GEORGE DAVIES & Co CORDIAL MAKERS KATOOMBA

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Some of you might recall that I found a broken soft drink bottle while on a walk at Lawson a few months ago. (The video may be found here.) The complete wording on the bottle is “2D deposit charged which is refunded on return. This bottle is the property of GEORGE  DAVIES & Co KATOOMBA”. The wording is unusual in that it shows the deposit as tuppence (twopence) instead of the more usual penny. When I was a lad it had gone up to thrippence (threepence). The reason for the 2D deposit would surely have been the great loss of bottles that cordial makers in the Blue Mountains suffered from nonreturns. Just like today, it seems to be harder to carry home an empty bottle than to bring out a full one. Bring back deposits and make it a dollar at least. I could use some extra cash!

The only other marking is AGM on the base, denoting the Australian Glass Manufacturers company (Sydney). This style is found on bottles from around 1920/25.

George Davies Sr

Although it is missing, no doubt the bottle had a machine made crown seal top. I’ve seen other examples of this and similar bottles from the company including the 26 ounce (oz) variety. My example is a 13 oz one; there may be an even smaller 7 oz. There is also a crown seal stone ginger beer and more than likely a much larger stoneware demijohn, soda syphons and possibly 7 oz crown seal soda waters and amber glass ginger beers. The company came into existence too late to have used the older marble bottles, torpedos etc., though they may have been used some of Rowlands bottles with paper labels until their own were ready.

In those days every town had one or more soft drink factories (always called cordial works then) and it is a great field for collectors to acquire specimens and gather information about the makers. In addition to the main centre of Katoomba, there were also cordial works in Blackheath and Leura and possibly Lawson and Springwood.

I haven’t researched the subject in any detail yet, but the names of Bronger and E Rowlands stand out. The firm of Bronger Bros (EW and RJ) was established in Penrith around 1892 when they took over an existing business. The bottles from this firm show a pair of shaking hands as their trademark, no doubt a play on the word “cordial”. RJ Bronger moved to Katoomba in 1895 to establish a cordial factory. This was on the corner of Murri and Kundibar Streets and was subsequently converted into a modern ice works in 1919/20, the water supply being drawn from a deep well on the site. The operator of the ice works was WT Davies (son of George Davies).

The firm of E Rowlands had a long record going back to the gold rush days in Ballarat, where Evan Rowlands began a cordial works in 1854. The business expanded to Melbourne, Sydney and Katoomba. Many of their bottles bear the celebrated "Miner and Farmer” trade mark, though not the Katoomba ones, so far as I know. The connection with Katoomba began in 1888, when land was purchased from which large quantities of pure water were drawn. The water was dispatched to Sydney for use in the factory there, later a cordial works was established on the site in Katoomba. This was in Bent St and presumably the famous “Katoomba Spring” must have been there too. We know for certain that George Davies and Co bought the E Rowlands business in 1920 and that RJ Bronger was an employee of the Rowlands business in 1906, when he lost an eye due to an exploding bottle. Presumably RJ Bronger had ceased making his own aerated waters and went to work for Rowlands some time before.

To get back to George Davies. He appears to have been a coal miner in the early days of Katoomba before becoming a successful butcher, in which trade he continued for the next 40 years. He was Mayor of Katoomba five times and always concerned for the future of his town. Most significantly, from the point of view of this Blog, he was not a cordial maker. It appears that the company “George Davies & Co” was established to provide employment for his son WT Davies on his return from the Great War. We know a lot less about William than his father, George. Something seems to have happened to the ice and cordial businesses after George’s death in September 1923. William’s name vanishes from the advertising after May 1924 and George Davies Junior’s name appears from October that year. No more ads can be traced for the Ice Works after November 1924. As for the aerated waters business, the last advertisement in the “Blue Mountain Echo” appears to be 16^th October 1925 when the firm was looking for a “smart boy, about 16, to work in aerated water factory”. There is an ad in “The Mountaineer” tourist guide for 1927, but this publication was notoriously out of date.

You might say that this is just a taste of the George Davies story. You can find further information on these sites using Trove (here) :

The Ice Works The Blue Mountain Echo, Friday 23 January 1920, p 4

The E Rowlands Takeover The Blue Mountain Echo, Friday 19 November 1920, p 2

George Davies obituary The Blue Mountain Echo, Friday 14 September 1923, p 5

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WENTWORTH FALLS LAKE BLUE MOUNTAINS NSW AUSTRALIA

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It’s not hard to see why a railway dam was constructed at the place we now know as Wentworth Falls. By that, I mean the township, not the waterfall. It is the only place between Glenbrook and Bell where the railway line actually crosses a watercourse.

The 1813 exploration led by Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth successfully crossed the Blue Mountains because they stuck to the principle of following the ridgelines as they moved generally westward from the Nepean River at Emu Plains. When the expedition reached the cliff edge overlooking what we now know as the Jamison Valley at Wentworth Falls, they ran out of a ridgeline to follow. Turning north and keeping the watercourse we know as Jamison Creek on their left, they eventually reached its head and resumed following the main ridgeline again.

George Evans evidently crossed this creek when he retraced their route later that year, according to the plaque in the reserve beside the lake. However, William Cox and his roadmaking team stuck with Blaxland’s track in 1814/15 and headed the creek. He set up a depot near the creek which became known as the Weatherboard Hut, from his note on the map of the road to Bathurst. This appears to have been on the eastern side of the creek near the bridge over the railway line.

As soon as accurate maps began to be made by surveyors, it became clear that the road could be shortened by several miles by crossing the creek instead of going around its head. Just when this happened I don’t know, but you can be sure that Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell would have insisted on this route when the road to Bathurst was being reconstructed in the 1830’s. Charles Darwin stayed at the Weatherboard Inn on the western side of the creek in 1836 and the inn had been there for several years by then. The railway builders of the mid 1860’s naturally followed the same ridgeline as the road and so the railway crossed Jamison Creek just where it does today. Steam engines need prodigious amounts of water and there are few places on the Blue Mountains Line where it can easily be obtained. Weatherboard (as the locality was then called) became the first railhead on 11^th July, 1867 as the tracks pushed westward. So far as I can tell, the first railway dam was built at Lawson (then Blue Mountain) in that year. It wasn’t very adequate even if Blue Mountain was a good place for a watering stop. The supply at Lawson was augmented by larger dams in the valley to the north, the last of these being the ancestor of the Olympic Pool in Wilson Park.

Jamison Creek Below the Dam Wall

The line was soon extended to Mt Victoria, this extension being opened on 1^st May 1868. The chosen spot for watering engines in the upper mountains was Blackheath, originally intended as the temporary terminus. Water was pumped from dams across Pope’s Glen Creek and, as in Lawson, their descendants became swimming holes. The upper one gave rise to today’s beautiful pool in Blackheath’s Memorial Park; the lower dam becoming the duck pond. The water supply from this source eventually became inadequate and a replacement dam was built on Govett’s Leap Brook.

Further dams were needed as the next section of line was constructed, the line descending via the Great Zig Zag into Lithgow’s Valley to the new railhead at Bowenfels. This section was opened on 18^th October 1869. I believe these dams were at Clarence and Zig Zag.

Another dam on Dargan’s Creek (Newnes’ Junction) was needed to service engines on the Newnes branch line some time later.

Eventually it was decided that only the creek at Wentworth Falls could supply the volume of water for the rapidly expanding rail network. The large dam, backing up into what we know as Wentworth Falls Lake, was completed in the early years of the twentieth century and supplied water by a pipeline to watering points as far down the mountains as Valley Heights. This sufficed until electrification and dieselisation made steam engines practically redundant on the Blue Mountains by 1960.

The development of the dam as a recreation area happened over many years. It was too good a resource to go to waste and it has become the most diverse and extensive recreation area in the Blue Mountains City. Now you can have a picnic (with barbecue), enjoy the two children’s play areas, fish from the shore or the dam wall and appreciate the many water birds as you walk around the shores of the lake. Swimming isn’t recommended, however, as it is difficult to guarantee water quality when there are residential areas in the catchment. One improvement is a new, centrally located toilet block. 

Further Information:

My Video: here   Blue Mountains City Council documents: here and here

Blue Mountains City Tourism: here           "Cloudscape" Blog: here

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THE KATOOMBA LANDSLIDES OF 1931

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Photo taken June 1960

What was once a place of high drama is now practically forgotten. The site of these great landslides cannot be seen from any of the well-known lookouts, nor does a sign point to any place from which it can be seen (with the exception of the track from the Scenic Railway). In fact, with the continued discoloration of the once-clean rock face as oxidation takes effect and plants make it their home, the site is beginning to look much the same as the rest of the cliff line. The site is usually referred to as at “the Dog Face Rock”. Presumably this landmark was lost when the cliff collapsed.

Even the jumble of debris at the base of the cliff and down into the valley is becoming overgrown in spite of gravity pulling it further down the slope.

So, what is the story of this place and where can you go to see what remains? We only know that cracks behind the top of the cliffs were first reported in 1929, apparently by a miner returning from work at the coal mine in the valley below.

It became apparent that a major rock fall was imminent, though what that might mean in geological terms wasn’t at all clear, since no-one had witnessed anything like this in the Blue Mountains previously (nor has it been observed since, to my knowledge). As 1930 advanced, the cracks widened noticeably and pieces of rock regularly detached themselves and hurtled into the valley below. Crowds came to watch, hoping to be there for the climax when hundreds of thousands of tons of rock would fall in one great mass.

2014

January 1931 arrived. By this time anybody and everybody was practically holding their breath, waiting for the GREAT EVENT. See the Sydney Morning Herald article (Tuesday 27^th January 1931) here. It happened (unfortunately, as these things tend to happen) around 4am on the morning of 29^th January. There were no witnesses and no photographs, though there are plenty of the lead-up and the aftermath. This was not the end, as things turned out, because it soon became obvious that there would be a further fall before long. This took place on Saturday 2^nd May, at around 2pm, according to the Herald report in the edition of Monday 4 ^th May, page 9 (here). The report mentions witnesses, but evidently they weren’t carrying cameras and I can’t even find a mention of their names. It’s a bit late in 2014 to be asking for eyewitness reports, though. The Sydney Mail of Wednesday 6^th May has a good report, including some photographs taken at around the time of the fall (here). There must have been many smaller falls after this, but people’s interests moved on. This all happened during the Great Depression and there more pressing issues to worry about than yet another landslide at Katoomba.

2014

So where can you go to see the site today? If you take the walk from the bottom of the Scenic Railway towards the Ruined Castle, you will soon find yourself crossing the debris field of the Landslide. See my video on this walk here. See the Wild Walks description and map here.

Landslide Lookout is perched at the highest point of the actual break in the sandstone cliff, but you can’t see the landslide itself from here. You can, however get a good view from Narrow Neck Lookout by heading off through the scrub to the left (ie, away from the Narrow Neck below you). See my video Cliff Drive Lookouts here. There are many places along Glenraphael Drive (which goes along the Narrow Neck peninsula) where you can see the landslide, but naturally they are further away. See my video Narrow Neck Lookouts

Landslide Lookout 2014

here.

An assortment of photographs may be found in Trove here. Finally, I can recommend Barbara Cameron-Smith’s Blog “All Things Written”. She has an entry titled “The Katoomba Landslide Fades into Obscurity?” which you will find here.

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From below June 1960

June 1963

 

THE GIANT STAIRWAY KATOOMBA, BLUE MOUNTAINS NSW AUSTRALIA

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Ranger McKay - first construction phase

This popular walking track leads from the cliff-top near the Three Sisters to the Dardanelles Pass at the base of the cliffs below. It was conceived by Ranger Jim McKay, an employee of the Katoomba Council, which approved the construction of the track in July 1916. By this time the Grand Stairway at Wentworth Falls, Furber Steps at Katoomba Falls and the descent to the bottom of Govett’s Leap at Blackheath had all been in use for a few years.

                   Moss Vale High Students 1972

McKay’s proposal to chip out flights of steps in the cliff face, linked by ladders where necessary, was thought by many to be ridiculous, if not impossible, though the construction of the other three descents showed that it probably could be done, given enough time and effort. McKay and his assistants made good progress, but the middle of the First World War was not the best of times and Council called a halt in August 1918.

It was not until early in 1932 that work resumed, again under the direction of Ranger McKay. They had done such a good job in the earlier construction period that the Stairway was completed in time for the official opening by the Premier of NSW (the Hon. BSB Stevens) in October of that year. See my Blog on Echo Point and the Three Sisters here for information about that event.

Since that day, the stairway has gone through the usual stages of disrepair and renovation common to all Blue Mountains tracks. At present (November 2014) it is in excellent condition but it will always be a challenge to keep it that way.

There is a lot of information in print and on line about this great tourist attraction. Keith Painter’s booklet “The Giant Stairway” (Mountain Mist Books, 2005) may be ordered here. The Blue Mountains Local Studies series is an excellent on line publication. You will find an article on the Giant Stairway here. Of videos, there is no end. I’ll confine myself to just two – my own (here) and an unusual one of a running descent, which makes me glad that I am not that sort of fanatic (here).

McKay's Lookout Leura 2013

It seems as if the workers who constructed these Blue Mountains masterpieces have had scant recognition. Underpaid and overworked, they were clearly people who loved what they did. Their monuments are the sculptured cliffs and outcrops they left for our benefit. Jim McKay’s name is remembered in two places today. The first is the line at the bottom of the plaque at the top of the Giant Stairway, which looks like an afterthought. The second is the neglected lookout between Leura Cascades and the old Kiosk, just off Cliff Drive. I think he deserves more than that.

 The photograph opposite is from the Northern Star (Lismore), 28th September 1932. The associated text reads: "A party of  aldermen and officials making an inspection of the stairway while in the course of construction.The successful completion of this work has provided a connecting line with the famous Federal Pass midway between Katoomba Falls and Leura Falls.This stairway should prove the most popular attraction on the Blue Mountains. It will be officially opened by the Premier of N.S.W., Mr Stevens, on October 1, 1932."

Leura Forest picnic area

It has indeed become one of the most popular attractions on the Blue Mountains. What would the writer think of Scenic World, I wonder?

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THE GRAND CANYON BLACKHEATH BLUE MOUNTAINS NSW AUSTRALIA

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Blackheath’s Grand Canyon is one of the Blue Mountains’ icons. The track through it was opened by the Premier of NSW (Mr JH Carruthers) in February 1907. This was a period when the competition between the Blue Mountains communities to attract tourists and their spending money was at a peak. Blackheath, Katoomba and Wentworth Falls in particular were constructing new tracks and lookouts and the Grand Canyon track is one of the best.

Walking conditions were a lot tougher in those days. Ladders, where required, were constructed out of bush timber on the spot. Steps were hewn out of the sandstone along hundreds of tracks. Lookout railings were made of whatever could be found cheaply, often

bush timber but sometimes old water pipes and odd bits of scrap iron were called into service.

While many well-made steps from those days remain in the Grand Canyon, the rough and ready railings and ladders have gone. In recent years, the National Parks and Wildlife Service has done a remarkable job replacing steps, ladders and railings while preserving the wild character of this beautiful place.

At the time the track through the canyon was completed, it linked up several existing tracks – at the Fernery on the Rodriguez Pass (just above Beauchamp Falls), at Neate’s Glen and at Wall’s Cave.

The Tunnel

 The Wall’s Cave connection was severed years ago by the construction of a water supply dam on Greave’s Creek so that today the round trip takes in Evan’s Lookout, the descent to the canyon via the Fernery, the canyon proper, the ascent through Neate’s Glen and the track alongside the road back to the lookout. There were also connections with roads built from Medlow Bath in the heyday of the Hydro Majestic Hotel, but these have become obscure with the passage of time.

When you read old newspaper reports, it is extraordinary to discover how many people have been lost or injured in the vicinity. There have also been a number of fatalities. There are numerous complaints about poor signposting leading to visitors 

getting lost, though you could hardly say that about today’s track.

Going Down?

A modern hazard for some is the rise of canyoning, a sport which takes intrepid groups down into the narrow and often water-filled places which abound in parts of the Blue Mountains. The Grand Canyon, where Greave’s Creek vanishes into the depths for some considerable distance, is one of the best known, so do not be surprised if you encounter canyoners wearing wet suits and carrying ropes as you pass through on the walking track.

Here are some links to sites which will help you appreciate this exciting walk even more.

My video is here, made on a walk in July 2014. A video produced by the National Parks and Wildlife Service may be viewed here. Another, this time of a canyoning trip, may be found here. 

My Blue Mountains you Tube playlist is here. I have three other playlists - on gem hunting/mining, Glen Innes and New Zealand.

  From the Sydney Morning Herald, 18th February 1907.

"The Premier, in reply, said he took a great interest in developing the traffic to the tourist resorts. New South Wales was the best of all the States. The people did not recognise that they had the best climate and scenery in Australasia at their own doors. He was glad to see the trustees had done good work with limited means. He appreciated the beautiful canyon, and hoped it would be visited by thousands of people."

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