Linden (526m) This location was originally known as Seventeen Mile Hollow. A toll house and turnpike gates were erected here in 1849. The toll keeper, Thomas Ellison, acquired some 5 acres of land adjacent to the toll bar and built an inn here ca1857. The toll house, gates and inn were all demolished during the… Read More »
Faulconbridge (447m( Sir Henry Parkes bought 600 acres of land here in 1876 and named his residence Faulconbridge, the maiden name of his mother. A railway platform with this name was built to service his needs in 1877. Parkes, his first wife and two of his sons are buried in the cemetery he established here.… Read More »
Winmalee (305m) This area was originally known as North Springwood until, in 1969, the Geographical Names Board made the decision to seek a new name. As the result of a community competition, the name Winmalee was chosen and became official in 1972. The word is said to be of Aboriginal origin (not local) and to… Read More »
Springwood (371m) This location was named by Governor Lachlan Macquarie when he camped here on his outward journey over Cox’s new road in April 1815. He wrote in his journal: “We then haulted at three o’clock in a very pretty wooded plain near a spring of very good fresh water, and pitched our tent near… Read More »
Valley heights (322m) Willaim Cox referred in 1815 to “The Valley” as a suitable site for watering and feeding stock. By 1832 it had been designated as a resting place for stock and was known as Fitzgerald’s Valley (possibly after Richard Fitzgerald who Governor Macquarie had appointed Superintendent of the agricultural farm at Emu Plains… Read More »
Warrimoo (273m) In 1881 a small timber railway platform was built approximately 500 metres west of the present railway station. This was meant to serve a new Richardson & Wrench subdivision named Karabar Estate. By the end of 1897 lack of patronage led to the closure of the Karabar platform. When the railway line was… Read More »
Mount Riverview Land in this area did not go up for public sale until 1920. One of the early purchasers was Bernard Francis Cummins who appears to have named his property Mount Riverview. In 1931 he erected a lookout in a tree on his property which he advertised as the Mount Riverview Lookout. For a… Read More »
Blaxland (234m) This area at the junction of the first three roads up the eastern escarpment was first referred to by the name of the inn, The Pilgrim, which was established here in the late 1820s. When a platform was built here on the arrival of the railway in 1867 it became known as Wascoe’s… Read More »
Glenbrook (163m) The origin of this name goes back to 1818 when Sir John Jamison, while exploring the Nepean and Warragamba Rivers, named a tributary Glen Brook (now Glenbrook Creek). When the railway was built across the Blue Mountains the location became known as Watertank, a stopping place for the steam engines to draw water… Read More »
Lapstone (106m) The name “Lapstone Hill” was in use from at least the 1820s and derives from the shape of numerous water-worn stones in the area which were once a part of the bed of the ancient Nepean River. To road workers and travellers they resembled the lap stones used by cobblers. In 1822 Mrs… Read More »