Great North Road (Australia)
| Australian Convict Sites | |
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UNESCO world heritage 
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| National territory: | Australia |
| Type: | World Heritage |
| Criteria : | (iv) (vi) |
| Reference No .: | 1306 |
| UNESCO region : | Asia and Pacific |
| History of enrollment | |
| Enrollment: | 2010 (session 34) |
The Great North Road is a historic road in the state of New South Wales , Australia , built by convicts of the Australian Convict Colony between 1825 and 1836. The 260 kilometer road was the first to connect Sydney to the Hunter Valley . Part of the Old Great North Road has been included on the Australian National Heritage List and UNESCO World Heritage Site .
history
With the transfer of the penal colony in Newcastle to Port Macquarie in 1821, the area around Newcastle, including the Hunter Valley, became accessible to free settlers. Initially, the only access was by sea. With the construction of the Great North Road - comparable to the construction of the Great West Road (today's Great Western Highway ) over the Blue Mountains - the journey time should be shortened, more economical and less dangerous.
Since 1800, various explorers tried, mostly with the help of Aborigines , to find a way through the mountainous and impassable terrain. These included Benjamin Singleton, after the present-day town of Singleton is named, John Marquet Blaxland, nephew of the Blue Mountains pioneer Gregory Blaxland , and Heneage Finch, who benefited above all from the extensive explorations of the farmer John Howe on the almost definitive route the Great North Road.
When construction began in 1828, Ralph Darling was Governor of New South Wales ; The driving force was probably the new Surveyor General Thomas Mitchell , who had succeeded the suddenly deceased explorer John Oxley .
The work initially began with 67 prisoners who had committed themselves to criminal offenses in the convict colony in Sydney . Some of them were equipped with neck and foot chains. A total of about 720 convicts worked to cut a path through the bush, to remove and work on rock in the path construction and to build walls and bridges. The quality of the stone processing varies according to the requirements: There are areas in which the stone is only roughly carved, while other parts, especially bridges, show a high level of technical and craftsmanship. From the drill holes in the solid rock it can be seen that these were hammered in by hand, filled with explosives and made to explode. The sandstone that stood in the way of the route was removed. Furthermore, drainage canals were cut into the sandstone on the sides of the road or created with sandstone blocks.
The construction was completed in 1836. The Great North Road never became popular for a number of reasons: For one, there were few permanent watering holes along the route and there were no towns along the road. On the other hand, steamships had taken over the route between Sydney and Newcastle from 1832, making the sea route more attractive. Eventually other routes were also found, including one that corresponds to what is now the Pacific Highway .
route
The Great North Road began on Parramatta Road in what is now the Five Dock district . It runs through Ryde and Dural until it reaches the Hawkesbury River at Wisemans Ferry . It winds through the deserted and furrowed wilderness on the edge of Dharug National Park and reaches Wollombi via Bucketty . There the path forks: one leads to Singleton via Broke and the other via Cessnock , Maitland to Newcastle .
Today, the first miles of the Great North Road from Five Dock to the Parramatta River in Abbotsford are still named Great North Road. As far as the Hawkesbury River, the route is paved today and little evidence of the past has survived. North of the Hawkesbury River, most of it is in its original state and is closed to traffic.
Monument protection
The Bucketty and Wollombi parishes founded the Convict Trail Project in the 1990s with the aim of restoring, preserving and making the road accessible to the public as a museum for the architecture of the convicts. The original sections have provided a glimpse into the early road construction techniques of the New South Wales colony and show how English technology was introduced and adapted.
On August 1, 2007, the Great North Road was added to the Australian National Heritage List as a "nationally significant example of an important public infrastructure built by the labor of prisoners".
In July 2010, a 7.5 kilometer section of the Great North Road was named a World Heritage Site along with ten other sites as Australian Convict Sites as “the best-preserved examples of large-scale prisoner transport and colonial expansion through the presence and labor of Convicts "acts. The section under protection of the world heritage is located in the north of Sydney, north of the Hawkesbury River near Wiseman's Ferry: This is in the part of the Dharug National Park that borders the Yengo National Park to the north . Of the eleven locations, Hyde Park Barracks , Cockatoo Island and the Old Government House are also in Sydney.
photos
Thomas James Bridge at Wiseman's Ferry, the oldest bridge on the main land mass of Australia that is still open to traffic.
Devines Hill
Path through rock
Web links
- Department of Environment, Climate Change & Water The old Great North Road
- The Convict Trail Project
Individual evidence
- ^ Australian Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts National Heritage: Old Great North Road, New South Wales , accessed August 14, 2010
- ↑ Australia's Department of Environment, Heritage, Water and the Arts World Heritage: Australian Convict Sites , accessed August 2, 2010
- ↑ DECCS The Old Great North Road , called 17 January 2010
- ^ Susan Lawrence (2010) An Archeology of Australia Since 1788 ISBN 1-4419-7484-9 , p. 36
- ^ Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts Old Great North Road, New South Wales " nationally significant example of major public infrastructure developed using convict labor ", accessed July 5, 2010
- ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Center "the best surviving examples of large-scale convict transportation and the colonial expansion of European powers through the presence and labor of convicts, accessed on August 2, 2010
