Withycombe - Patrick White's childhood home

 

Mount Wilson
Gracious and elegant village in the Blue Mountains famous for its gardens.
Mount Wilson is located 8 km north of Bell's Line of Road and 126 km west of Sydney. It is a charming and gracious village with many beautiful cold climate gardens nestled in the Australian bush. This small village is famous today for the fact that between 1912 and 1937 Patrick White's parents lived in a house called Withycombe (it still stands and is located on the corner of The Avenue and Church Avenue). In his book Flaws in the Glass White recalled his time at Mount Wilson in terms of 'gullies crackling with smoky silence, rocks threatening to explode, pools so cold that the breath was cut off inside your ribs as you hung suspended like the corpse of a pale frog.'

The first European into the area may have been the convict Matthew Everingham who may have reached the ridge as early as 1795. Certainly the confirmed first European into the general area was Archibald Bell, Jr, who in 1823 when he was only nineteen, crossed the mountains along what was to become Bell's Line of Road. This was not a solitary achievement. Sensibly he used the knowledge of the local Aborigines who had been crossing the mountains for tens of thousands of years. Although the mountains has been crossed at Katoomba a decade earlier, there was still no satisfactory route through the mountains from Richmond at this time. Bell reached Mount Tomah on his first attempt but could not find a way across the mountains. On his second attempt he followed the ridge across to the present site of Bell and from there made his way down into Hartley Vale where he joined up with Cox¹s road.

Nine years later, in 1832, William Romaine Govett (of Govett¹s Leap fame) climbed Mt Wilson and subsequently described it as a 'high mass of range of the richest soil covered with almost impenetrable scrub'. It was surveyed in 1868, subdivided into 62 portions, and named after John Bowie Wilson who, at the time, was the Minister for Lands. The railway arrived in 1875 and by 1880 there were eight houses in the village.

Over the years Mount Wilson became a village for the wealthy. It was the perfect hill station. A cool, misty area with soils and a climate which were ideal for the recreation of England in a foreign land.

 

Statues in the garden at Mt Wilson

 

In her cooking/history book on the town, Mount Wilson: A Potted History, Audrey O'Ferrall notes 'Around the original houses built by 1880 were planted gardens which contained oaks, elms, beeches and pines from Britain rhododendrons, magnolias, cedars and spruces from the Himalayas and red oaks, tulip trees and conifers from North America.' It is this diversity of flora which makes Mount Wilson one of the most unusual and beautiful villages in the Blue Mountains.

Mount Wilson is a basalt capped ridge. Although it was difficult for Europeans to reach there is evidence that the local Aborigines camped in the forests. There has been the discovery of stone axes.

Things to see:  

Exploring the Gardens
The best strategy for any visitor is to get out of the car and start walking. The experience of the town is the experience of its gardens, its avenues of trees, its lookouts and its walking trails and picnic areas. The time to visit Mount Wilson is either spring or autumn. At these times many of the locals open their gardens - some of which are over 100 years old - to the public.

Of particular note are Church Avenue, Queen's Avenue and The Avenue with their rows of plane trees, limes, elms, beeches, liquidambars and pink cherries.

 

 

Walls of spring flowers in Mt Wilson

 

Other Attractions
Walks to Wynne's Rocks Lookout, the Cathedral of Ferns and the Waterfalls Picnic Ground all offer excellent views and pleasant picnic locations.

Wynne's Rocks Lookout can be reached via Queen's Avenue and Wynne's Rocks Road. It is named after Richard Wynne, an early settler, and is notable for its views across the Blue Mountains.

The Cathedral of Ferns is a delightful section of rainforest along Mount Irvine Road. There is a 'giant tree' as well as huge tree ferns, sassafras, a wide range of eucalypts and coachwood trees

 

 

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Mount Wilson