Wollongong Harbour Precinct is a heritage-listed shipping harbour at Cliff Road and Endeavour Drive, in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. It was built in 1837. The historic precinct includes Belmore Basin, Government Dam, Government Basin, Stockade Point, Flagstaff Hill, Signal Hill, Brighton Beach, Boat Harbour and Fortress Hill. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 May 2010.
History
Pre-European Prior to European occupation of the Illawarra, Wollongong Harbour and coastline was used by the Dharawal people as a natural harbour and sheltered area for all manner of cultural and ceremonial activities for more than 20,000 years and possibly as many as 40,000 years. The natural bay was protected from direct ocean currents and south-easterly winds by the sand dunes and Flagstaff Hill. Smiths Creek provided fresh water and there was an abundance of food from the combined marine and riparian environment. Archaeological evidence of this extended occupation by the Aboriginal people is found in extensive middens in the area.B Rogers. The Coke Works ion Flagstaff Point, Wollongong 1875-1890
European settlement European occupation dates from 1815 when Dr. Charles Throsby and his stockman herded cattle from Glenfield via Appin and down the escarpment at Bulli and established grazing grounds near the present Harbour. John Oxley surveyed the area in 1816 and land grantees were allowed to make selections in that year.
From the 1820s, the area now known as Brighton Beach was used as the shipping point for the newly settled area. Vessels would stand off from the beach and shipments of supplies and produce and timber destined for the Sydney market would be transferred by small flat bottomed boats or floated out.
In 1829, the regiment that had been stationed at Red Point, south of the present day Port Kembla, was relocated to the Boat Harbour at Brighton Beach together with the convicts under their command. The construction of government buildings, barracks to accommodate the soldiers, a residence for the commandant and a stockade for the convicts adjacent to the harbour marks the establishment of this area as the main commercial, judicial and administrative centre for Wollongong.
Following a visit to the Illawarra in April 1834,Governor Bourke proclaimed the town of Wollongong as surveyed by the Surveyor General of New South Wales Major Thomas Mitchell.
Proposal and building of harbour
The 1835 Mitchell plan proposed the construction of a harbour for the protection of the small boats that provisioned the garrison. Mitchell proposed convict labour be used to lessen construction costs. Mitchell's plan also included a breakwater that extended in a straight line from Wollongong Headland. There is no evidence that this breakwater was started.
In 1837, Governor Bourke instructed the Colonial Engineer Captain George Barney of the Royal Engineers to design and oversee the construction of a harbour at Wollongong. Barney's design was for a basin 100 foot long, 35 feet wide and 8 feet deep at low tide with a stone pier that incorporated a slipway for the Pilot Boat on the northern side at the sheltered end of Boat Harbour. The excavation was to be carried out by drilling and blasting behind a cofferdam. After construction commenced in 1837, it was reported in 1841 that the size of the basin was to be increased to 300 feet long and 150 feet wide. The work was carried out by up to 300 convicts.
Mooring chains were laid across the bay to Brighton Beach in 1839 to provide safe anchorage for vessels up to 300 tons during the construction of the Basin.
Dimension sandstonewas prepared from the excavated rock and was used to construct the vertical seawalls, including the quay wall at the eastern end of Brighton Beach and the pier and Pier Head that formed the northern side or breakwater (structure) of this first basin. The two basal courses of the sea walls are made of dressed quartz sandstone blocks and the upper portions of the seawalls are constructed from less durable sandstone stone blocks.
The bases of the sea walls are keyed into the parent rock and the blocks of stone were laid on a thin lime mortar bed and joints. Non-selected rubble was compacted behind the newly constructed walls and in the case of the Central Pier it was founded in part on laid dimension stone. The surplus fill was used to reclaim the area behind the quay wall and east of the Central Pier. Final adjustments to the facing walls were made using a diving bell that had been brought from England to be used in the construction of the semi-circular quay in Sydney Harbour.
Construction of the basin was completed on 25 November 1844 at a cost of £3,465 and it could accommodate coasting vessels from 5 to 20 tons.
However, because of incomplete removal of the cofferdams, the entrance depth at low water was only 5 feet 6 inches and the continued presence of the anchorage chain across the mouth of the basin meant that the anchorage was unsafe.
Expansion works The growing need for sea transport capable of handling large volumes of bulk cargo was reflected in developments at Wollongong Harbour, which was the only public shipping place north of Shellharbour. In 1856 a timber jetty was constructed westward from the quay on the southern side of what is now Belmore Basin to accommodate the rapidly increasing traffic, but this proved only a temporary expedient.
The Kiama Steam Navigation Company erected a large weighbridge in 1858 to weigh coal carts.
In 1858 the Illawarra Steam Navigation Company was formed through the merger of the Kiama, Wollongong, and Shoalhaven Steam Navigation Companies. The screw steamer SS Illawarra was too big to berth in the basin and in 1858 a petition for improved and enlarged harbour facilities, essentially to provide for the prospect of a large coal trade, was presented to the Governor Sir William Denison. In July that year, Denison and Edward Orpen Moriarty, the NSW Department of Public Works Engineer in Chief for Harbours and River Navigation visited Wollongong to inspect the port. Following their visit, plans were prepared for the deepening and extension of the harbour to the north-east by the construction of a significant extension to the existing basin and for the construction of the eastern breakwater.
In January 1859 plans and estimates for additional harbour accommodation were approved and £26,892 was voted towards deepening the old basin to 10 feet, the formation of a new basin opening into the existing one and the formation of a breakwater for the protection of the outer roadstead. The new basin was to be 300 feet long, 102 feet wide and 10 feet deep at low tide and the stone excavated was to be used to construct the new breakwater.
Works of this character and magnitude were new to the colony and though tenders were invited twice, the first time in December 1860, no satisfactory offer was obtained. As the government of New South Wales could not get the work done under one contract, it reluctantly subdivided the work into a number of smaller contracts with the government providing the necessary major construction plant. Work commenced in August 1861 when the SS Kembla brought down the necessary plant.
A substantial cofferdam was constructed across the entrance of the old basin to allow the new works to be constructed in the dry.
Before work extending the harbour was completed, it became clear that the facilities would not be adequate to cater for the expanding coal trade at the port. A decision was taken to further increase the size to 455 feet by 153 feet. In 1864 parliament voted £5,000 for this work .
Up to this time, coal had been sent to Sydney in small vessels for the purpose of transhipment to foreign ports. To meet the berthing requirements of larger ships that had a deeper draught, Parliament was asked, in 1866, for £10,000 to allow the Basin to be deepened to 18 feet [at low water]. However, the inner basin deepened to 18 feet and the existing basin was only deepened to 14 feet.
The walls of the Basin were brought up to the design level using two basal layers of quartz sandstone keyed into the parent rock, and upper portions of the sea walls were again constructed from lithic sandstone blocks that had been prepared from the lithic sandstone that had been won as part of the construction of the new basin. Non-selected rubble was compacted behind the newly constructed walls. The surplus fill was used to reclaim the area behind the Quay wall and east of the Central Pier, the start of what was to become the Lighthouse Breakwater and local roadworks. At this time a further £3000 was voted for the construction of three high-level timber coal staithes connecting to the Mount Keira and Mount Pleasant rail lines. The staithes were elevated platforms on timber trusses, somewhat like bridges, that came off the terrace to the south above the Basin and were connected to the tramways. They allowed coal laden skips to off-load their coal into chutes that led into the holds of colliers berthed in the Basin. Each staithe had the potential to load up to 1000 tons a day.
After seven years and an expenditure of £44,892 the extension to the original Basin was completed. The harbour now provided 1748 feet of wharfage; sufficient for 15 vessels to moor alongside. Lady Belmore, the wife of the then Governor, opened the new basin on 6 October 1868 and named it Belmore Basin.During construction of Belmore Basin, the area towards the Pier Head was widened and partially filled and the eastern half of the current Central Pier was constructed to incorporate a widened Pilot's Slipway and stone steps to the outer harbour.
Lighthouse construction and coal facilities
In 1862 the newly constructed tramway of the Mt Pleasant Coal and Iron Co Ltd. brought the first load of coal from its mine to the harbour. The line approached the harbour along the foreshore from North Beach and the alignment is clearly identified by the present cycleway. Both the Mt Pleasant Mine and Mt Keira Mine tramways were initially 3 feet 9 inches gauge but in 1879 they were widened to standard gauge - 4 feet 8 1/2 inches, when steam locomotives replaced the horse drawn skips thereby dramatically increasing the capacity of the mines to deliver coal to the port.
The planned eastern breakwater was built between 1867 and 1869 using stone excavated from the construction of the basin. The breakwater lighthouse was not part of the original plans of the 1859 Moriarty harbour improvements. In 1867, following a deputation to the Minister of Public Works, it was agreed a lighthouse would be constructed. Prior to 1867 the entrance to the harbour was marked with a beacon atop a pole at the end of the Pier
Moriarty made a visit to Wollongong Harbour in January 1870 in company with the Minister and Colonial Architect James Barnet, and again later in June to select a site for a proposed lighthouse (the Wollongong Breakwater Lighthouse).
Tenders were called in October with the successful tenderer a Joseph Mather. The final cost of the lighthouse, including foundations and lantern house and light was in the vicinity of £3,451.
The original light apparatus was dismantled around 1970 and the light permanently extinguished in 1974 but the fabric was substantially restored in 1999-2000 under a State Funded conservation program at a cost of $100,000.
In 1873 a timber wharf, henceforth known as the Steamer Wharf, was built, replacing an earlier 1856 timber wharf. This was the second of three wharf constructions on this site, the last being the present wharf that was constructed in the 1980s.