Cox's Road and Early Deviations – Mount York, Cox's Pass Precinct is a heritage-listed former colonial road and now walking track at Mount York Road (off), Mount Victoria, City of Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and built by William Cox from 1814, with the assistance of the convict road party. It is also known as Old Bathurst Road; Bathurst Road; Historic Crossings Walking Track and Coxs Road. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 25 March 2015.
History The road from Emu Ford to Bathurst, a distance of was completed in only six months during 1814 and 1815 by a working party composed mostly of convicts. Governor Lachlan Macquarie decided to have a carriage road constructed across the Blue Mountains, to the country which had been "newly discovered" by Europeans in 1813.
The so called "First Crossing" of 1813 took place on the traditional lands of the Dharug, Gundungurra and Wiradjuri people. Other routes through the ridges and valleys of the Blue Mountains had been used by Aboriginal people for tens of thousands of years.
Cox was born in Wimborne Minster, Dorset in 1764. He married Rebecca Upjohn at Clerkenwell, London in 1789. Cox arrived in NSW on board the "Minerva" in January 1800. Cox became Chief Magistrate at Windsor in 1810 and in July 1814 Governor Macquarie made William Cox the Superintendent of the works for a new road over the Blue Mountains. His first wife died in 1819 and Cox married Anna Blachford in 1821. He died on 15 March 1837.
Mount York is found at the end of a spur which projects westward from the main Blue Mountains ridge, on the edge of the western escarpment. It has a spectacular view westwards over the Hartley Valley, Kanimbla Valley and the Vale of Clywdd. The view from Mount York became a symbolic focus as a vista of the western lands revealed after the struggle and triumph of the First Crossing.S. Lavelle, 1813 A Tale that Grew in the Telling, Chapter 5 "Mount York: The Right Connotations and a Great View", WriteLight Pty Ltd, 2013
The construction of a descent from the bluff at Mount York took William Cox and his road party five weeks between 7 November and 14 December 1814. The actual building of the road involved the definition of a trafficable route which was then cleared of vegetation (trees being cut-off below ground level but rarely "grubbed out"), boulders and rocky outcrops. The formation of the road itself was as minimal as the terrain allowed, with low side-cuttings and embankments as necessary. The actual construction and completion of the road is recorded in Cox's Journal. Cox's journal indicates that three areas in particular required extensive cutting through rocky outcrops; at Linden to Woodford, Wentworth Falls and the descent at Mount York.
In early November 1814 Cox sent several different parties to examine the mountain "at the end of the ridge" and the adjacent ridges and gullies to seek the best line for the building of a road descent to the valley below. He described the route as "going down steep between immense large boulders" and "bounded both by steep gullies and rocks" and noted "it is with much difficulty a person can get down at all". He doubted it was possible to "make a good road to go down and up again" without great cost in labour, time and materials and therefore settled on making a basic road suitable for a light and unloaded cart, or for the driving of stock down the "Herculean mountain".
The present Mount York Road adopts a similar line to Cox's Road along the top of the ridge with minor deviations from the original route. Two signposted "Historic Wells" along this route about 500 metres south of Barden's Lookout, are unlikely to be original works associated with the 1814 road. Cox's Journal makes no reference to well-digging even though the road party was in this area for several weeks, but he does refer to water being transported in kegs "from the rocks below".
Cox referred in his Journal to "hard ground" full of "very large rocks" and he commented frequently on the amount of time, labour and gunpowder needed to complete the pass down the mountain with large rocks cut and "turned out" of the road line or blasted away. Examples of the Journal entries are as follows:Cox's journal, C708-2, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, digitised at: http://www.acmssearch.sl.nsw.gov.au/search/itemDetailPaged.cgi?itemID=457616"Memoirs of William Cox, JP", William Brooks and Co, 1901A H C Whitaker, William Cox and Cox's Road: A Bicentenary Souvenir, 2014: Chapter 4.
This extensive work over a five-week period in late 1814 has left substantial physical remnants of old Cox's Road visible in this area, including cuttings, gutters, retaining walls, fence sockets, and two bridge sites. These obvious remnants made this section of Cox's Road one of the best known and most celebrated in the past.
Cox's Pass and Cox's River were both specifically named by Governor Macquarie in 1815. The Government and General Order of 10 June 1815, gave lavish praise to William Cox:
Governor Macquarie's own Journal of his 1815 Tour along the road also noted:
With this description of Mount York and Cox's Pass, Governor Macquarie used the kind of extravagant rhetoric which subsequently found favour with others who wrote about the history of the Western Road, wanting to invest it with symbolic meaning. Cox's Road was quickly modified and then superseded by alternative road descents from the Mount York ridge, initially Lawson's Long Alley in 1823/24, and then Lockyer's Road in 1829. The entire ridge was bypassed with the transfer of convicts to work on Mitchell's Pass and the Great Western Road during the 1830s.S. Lavelle, 2013:133
The spectacular views over the Hartley Valley from the famous vantage point of Mount York and the presence of historic relics of the Cox's Road (also described as the old Bathurst Road) contributed to its selection as the major site for commemoration during the 1913 Centenary Celebrations for the "First Crossing" of the Blue Mountains. The speeches and publications prepared at that time used elaborate rhetoric about explorers, visionary Governors, road-builders and pioneers. The Mount York reserve was again the setting for the major civic event held in May 2013 as part of Bicentennial Commemorations of the Crossings of the Blue Mountains.
The Pass at Mount York remains one of the most intact and most significant surviving sections of the 1814–1815 Cox's Road, and it is accessible as a walking track from the public reserve at the end of Mount York Road.
Description William Cox had been instructed by Governor Macquarie only to open a rough cart road, so that the new lands found in the western plains would be symbolically open. The road from Emu Ford to Bathurst, a distance of was completed in only six months. Macquarie's instructions specified that the road should be at least wide in order that two carts would be able to pass each other, and that the timber should be cleared on each side so that the road corridor was wide. Stumps were to be grubbed out and any holes should be filled in. The surviving physical evidence shows relatively few locations where the extant road conforms with the dimensions specified in the instructions.
A signposted walking track commences from the public reserve at the end of Mount York Road. Near the summit, intermittent low cuttings are evident, with much later steps cut or built into the line of the actual road. (loc: –33.552892,150.220082). There is also a section of low stone wall running beside the track for about , giving the road formation a width of about . The physical evidence at the top of the pass is heavily overlaid by much more recent activity related to construction of the modern walking track and other erosion control and bush regeneration activities. Much modern work including low rock walling and new sandstone steps confuse and obscure the original nature of Cox's Road. About from the summit the road divides, the early road continuing on the north (left) side and another early 1820s deviation to avoid the rocky outcrops to the south (right). The two descents rejoin after about .
The 1814 road features a very clear "Cox gutter" which curves down the hill. The gutter is up to high and is identified with an inset metal plaque. Slightly lower down the hill on a boulder to the left of the road, are three distinct rectangular sockets cut into the rock. Another plaque identifies these as likely to be sockets to take the rails for a timber fence. (loc –33.553019,150.222457). A timber-railed fence is shown in several of the early views of Cox's Pass, including three by J. W. Lewin in 1815 (showing two rails) and another by Pellion in 1819 (showing three rails). Cox's Journal also refers to the men and the carpenter splitting posts and rails "for fencing the road down the mountain". Close to the fence sockets, the same large boulder features a large area of rock cutting. This bears a plaque which states that the pick marks evident were made to allow Governor Macquarie's coach to pass along the route in 1815. This appears to be a fanciful interpretation made by the early reserve trustees as none of the journals for the Macquarie expedition mention such an event which would be expected to have delayed the journey for some time.
The 1814 road continues through a series of large rock outcrops, several with deep overhangs (loc: –33.553734,150.222437) which are apparently those Cox described as so "lofty and undermined" that the men of the road party were able to take shelter in them and "sleep dry". Dramatic large rock overhangs appear in several early views showing travel down Cox's Pass in the 1820s (possibly based on earlier drawings by Lewin). The distinctively shaped rocks illustrated in these images may still be seen on the Pass today.
About below where the two road loops rejoin, the site of Cox's second "land bridge" is evident. (loc: –33.553548,150.223882). Another metal sign identifies this location. There is a flat stone outcrop which has rock-cut sockets and trenches apart into which timber supports/ beams would have been placed. Cox's Journal also refers to two "large trees", long respectively, which were "fixed as side pieces to the bridge". At the southern end of the bridge site there is also a rock-cut drain which would have directed any water run-off from the steep hillside away from the bridge.
The bridge would have been finished with slabs as primitive decking fixed to the beams (effectively crude log stringers) the whole probably resting on a fill of earth and large broken stones quarried and "turned out" of the mountainside. The last work on this bridge was the placement of another tree long and in circumference which was "fixed as a side piece below the bridge and joining the rock". Cox records that the stonemason also completed some rock-work below the bridge. This is evident as a low rock retaining wall supporting the road below the bridge where there is a cutting on the upper side but the width of the road formation decreases from wide.
The road continues to descend to the base of the hill in a northerly direction and on a steep gradient with a cut and fill formation, the fill comprising earth and remnants of possible stone rubble pavement. There are some areas of retaining wall and also of picked or chiselled cuttings, some of which are up to high. One cutting bears the distinct letters WRP. It has been suggested that this inscription stands for "Western Road Party". It is unclear whether this inscription was related to the actual 1814 road party or to a slightly later phase, although its roman serif lettering is very similar in style to other inscriptions found on Colonial-era roads.