Location
Appin is a town in the Macarthur Region of New South Wales, Australia in Wollondilly Shire. It is situated about 16 kilometres south of Campbelltown and 35 kilometres northwest of Wollongong.
(Wikipedia)
History
Appin is in the lands of the Dharawal people.
European settlement in the Appin district was prohibited for some years; Appin was part of the ‘Cowpastures’ where a small herd of cattle had established themselves, having escaped from the Sydney Cove settlement. To protect these and help feed the colony, Governor Macquarie ordered ‘No person to hunt or travel into the Cowpastures without a licence under penalty of death’.
Naturalist George Caley visited the area in 1807 exploring ‘from Prospect to the upper waters of George’s River and the Cataract and Cordeaux Rivers’ and reporting his findings. Settlement began in 1811 with a 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) land grant by Governor Macquarie to William Broughton, who had arrived with the First Fleet. For the next five years, smaller grants of 40 to 150 acres (0.61 km2) were made to a score or so of others, former soldiers, and emancipated convicts. Governor Macquarie was pleased to give ‘The District of Appin’ its name, after Appin, in the Scottish West Highlands where his wife, Elizabeth, was born.
Dharawal people made friendships among several Appin settlers, but others came into conflict. In 1814, both Aborigines and Europeans died in skirmishes, usually over stolen crops. After further deaths at Bringelly. Governor Lachlan Macquarie sent a punitive expedition to round up all Aborigines in the area. Those who resisted were to be shot. On 16 April, at least 14 were killed by shooting; others were driven to jump to their deaths into a rocky gorge, near Broughton Pass.
A town plan was completed in 1834. Several of the proposed street names are in use today, including Toggerai, the Dharawal name for the Upper reaches of the Georges River. A track from Campbelltown was in use from 1815; as settlement advanced along coastal Illawarra, routes to Sydney found their way up the escarpment, and through Appin; the resulting traffic increased the town’s prosperity.
Appin had a permanent Post Office by 1841, and a telephone line was connected to it in 1888. Appin had to wait until 1945 for an electricity supply. Despite its proximity to several large dams, Appin did not receive a reticulated water supply until 1961. As of 2010, a town sewerage scheme is in its planning stages.
Several examples of early sandstone buildings remain in Appin’s commercial centre on Appin Road. These include the former Courthouse and Gaol (1860s), the derelict Appin Inn (1826), a stone cottage used as offices, built circa 1840, the Headmaster’s residence at the primary school, and St. Bede’s Roman Catholic Church, 1834-7. Other buildings of heritage value include the disused motor garage at Darcy’s Corner (1955), the Appin Hotel (1840), and St Mark The Evangelist Church (1843). (Wikipedia)
Places of Interest
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