover.

The back cover of  Pictorial History of Camden & District which tells some of the stories of Pansy the Campbelltown-Camden train.

Updated 10 January 2021, 15 August 2020. Originally posted 27 January 2017.