Location
Stanwell Tops is an exurban locality between the cities of Sydney and Wollongong on the New South Wales, Australia coastline. It lies northwest of Stanwell Park and southwest of Otford. (wikipedia)
History
Stanwell Tops has its origins as a private parcel of land owned by property developer Henry Ferdinand Halloran. Since the 1930s, the area had been host to health retreats, recreational facilities, and popular bushwalking tracks.
The Stanwell Tops Pleasure Park complex operated during the 1930s and 1940s and evolved into a caravan park, until it was shut down in 1951 due to stagnating business. At the same time, the majority of the site was subdivided and sold, creating the permanent community that exists today. The site of the dance hall, the only remaining building of the former Pleasure Park, remained unused until it was sold in 1970 to a private owner who renamed the property and the accompanying mineral pools as the ‘Garden of Peace’, a meditation retreat and de facto community centre. At the turn of the century, the site was sold again and in 2003 opened as the boutique hotel and function centre ‘Tumbling Waters Retreat’.
At the same time as the original Pleasure Park, the Princess Marina Cliff Walk was established; also by Henry Halloran. The walk extended throughout the surrounding bushlands and is still largely intact. Another walking track, the Wodi Wodi trail, links Stanwell Tops with Stanwell Park railway station.
Indigenous history
Stanwell Tops is a part of the Aboriginal land formerly occupied by the Tharawal people, specifically the Wodi Wodi clan. (wikipedia)
Places of Interest
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