As part of National Archaeology Week, two Wollongong-based archaeologists uncovered some of the secrets that may lie beneath the modern-day town. KATE McILWAIN joined their tour back in time.
The shiny steel, glass and concrete apartment towers rising up from Corrimal and Crown Streets have become symbols of Wollongong’s future.
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With thousands of residents moving in to the high rise blocks which now cover the eastern edge of town, the new buildings are a product of the construction boom and – the council says – point to prosperity and a growing CBD population.
But, thanks to recent archaeological digs undertaken during their development, the Oxford and Crown complexes have also become important pointers back to Wollongong’s past.
Last month, the results of the digs formed part of a city tour led by Alexander Beben and Lian Flannery, from local heritage firm Biosis, which aimed to highlight what does – and what might – lie underground the city of 2017.
Old Wollongong Gaol
Our tour starts where European settlement of Wollongong did: near the harbour and among convicts.
If you walk behind the sandstone arches of the Old Court House on Harbour Street, about half way along the laneway you’ll find yourself standing in jail.
“This whole area was the government reserve,” senior archaeologist Alexander Beben said. “When everyone first arrived, they set up a place for soldiers, police and the court house. Then in the 1860s, they set up a really big jail.”
According to Biosis maps, which is based on a series of small excavations carried out over the past 20 years, the jail’s floor plan ran under some of the houses backing on to the laneway, through backyards and almost to the edge of Lang Park.
As well as revealing the huge rectangular structure, excavations also revealed how some of the cottages were made out of crushed bricks from the prison.
Ms Flannery said the archaeology of the jail remained well preserved and – if the houses on site were to be razed – would be intact underground.
Brighton Hotel
In contrast, the site of Wollongong’s earliest hotel and stores has been found to be archaeologically sterile.
Nevertheless, the site which now houses a yellow-beige apartment building comes with an interesting story, in which the publican of the town’s first hotel and stores was given permission to build sea baths.
“What he actually built was a great big square structure on wheels that patrons would get into and get undressed, and then he would push it down the beach and into the water, so you could swim on the beach in privacy,” Ms Flannery recounts. “He called it the Mermaid. It wasn’t very popular, because people were afraid of sharks even through they were contained in this box.”
Throsby’s Stockman’s Hut
Like the hotel, the area around Charles Throsby’s stockyard – which runs from the beach to WIN Stadium –is rich in history but lacking in archaeological certainty.
Of particular interest, Ms Flannery and Mr Beben say, is the exact location of the stockman’s hut built on the land.
Until we actually break ground we never actually know what's under there.
- Senior archaeologist Alexander Beben
There’s a plaque at the corner of Harbour Street and Smith Street which commemorates its likely location, however the pair say there’s never been any hard evidence making it something of a holy grail for Wollongong historians.
“The hut was actually the place where the first five land grants for the Illawarra were distributed,” Mr Beben said.
“So if it was ever found it would be really quite significant, important on a state level, because it relates to how the whole of the South Coast was populated.”
Market Square
The clipped lawns and neat paths in Wollongong’s Market Square don’t give much away, but Mr Beben and Ms Flannery say there’s likely to be an unexplored treasure trove of historic remains.
The square was marked out as a marketplace in the original private town of Wollongong, however it ended up becoming an intensive commercial hub in the mid-19th century, according to Mr Beben.
“This whole area was ringed by about four or five pubs and inns, there were stores in the corners and other commercial properties,” he said. “That means the properties around the outside have probably got the remains of those businesses under them.”
Roman Catholic Cemetery
A little way up the road, at the front of WIN Entertainment Centre, the remains of up to 500 people are entombed under an expanse of concrete.
Mr Beben said there were about 260 known graves, with those buried there including some of the first Catholic settlers.
Oxford and Crown
Biosis began working on the Oxford Tavern site in 2013 and revealed their findings from the digs two years later.
Among plates, beer and champagne bottles dating back to the 1800s, it was found the Corrimal Street site was home to a roller-skating rink in 1889, after the temperance hotel on that site was sold. Also uncovered on the site was the 1841 footings of the Wollongong Head Inn and Family Hotel, which was eventually demolished in 1915 for the construction of the Oxford Tavern.
At the neighbouring Crown Wollongong site, formerly Dwyers car dealership, more than 4000 items were unearthed. Most prominent were the remains of the Cricketers Arms Hotel, which was built in 1859 and remained until 1943.
Together the two sites helped to fill in historic gaps about how the main commercial thoroughfare developed from the 1830s.