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| The Burrawang General
Store |
Burrawang
Sleepy and very attractive country town which has been
almost forgotten
Burrawang is located off the Illawarra Highway between Moss
Vale and Robertson. It is 15 km from the former, 7.5 km from
the latter and 136 km south-west of Sydney. While most
visitors to the Southern Highlands will spend time in
Bowral, Moss Vale, Berrima and Mittagong it is rare for
people to make a special trip to Burrawang. Yet this tiny
village, with its wonderfully antiquated general store, its
important collection of historic buildings, its impressive
church, and its atmosphere of an English hamlet dropped in
Australia, is a real gem.
The area around Burrawang was once occupied by the Wadi
Wadi Aborigines. Charles Throsby passed through the area in
1818 en route to Jervis Bay and appears to have sent his
servant Joseph Wild off with some local Aborigines to have a
look at the area known as the Yarrawa Brush (now the
Burrawang/Robertson area).
European settlement got under way when people began to
move up from the Illawarra in the early 1860s (see entry on
Robertson). The first land grant in the area was at
Wildes Meadow in 1859. Two of the earliest settlers, John
and Elizabeth McGrath, apparently walked from Jamberoo
(about 40 very steep kilometres), when Elizabeth was seven
months pregnant.
A post office was established in 1865. It was named after
the Burrawang Palm, then plentiful in the area. At the time
the only connection with the outside world was along the
rough dray path known as the Old Cedar Mountain Road.
Nonetheless, until Robertson began to grow in the 1880s
Burrawang was the major township of the Yarrawa Brush.
The first inn was licensed in 1866. The first school
(Anglican) was established in the late 1860s, to be replaced
by a public school in 1876. Religious services transferred
from makeshift location to proper church buildings in 1875
(Catholic), Anglican (1886) ad Presbyterian (1888).
Burrawang was also home to one of the earliest newspapers in
the district, the Burrawang Herald, established in 1883. A
school of arts building was erected (c.1889). Social life
centred on the Burrawang and Wilde's Meadow Bachelor's Club
which conducted two balls each year. The Burrawang and West
Camden Farmers' Club was established in 1879 and held its
first show at Burrawang in 1880. It later moved to
Robertson.
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| An old house near the
General Store at Burrawang |
The village developed as a service centre to the rich
pastoral land around. A sawmill and flour mill were in
operation by 1880 and, along with dairying, potatoes and
other vegetables, they were the economic mainstays. The
isolation of the town, due to poor roads, meant that
Burrawang could not take advantage of the rail link at Moss
Vale to send milk to Sydney. Instead they relied on butter
production.
The town was set back by national economic depression in
the early 1890s, followed by severe drought from 1893 to
1902 and then a savage fire swept the area in the early
1900s causing some to depart, but the village has survived
and it has the charm of the town that has never really
developed.
The appeal of this small township is its antiquity and
the fact that is has remained relatively untouched and the
greatest pleasure is to simply walk around and soak up the
atmosphere.
Things to see:
Walking Around Burrawang
The General Store (c.1875) in Hoddle St is now sadly closed
after trading continuously for more than 135 years. It is
still worth looking at because of the old sign for the
Sydney Morning Herald for only one penny which remains on
the outside. The Burrawang Village Hotel is an attractive
and pleasant English village pub.
There is an antique store open weekends from 10.00 a.m. -
5.00 p.m. in The Old School House, contact (02) 4886 4500.
The old school of arts building has been restored and is
currently home to a theatre group. Scarlett's Fruit and
Vegetable Shop on Hoddle St is also of interest. The town's
three churches - St Peter's Catholic Church, St David's
Anglican Church and the Presbyterian Church are all worth a
look and many of the residences are also quite old.
1.5 km south is Meadow Rd. Turn left to the tiny and
picturesque village of Wildes Meadow, first settled by
Daniel Bresnahan, an Irish immigrant, in 1859 and named
after Charles Throsby's servant Joseph Wild, who contributed
greatly to the European exploration of the Southern
Highlands.
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Burrawang
