The Western Road Proves Difficult
On
Monday 31st May, 1813, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth
looked out from the summit of a high hill, later named Mount Blaxland, over a
vast expanse of forest land that spread away to the west. Almost immediately
upon their return to Sydney, their success was confirmed by the expedition of
George Evans, the surveyor, who assured the authorities that a practicable
route over the Blue Mountains had indeed been found. By mid-January the
following year (1815), William Cox and his party had completed their rough but
serviceable road to the site of Bathurst, and the west lay open to the
expansion of European settlement from the confines of the coastal plain.
While government restrictions on travel
over and settlement beyond the Blue Mountains were early enforced, a thriving
wool industry was soon established on the newly discovered grazing lands in the
west. In the 1820s this was to provide the foundation upon which emerged a
small but powerful pastoral gentry, who were to influence significantly events
in New South Wales for the next two decades.
The Western Road over the Mountains was
the life line that sustained the growth of pastoral capitalism during this
period. Supplies and stock went west while the wagons, loaded with wool and
drawn by teams of oxen, became an increasingly common sight (and sometimes a
major hazard to other traffic) negotiating the narrow mountain road and winding
their way precariously down the Lapstone Hill to the coast.
As
use of the road increased, the difficulties of ascending and descending at both
the Lapstone and Mount York ends began to stimulate thinking toward
improvements. At Mount York, the precipitous nature of the descent saw the
search begin in the early 1820s for an alternative route, culminating
eventually in the opening of Victoria Pass in 1832.
At
Lapstone, Cox's Road remained the main access route until 1824, but was
particularly hazardous in wet weather suffering badly from washaways and creek flooding.
It was replaced in that year by the Lapstone Zig Zag Road, believed to be the
work of William Lawson, which was opened a couple of kilometres to the north.
Avoiding the flood-prone crossing at Jamison Creek, it rejoined Cox's Road at
Blaxland and remained until the mid-1830s, the principal route up the eastern
escarpment. It is still in use today as the Old Bathurst Road.
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| Milestone on Mitchell's Pass |
Major Mitchell
In
1827 Major (later Sir) Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, veteran of the Peninsular
War, restless, irascible, ambitious and talented, arrived in New South Wales to
become John Oxley's Deputy. Following Oxley's death in 1828, he succeeded to
the office of Surveyor-General, an office to which, at the end of 1828,
Governor Darling transferred the responsibilities for roads and bridges.
As Surveyor-General, Mitchell was, in the
late 1820s and early 1830s, greatly occupied with the surveying and marking out
of permanent lines for the colony's main roads. He believed strongly that the
definition and establishment of the lines of direction of roads "should
precede, as much as possible, the progress of colonization" (Mitchell
1839, 156). With the most advantageous direction ascertained, "the public
means may be applied with certainty to their (the roads) substantial
improvement, by removing obstructions and building bridges" (Mitchell
1839, 156). The establishment of towns could then also be planned with
confidence in their future.
Towards the middle of 1830, Mitchell,
having completed the marking of the lines of the main roads north to the Hunter
River and south to Goulburn, turned his concentration back to completing the re-definition
of the line west to Bathurst, a task he had recommended in a Report made in
November, 1827 (In Mitchell 1855a, 3-10).
By
1830, Lapstone Hill was again causing concern to the authorities. In January
1830, the Colonial Secretary wrote to Mitchell informing him of the Governor's
suggestion "that there are several places, 'Lapstone Hill1, for
example, (which from the steepness of the ascent, suffer extremely in heavy
rains) where it would be advantageous to station a few men with an overseer permanently
for the purpose of immediately repairing any damage which may be
occasioned" (In Mitchell 1855a, 13). Two years later, in May 1832,
following representations from the carrier of the Royal Mail to Bathurst, James
Watsford, the Surveyor-General was once more informed of the Governor's desire
for a permanent road-gang to be stationed on Lapstone Hill (Mitchell 1855a,
31).
As well as this direction, Mitchell had,
the previous year (1831) , been ordered by the Governor to lay out plans for a
township on Emu Plains. In line with his views on establishing the direction of
roads in advance of settlement, he declared that the planning of Emu could not
proceed until the line of the Western Road was finally established in relation
to its ascent of Lapstone Hill.
From
his own examination of the area, he settled on "the gully which descends
most directly from the Pilgrim (Inn) towards the proposed site, and I found
that it would admit of the most direct and least inclined road that can
possibly be made between that point and Emu Plains" (Mitchell 1855a, 33).
Having satisfied himself as to what should be the permanent line up the
Lapstone escarpment he recommended, in his Report of June 1832, that its
construction be undertaken as soon as possible in preference to the Governor's
earlier suggestion of placing a permanent repair gang on the old road.
A Bridge is Needed
Work
on the new Pass commenced in August, 1832, when the Assistant Surveyor, John
Abbott began the preliminary clearing work along the line Mitchell had marked.
While construction proceeded satisfactorily, there was a major problem which
had to be solved. About half way up the proposed route, Mitchell had decided to
take the road across the creek, a plan that would require the bridging of a 30
foot deep gully with a span of 20 feet.
To Mitchell, this problem was both a
practical and an aesthetic one. An admiration for classical times reinforced
his belief that the possession of well-designed bridges was one sign of a
civilized society. Bridges were "the most indispensable of public works.
Such works constitute the capital of a nation - no country is thought anything
of that does not possess them", (Mitchell 1855b, 602).
Here in the Emu Pass at Lapstone, the
opportunity presented itself to experiment with a bridge designed to stand the
test of time, a bridge that would be the forerunner of others built to improve
the system of Great Roads he had recently surveyed.
However,
to transform his vision into reality would require the services of someone who
possessed both the necessary technical knowledge and the experience. Such a
person would not be easy to find in a country where the art of bridge
construction was virtually unknown and where flimsy wooden structures, easy
victims of flood and fire, predominated. The only bridge of a substantial and
permanent nature was the Richmond Bridge built in 1828 in Tasmania.
 |
| A sketch by Robert Marsh Westmacott, 1840s. |
The right man did however, appear in the
person of David Lennox, a recently arrived "mechanic" with
considerable bridge-building experience. The combination of the talents of
these two men, Lennox and Mitchell, at just this particular time was, in many
ways, a remarkable coincidence. Lennox was a master mason of twenty
years' experience who had worked on a number of bridges in Britain, including
two of Thomas Telford's major designs - the Menai Suspension Bridge (opened
1826) and the stone arch Gloucester Bridge (completed 1827). Following his
wife's death in 1828, he decided to come to Australia. Arriving in Sydney in .
August 1832, he found work as a day labourer constructing the stone wall
outside the Legislative Council Chambers in Macquarie Street.
At this time the work on the Emu Pass
was just beginning and, on . making Lennox's acquaintance, Mitchell lost no
time in arranging for him to re-direct his talents to the construction of the
required bridge. On Mitchell's recommendation, Governor Bourke, in October
1832, granted Lennox a provisional appointment which was subsequently
confirmed from London, with the official title of "Superintendent of
Bridges" being awarded him in June of the following year.
The element of chance in his discovery of
Lennox and the speed of the latter's appointment were alluded to later by
Mitchell when, in a lecture to the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts in 1855, he
described how David Lennox "left his stone wall and with his shirt sleeves
still tucked up - and trowel in hand - undertook to plan stone bridges for this
colony" (Mitchell 1855b, 601).
Lennox's
job required him to "furnish the designs, construct the centering, and
direct the application of convict labor to stone cutting and setting, and to
all the branches of carpentry and masonry necessary for the construction of a
bridge". (Mitchell 1855a, 277).
 |
| Lennox Bridge c.1890 |
By November 1832, Abbott had cleared the
road almost to the Pilgrim Inn. Much of the stone for the bridge had been
quarried and cut, and obtaining lime from Windsor, Lennox began the laying
process. The bridge work party was selected from the larger road gang by
Lennox himself. Made up of about twenty convicts, an overseer, a constable and
an armed sentry, it worked at the site from about 7 o'clock in the morning,
returning to the stockade at Emu Plains in the evening after 4.00 p.m.
Lennox's relationship with his convict
workers was, it seems, a good one and, despite the absconding of one convict
which for a time held up the sawing of timber for the arch centering, he was
very successful in conducting on-the-job training of the men he had picked to
carry out the often difficult tasks required in bridge construction. Abbott
described him to Mitchell, in a letter dated 10th November, 1832, as "indefatigable
in instructing than how to work". Indeed, so effective was he that
Governor Bourke let it be known that he would try to prevent the services of
these newly skilled workers from being lost to the Department of Roads and
Bridges after the Lapstone job was finished.
Lennox's
confidence in his men was emphasized later, in May 1833, when he was beginning
to transfer operations to his next job. At this time he petitioned the Governor
to remit the remainder of the iron gang sentences of eight convicts he wished
to take with him. Although some of the sentences were, he said, "for heavy
crimes, it appears to me to have been more the effect of a bad system at that
time in regard to prisoners than any particular depravity of the prisoners
themselves". (Lennox to Bourke, 8th May, 1833.)
The convicts in question were:
William Brady
John Carsons
Robert Hyams
John Johnson
Patrick Malowney (or Maloney)
Thomas Nelson
James Randall
Daniel Williams (an "American black")
The sentences of Brady, Carsons, Malowney and Nelson
were remitted while Randall and Williams were promised remittal of their
sentences after a further six months good behaviour.
During March 1833 the approaches to the
bridge were dry-packed with square-rubble to raise them to the level of the
road while the road approaches themselves were quarried to a satisfactory
width. The keystones were also inscribed at this time, with the date on the
downstream side and the builder's name on the upstream side, and set in place.
By May 1833 the work on the bridge had
progressed to the point where Lennox could direct his attention to his next
assignment - the construction of a substantial bridge over Prospect Creek, on
the Great Southern Road near Liverpool. By the end of the month he had moved
his headquarters to the new site, leaving the completion of the Qnu Pass bridge
under the supervision of his young overseer, George Neilson, to whom he paid
periodic inspection visits until the work was finally completed toward the end
of June. Lennox reported the bridge finished in early July 1833. The Pass
itself, while traversable, was not completely finished until March the
following year.
On
Sunday 28th July 1833, Governor Bourke and his party rode up the Pass to the
Pilgrim Inn and were, according to the Sydney Monitor's report, suitably
impressed with the "rural splendour" of the new bridge, the simple
design of which merged harmoniously with the surrounding landscape. Following
the U-turn which the road took at the point where it crossed the gully, the
single arch bridge traced a gentle curve to form the connection at the bottom
of the "U". Its curving sweep demonstrated Lennox's command of
geometry and earned the bridge the later nickname of "The Horseshoe
Bridge".
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| Lennox Bridge c.1920 |
"A somewhat experimental work",
as Mitchell (1855a, 277) described it, Lennox Bridge formed part of the main
route to the west for almost one hundred years until the Great Western Highway
was channelled across the Knapsack Viaduct and along the old Railway route to
Blaxland in 1926.
The
Bridge has borne traffic of which Lennox and Mitchell could have had no
conception and, during the 1950s particularly, it suffered severely from the
increasing load of fast modern cars and heavy vehicles. Damage to the stonework
eventually rendered it structurally unsound and it was closed first to heavy
lorries and then to all vehicular traffic, while negotiations took place with
both State and Federal Governments to obtain funds for its restoration.
Finally,
in the latter part of the 1970s, serious work began with the assistance of
grants from the National Estate and the Heritage Council of New South Wales.
The restoration work was designed to recreate the shape and appearance of the
original bridge while, at the same time, providing the structural strength
necessary to prevent damage by modern traffic. A reinforced concrete road deck,
concealed behind the bridge's existing facade, was laid over the old stone
arch. Abutments and approach walls were strengthened, damaged balustrading
repaired and paving blocks re-laid along the bridge footpath. The work to
aesthetically restore the bridge included the removal, cleaning, grouting,
redressing and replacing of the original sandstone blocks as well as the quarrying
of new sandstone to replace those blocks damaged beyond repair. The tender for
the restoration of the old bridge's stonework was let to the Sydney firm of
Melocoo, whose subsidiary, Loveridge and Hudson, carried out the work. Much of
the new sandstone was quarried at Gosford.
The
Bridge was officially re-opened to traffic by the Mayor of the Blue Mountains
City, Alderman Peter Quirk, at a public ceremony on 14th December, 1982 -
almost one hundred and fifty years since Lennox's convict work gang toiled in
the gully on the Emu Pass.
Blue Mountains City Library
John
Low
Bibliography
Australian
Dictionary of Biography Vol. I, 1788-1850. (1966). Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Contains entries on Lennox and Mitchell.
HAVARD, Ward L. 1933. Mitchell's Pass,
near Emu Plains. Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, XIX
(Part VI): 352-363.
HERMAN, Morton. 1954. The Early
Australian Architects and Their Work. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. Chapter
XIV is about David Lennox.
Historical Records of Australia, Series I
(Vol. XVII): Governors' Despatches to and from England. (1923). Sydney: The Library Committee of
the Commonwealth Parliament. Contains correspondence relating to Lennox's
appointment.
KULLAS, Henry. 1977. Lennox Bridge -
'Horseshoe Bridge'. Springwood: The Author. Describes in some detail the
method of constructing the stone arch.
LENNOX, David.
1832-53. Various Papers Relating
To. Held in the Mitchell•Library,
Sydney.
LOW,
Jim. 1983. Lennox Bridge - Spanning The Past Into Tomorrow. Mount
Riverview: The Author. Contains suggested creative activities for children.
MITCHELL, Thomas Livingstone. 1839.
Journal of An Expedition Sent to Explore the Course of the River Darling in
1835. In Three Expeditions Into the Interior of Australia Vol. I.
London: T. §
W. Boone.
MITCHELL, Thomas Livingstone. 1855a.
Report Upon the Progress Made in Roads and in the Construction of Public Works
in New South Wales from the Year 1827 to June 1855. Held in the Mitchell
Library, Sydney.
MITCHELL, Thomas Livingstone. 1855b.
Lecture to the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts. In 'Papers of Sir Thomas
Livingstone Mitchell Vol. VIII, Miscellaneous'. Held in the Mitchell Library,
Sydney.
SELKIRK, Henry, 1920. David Lennox, the
bridge builder, and his work. Journal of the Royal Australian Historical
Society, VI (Part V): 200-243.
SMITH, A.I. 1955. David Lennox.
Springwood : Macquarie Historical Society. A paper read before the society on
21st October, 1955.
SPEIRS,
Hugh. 1981. Landscape Art and The Blue Mountains. Chippendale (N.S.W.):
Alternative Publishing Co-operative.
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