Glenrock Lagoon - History

History

The first coal discovered in Australia must be given to the escaped convicts William & Mary Bryant on their journey to Timor. They were the first Europeans to set foot in the area, discovering coal near the entrance to Glenrock Lagoon on 30 March 1791. They named it Fortunate Creek because they found food there and friendly Aborigines. However, the news did not get back to Sydney and it was Lieut John Shortland R. N. who received credit for the discovery of coal in Newcastle on 9 September 1797. Even today, coal can still be found in the cliff face on the northern headland at the mouth of Glenrock Lagoon.

In a letter dated 12 October 1842, to W. Kirchner of Sydney, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt describes a walk through the valley on his way from Newcastle to Redhead via Charlestown. On this walk he described the view of the lagoon from a high vantage point. That vantage point is today known as "Leichhardt Lookout", which is on the Great North Walk. "You'll have heard of the Valley of Palms. It happens that there are very few palms there, which makes it by so much the richer in other kinds of plants. It's a narrow, rocky gully with steep sides which widens out towards the sea. The slopes are covered with the most luxurious vegetation, trees and bushes are bound together by climbers, and the trunks of the trees are covered with parasitic plants. Floods, that have swept down with irresistible power during the heavy winter rains, have uprooted big trees, and have produced the wildest conflagration of closely entangled life and death."

In 1883 the Burwood Coal Mining Company was formed, but it was December 1884 before a shaft was started which was completed on 10 May 1885. A private railway was built from the mine across the lagoon around the cliff face and along Burwood Beach (then known as Smelters Beach). At this time it was known as the Redhead Railway because the colliery on the lagoon was called Redhead Colliery on Glenrock Lagoon.

Flaggy Creek had been surveyed but not named as early as 1828, as shown on a map by Henry Dangar who was a local Newcastle land owner. On that map, which is held in the National Library of Australia, shows the main road south through the area which will be called Charlestown, the Burwood Road ridge line called "Wahrah" and the unnamed Flaggy Creek. During the latter half of the 20th century, this creek was unofficially referred to by local families as Rocky Creek and provided a well watered bushland setting for the children of Kahibah to play.