Great Western Highway - History

History

Parramatta Road had its genesis in a 3 metre wide track cut through the thick scrub from Sydney to Parramatta in 1790. From Parramatta to Penrith, on the Nepean River at the foot of the Blue Mountains, a track existed from the first decade of the 19th century.

In 1813, acting on the instructions of NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth travelled west from Emu Plains, on the Nepean River opposite Penrith, and by staying to the ridges were able to confirm the existence of a passable route directly west from Sydney across the Blue Mountains. The existence of other, less direct routes had been known as far back as 1797, but due to the need to prevent convicts from believing that escape from the hemmed-in Sydney region was possible, knowledge of the expeditions confirming the existence of routes across the Blue Mountains was suppressed.

By 1813, under Macquarie’s astute governorship the colony had begun to evolve from a penal settlement to an economic colony, and there was a desperate need to increase the food supply and confirm the existence of lands suitable for the expansion of agriculture and thus economic development.

Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth travelled as far west as the point they named Mount Blaxland, 25 km southwest of where Lithgow now stands. From this point they were able to see that the worst of the almost impenetrable terrain of the Blue Mountains was behind them, and that there were easy routes available to reach the rolling countryside they could see off to the west.

Macquarie then despatched Surveyor William Evans to follow Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth's route and to push further west until he reached arable land. Evans travelled west until he reached the river known to the local Wiradjuri people as Wambool, today called the Fish River, and followed it downstream until he reached the site of Bathurst.

Within a year, Governor Macquarie had engaged William Cox of Richmond to construct a road west from Emu Plains, following Evans’ route, and this road was finished in 1815. Macquarie himself travelled across it soon after completion, established and named Bathurst, and named the road the Great Western Road.

The section of the Great Western Road as far west as Mount Victoria is with very few deviations still in use today as part of the Great Western Highway (it was designated as a state highway when administration of the NSW main road system was reorganised in 1928). West of here however there have been extensive alterations to Evans' original route, so that almost half of the original route has been superseded. These changes are described below.