The Cox's Road and Early Deviations – Hartley, Clarence Hilly Range and Mount Blaxland Precinct is a heritage-listed road at The Old Bathurst Road, Hartley in the City of Lithgow local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and built by William Cox from 1814 to 1826 with the support of a convict road party. It is also known as Cox's Road and Early Deviations - Hartley, Clarence Hilly Range / Mount Blaxland Precinct 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 ridges and valleys of the Blue Mountains, have been used as a transport corridor by people for tens of thousands of years. In the first 25 years of the settlement at Sydney Cove, several attempts were made to cross the mountains, but none resulted in a recognised successful crossing. Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth, searching for new pasturage made their famous "first" crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813. The so-called "First Crossing" 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.
The hill now named Mount Blaxland is situated south-west of Mount York and south of Lithgow. In the published version of his journal, Gregory Blaxland wrote that on 31 May 1813:S Lavelle, 2013: Chapter 8 "Mount Blaxland: The Terminal Point and the Re-Claiming of Ownership" p. 186
Mount Blaxland was named by Surveyor G. W. Evans, sent by Governor Macquarie to confirm the discovery of a passage over the Blue Mountains, in November 1813. Evans also plotted the location of the three sugar loaf shaped hills (Mount Blaxland, Lawson's Sugarloaf and Wentworth's Sugarloaf) on the map he prepared showing the traverse of the route he had followed.G. W. Evans, 1814, Plan of Journey to Bathurst from Emu Ford to Bathurst, prepared by Governor Macquarie's direction for the Guidance of William Cox, State Records NSW, Map SZ 160-162, SZ 313-315, SZ 316.
William Cox began to examine a route for the road in the vicinity of Mount Blaxland on 11 December 1814. He commented in his Journal as follows:Whitaker, 2014: Chapter 4, William Cox's Journal: 65-66
A line which climbed a very long, steep and high ridge to the south of Mount Blaxland was selected and road-making commenced under the supervision of Mr Hobby by 13 December 2014. A few days later Cox noted that the road was completed 'except [for] turning some rock out of it after you ascend the hill at Blaxland's Mountain'. The road was finished as far as Jock 's Creek by 17 December and to around Mary Anne Creek by 24 December. Cox's Journal records that ten small bridges were built over creeks between Cox' s River and the Fish River.
During his tour over the newly completed Cox's Road in 1815, Governor Macquarie also described both Mount Blaxland and the road in the vicinity:Macquarie, Journals of His Tours, entry for 1 May 1815, p. 94.Mackaness, Fourteen Journeys, p. 69
A survey of the route of the Bathurst Road was completed by James McBrien in 1823. McBrien's fieldbook for this survey included a note that the road begins a "descent at the end on [or of?] the highest point of Mount Blaxland".J. McBrien, 1823, Field Book No. 205, p. 44, State Records NSW
Over the next few years minor deviations and improvements were made to Cox's Road in this area of hilly country. In 1827 letters describing a journey to Bathurst along Cox's Road were published in the Australian newspaper under the pseudonym "X.Y.Z", probably by Captain William Dumaresq who had been appointed Inspector of Roads and Bridges in 1826. Describing his journey, "X.Y.Z." wrote: The road from Cox's River is good enough, but every quarter of an hour you must dismount, either to walk your horse up or down the hills, which are tremendous and follow one another in rapid succession. Mount Blaxland is long and steep, and the road is taken over the very summit. The view does not repay you for the trouble of ascending, but ascend you must or stop and starve, for it is a desolate and barren place.Mackaness, Fourteen Journeys, p. 181
By 1829 Major Edmund Lockyer had selected a new line of road to Bathurst which completely abandoned the route via the Clarence Hilly Range and the Fish River. Lockyer's Road was soon superseded by that proposed by Major Thomas Mitchell, who had become Surveyor General in 1828. Mitchell re-surveyed the line of the road between Mount York and Bathurst, preparing a map showing a new line in 1830. This map showed the route of Cox's Road to Bathurst via the Fish River as the "Present Road by Mt Blaxland". Considering he had found a superior route, Mitchell ordered the transfer of the convict gangs from work near Mount York to the Mount Victoria descent in January 1830."Sketch of the Road to Bathurst" marked out in 1830 according to a sketch made in 1827', Anon.,[but probably T. L. Mitchell] , State Records NSW, AO Map 5027. Same map also included in Mitchell's 1855, Report on Roads.
These developments meant that the old Bathurst Road "by Mount Blaxland" was little used, except as access to private properties, which in this area were being occupied from the 1830s.
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 Crown Road is still reserved and shown on the cadastre in this area running from McKanes Falls Road to the Rydal-Hampton Road. Here the line of Cox's Road becomes more difficult to access as the road itself does not always align with the modern tracks or with what is noted as the "Old Bathurst Road". Therefore, the actual road itself crosses in and out of private property. The physical evidence of the 1814 road where it is present through this area at the beginning of the "Clarence Hilly Range" is also overlaid with later 1820s work, essentially upgrading, re-building and improvement of the older road for at least a decade (most undertaken to 1827) before it was by-passed by the new lines selected by Lockyer in 1829 and by Mitchell in 1830. Both Mount York and the road by Mount Blaxland were avoided by the new road route.
The evidence of road-building in this area includes more than one line, with most of the obvious extant fabric appearing to date from a later era than 1814. The modern unsealed farm track which coincides with the Old Bathurst Road runs some distance north of the line surveyed by McBrien in 1823. Cox's original road in this area likely required little cutting or forming over the easy grades, and therefore did not leave extensive physical evidence. There are remnants of pavement, quantities of cut stone, stone retaining walls of different sophistication and style, a constructed road zig-zag and stone box-culverts, all of which appear to relate to much later 1820s improvements.
The reserved Crown Road diverges from the unsealed farm track and begins to climb to the southwest through more thickly timbered country. Here parts are cut through pink granite and various partly worked stone is lying around with short sections of retaining wall and some early road pavement evident, generally with a width of about . At approximately from the base of the hill, the road is formed into a substantial zig-zag which extends for . The zig-zag is supported by carefully constructed retaining walls which commence with a single course of roughly broken stone as edging and then rise steadily to about in height, with some stones squared, many not, but with a relatively smooth face. The bonding is random with the largest stones at the bottom and an even coping course at the top.
The road here also features a packed stone pavement. Various piles of broken or worked stone left over from building operations scattered beside the road formation. There are also some sections of earth-faced cuttings and the road formation increases in width up to wide. At approximately from the end of the wall, a primitive stone box culvert is present, wide and deep, set on walls of two courses of squared stone, with a roughly cut lintel and an earthen floor. On the opposite side is a depression over the inlet area, and section of stone edged side drain is visible. The drain may continue further back down to the zig-zag, but it would need archaeological work to clear and excavate the area to determine this.
Although McBrien's 1823 survey follows the line of this zig-zag, Grace Karskens has argued that comparative archaeological evidence suggests that the stone walls, formation width and pavement were added later as part of improvements to the original Cox's Road. Karskens comments that:Karskens, 1988: Mount Blaxland Precinct 14, p. 91
In the vicinity of the "Old Bathurst Road" there are also a number of other road formations which appear to be early diversions and attempted improvements. Usually Cox's Road occupies the top or higher contours of the hillside. Cox's Road is characterised by steep unbroken climbs, narrow width, minimal cuttings and very rough simple retaining walls often using un-worked field stone or very crudely shaped boulders. The later road formations tend to be more curved and more carefully follow the contours or are actually built into the hillside in an attempt to improve the steep gradients of the original road. Further along the Old Bathurst Road there is another section of the walling which extends for almost one kilometre and features stone box culvert in the centre as the road climbs to the summit of the range at a height of more than 1000 metres above sea level. From the summit the line is indistinct, running directly down the grassy slopes of the ridge then passes over a saddle and descending through bushland and then more open and easier rolling countryside.
Cox's Journal also noted that a number of bridges were needed in this area, however, few definite 1814 bridge sites have been located at any of the small creeks crossed by the presently reserved Old Bathurst Road. Remains of an early bridge which had been exposed by recent flooding were previously noted at Mary Anne Creek by Karskens in 1988. That bridge was identified as being pre-1827 and possibly even dating to the first phase of road building.Karskens 1988: Mount Blaxland Precinct 14, p. 88 ff. From Mary Anne Creek the road rises uphill again, simply following vehicle tracks to the gate beside the "Karawatha" property which fronts the Rydal-Hampton Road.