Prospect Hill - Myths and facts

Myths and history

There is abundant documentary evidence about the colonisation of Australia by the British, the details of the explorations of New South Wales, of the life of the settlement and of contact with the indigenous people in those first few years. Yet myths have arisen about this period which are at variance with this historical evidence. Someone has imagined how something might have happened, or has misinterpreted the evidence, or has not looked at the contemporary documents that do exist. Some of these myths concern the history of Prospect Hill.

I believe that it is important to dispel false myths about historical events. The works of the earliest writers of the colonial period are now very accessible, thanks to the Internet. People like Arthur Phillip, David Collins, John Hunter, Watkin Tench, Philip Gidley King, William Dawes, John White and many others did have a particular point of view, that of British naval officers and administrators. Knowing about their bias we can allow for it. In fact some were quite sympathetic to the position of the convicts and the indigenous people of New South Wales as well as to the free settlers. We cannot ignore their factual accounts of what happened.

Here are a few issues concerning Prospect Hill about which myths have arisen.

Which hill did Governor Phillip climb on 26th April 1788?

There is a persistent tradition that an expedition led by Governor Arthur Phillip heading west from the head of Sydney Harbour climbed Prospect Hill on 26th April 1788. This is repeated as fact in many histories and official documents.

However the earliest version of this story (referring to the hill as Prospect Hill) that I can find dates from as recently as 1982 (Kennedy 1982). What can be established from documents written at the time is far simpler than the traditional version implies. In essence it is as follows.

On 26th April 1788 a party led by Phillip explored the area west of Parramatta. Phillip wrote, "The fifth day we got to a rising ground... The country round this hill was so beautiful that I called the hill Bellevue..." (Hist Rec NSW 1, pp 133-134).

An account by John White, Surgeon-General to the Colony, who was also a member of this party, was more detailed than Phillip's. I will discuss White's account when considering this issue in more detail. Here I simply wish to raise some questions.

The issue of whether Belle Vue was Prospect Hill does not have a clear-cut resolution. Suggestions that Phillip, or someone else, later changed the name from Belle View to Prospect Hill are however not supported by any contemporary documents. Governor Phillip was quite particular about the naming of geographical features of the new colony. He would normally record the names in his reports to London. For example on 3rd November 1788 a redoubt and settlement were established at a place noted by Phillip's April expedition. He named it Rose Hill. Three years later (on 2nd June 1791) Governor Phillip change the name to Parramatta. The change of name was offically announced.

If Prospect Hill is Belle Vue, the hill climbed and named by Phillip in 1788, a number of questions arise. Firstly why, when and by whom was the name change to Prospect Hill made? Secondly why did Phillip's expedition of 1788 take two days to progress from the location later known as Rose Hill to the hill they named Belle Vue, when Phillip walked from Rose Hill to Prospect Hill in 1 hour 45 minutes after dinner with Philip Gidley King in April 1790? Why, furthermore, when Watkin Tench climbed Prospect Hill in June 1789, did he not mention in his account that this was Phillip's Belle Vue? He must have known about Phillip's April 1788 expedition. Every officer in the colony would have known about it.

If Prospect Hill is not Belle Vue, the question arises as to where Belle Vue was situated. On the next page I have attempted to answer this question through explorations on the ground and by detailed examination of the contemporary accounts, matching them to present-day maps of the area. By separating out the facts about Belle Vue from the speculation, I believe I can shed some light on this issue.

When was Prospect Hill first mentioned in writing and by whom?

Philip Gidley King described a visit to Parramatta on 9th April 1790:

After dinner, I accompanied the governor from Rose-Hill to Prospect-Hill... (in Hunter 1793).

Undated pages in a notebook which are likely to have been written by Governor Phillip may have been written on the same occasion:

In going to the Westward from Rose Hill you walk in ten minutes to War-mul, in nineteen to Mal-gra-mattar, in seven to A-rar-woo-rung, in eighteen to Car-rar-mattar, in five to Bul-barn-mattar, in twenty-nine to Kar-rar-wo-tong, & in seventeen to Mur-rong — Prospect Hill. (Collins 1791).

What about Tench's Prospect Mount?

This is rather a red herring. Tench's Prospect Mount is nowhere near Prospect Hill. It was climbed during an expedition to the Hawkesbury in April 1791 - perhaps the only exploration in which both Governor Arthur Phillip and Watkin Tench took part. This was a year after the name Prospect Hill had become established for "our" hill. Tench's Prospect Mount cannot now be positively identified but must be somewhere near the upper reaches of Little Cattai Creek. A map drawn by Tench showing a peak labelled, "Tench's Prospect Mount April 13 - '91." shows it is on the high ground (over 200m above sea level) on the Old Northern Road north of Forest Glen (Tench 1793). Tench's Prospect Mount should not be confused with Prospect Hill.

What exactly is Prospect Hill?

In recent years different official bodies have applied the name to specific parts of the whole ridge, with the possibility of creating confusion. It would reduce this confusion if everyone were to use the name Prospect Hill to apply to the whole J-shaped ridge and use other names to distinguish the separate summits of the ridge. I have suggested such names where it appears that none exists and they are listed in the Description section of this web site. For a more detailed discussion of this naming issue see the Naming Issue page.

More myths

It is said that Watkin Tench was the first person to mention Prospect Hill by name. Brian England (a geologist not a historian) wrote:

The first mention made of Prospect Hill was in 1789 when Captain Tench observed the barrier of the Blue Mountains to the west from its summit. The area was attractive to farming due to the richness of the soil and a two-square-kilometer grant was taken up by Lt. William Lawson in the late 18th century... The outcropping chilled margin of basalt was noted by Charles Darwin in 1836 and it was mentioned in his writings on the voyage of the Beagle. (England 1994).

This short passage is misleading in two respects. Firstly, although Tench was the first to describe climbing Prospect Hill, he did not actually mention it by name in his account of the event. Nor did other writers of the period attribute the name to him. Although it seems likely that it was Tench who named the hill, he does not mention it in writing until his visit there in December 1791. Meanwhile it had been mentioned by King and Phillip in their accounts of an after-dinner walk in April 1790. Secondly William Lawson did not arrive in Sydney until 22 November 1800. He first bought 30 acres of land at Prospect in 1806. He was granted 500 acres there in 1808.

However England was correct about Darwin's visist in 1836. He may have derived his information about Darwin from this passage from Wallace, wisely checking the date and correcting it to 1836 when Darwin paid his only visit to New South Wales from 11th to 30th January.

In 1832, Charles Darwin, the English naturalist and geologist famous for writing Origin of the Species, visited Prospect Hill to observe the dolerite. Darwin mentioned it in his book, The Voyage of the Beagle. (Wallace 1992, p 4):

Author Stephanie King later wrote,

It is very clear from The Voyage of the Beagle that Darwin was en route from England to, and then in, South America for the whole of 1832. In the Prospect Heritage Trust web site we read,

1832 - Charles Darwin visited Prospect Hill, to observe the geology, mentioned in his book, "The Voyage of the Beagle." (Prospect HT).

So a myth that Charles Darwin visited Prospect Hill in 1832 is created. It seemed possible (or even likely) that he visited Prospect Hill in 1836, since his interest in geology was equal to that in natural history and he must have ridden past it on his trip on horseback from Sydney to Bathurst. But his Sydney Notebook and his published diary of that journey do not mention Prospect Hill and I could find no mention of it either in his Voyage of the Beagle (Darwin 1839) or in his Sydney Notebook (Darwin 1836)

Then in February 2015 I found a web page that pointed to a previously unpublished transcription of Darwin's Notes on the geology of places visited during the voyage which showed that he did indeed visit Prospect Hill in January 1836 during his trip to Bathurst (probably on the return journey). Keith Compton has described how he had the same misgivings as I did about the visit. But he solved the mystery. We now find that Darwin wrote:

At Prospect hill the sandstone country is intermitted by a mass of Trappean rocks: the quarry which I saw consisted of a black Basalt (?) the structure of which was roughly prismatic. I imagine, but have no proof, that this substance has burst through the sandstone..." (Darwin 1836 (2))]

Where is the highest point?

Some authors have looked at the NSW Lands Dept map and have written that the highest point is 140 metres above sea level. Initially I made the same mistake myself. However the triangulation station marked 140 metres is atop a water tower which is itself 24 metres high. At ground level this summit, Water Tower Hill, reaches only 116 metres above sea level, whereas Greystanes Hill on the east ridge is 117 metres high. See the Description section of this web site for a fuller discussion of this issue.

Where was the highest point before quarrying started?

It was not at the same place as the present highest point, Greystanes Hill, and was about 131 metres above sea level - 14 metres higher than the present highest point and a kilometre or so further south. This is discussed in greater detail on the Topography page of the History section of this web site.

Where are Veteran Hall and Grey Stanes?

The NSW State Heritage Register has tied itself in knots, completely confusing these two houses. On its register page Prospect Reservoir (Heritage) it states that: Nelson Lawson... built Greystanes House... on the western side of Prospect Hill. In fact Grey Stanes was on top of the eastern ridge of Prospect Hill. It is Nelson's father William Lawson's house that was on the western slopes. The Register continues:

Governor Macquarie confirmed the grant, where William Lawson had built a house, which he called Veteran Hall, because he had a commission in the NSW Veterans Company. The house was demolished in 1928 and the site is now partly covered by the waters of Prospect Reservoir. The house was approached by a long drive lined with an avenue of English trees - elms (Ulmus procera), hawthorns (Crataegus sp.), holly (Ilex aquifolium), and woodbine (Clematis sp.) - mingling with jacarandas (J. mimosifolia). It had a wide, semi-circular front verandah supported by 4 pillars. The foundations were of stone, the roof of slate, and doors and architraves of heavy red cedar. It was richly furnished with articles of the best quality available, and was the scene of many glittering soirees attended by the elite of the colony.

The site of Veteran Hall is in fact well above the water level of Prospect Reservoir. It was used for some years as a residence for the the Water Board's Engineer-In-Charge of Headworks. Part of the 500 acres of land granted is covered by the reservoir. The drive lined with English trees led to Grey Stanes (from the east) and it was Grey Stanes not Veteran Hall that had the wide, semi-circular front verandah supported by 4 pillars.