| Historical notes: | Stapleton's Bridge crosses Frazer Creek on Tongarra Road near Albion Park. The area is part of the Lake Illawarra region and Shellharbour Municipality, which was once the territory of the Dharawal Aboriginal peoples and the Wadi Wadi tribe in particular. Shellharbour Municipality is bordered by the sea to the east; by Macquarie Rivulet to the north; the Minnamurra River to the south and by the Illawarra Escarpment to the west. The sea gave the easiest access to the region initially and establishing roads over the other boundaries was not an easy task. Consequently, road development was delayed in the region. (Regional Histories, 1996, pp. 175, 184; Derbyshire & Allen, 1984, pp. 26, 64)
European occupation of the area began around 1815 when graziers from the drought-stricken County of Cumberland found a way down to the pastures of the Illawarra. Cattle and sheep were grazed on the extensive grasslands around Lake Illawarra, and, until 1822, cedar-cutters worked in the mixed eucalypt and rainforest land to the north on the lower slopes of the escarpment. (Regional Histories, 1996, p. 184) In 1822 Governor Macquarie toured the area; Surveyor Oxley named the Macquarie Rivulet after the Governor and in the nineteenth century, the entire Albion Park District was known as 'The Macquarie'. Albion Park owes its name to an early land grant of 2,000 acres to Samuel Terry in the 1820s. Originally known as 'Terry's Meadows', it became part of John Terry Hughes' cattle breeding and dairying estate in the 1840s, which he named 'Albion Park'. The township grew around the centre of this estate, which had been a meeting spot since the beginning of white settlement when the north/south road from Wollongong (Illawarra Highway) crossed the timber track from Calderwood and Tongarra (Tongarra Road) on the way to the port at Shellharbour. Between 1860 and 1880 it developed into a thriving country town and by the 1890s it was called Albion Park by most of the locals. Dairying and cattle breeding, as well as coal and basalt mining became the major industries in the region during the second half of the nineteenth century. From the 1860s to the 1890s the district developed as the Colony's major butter producer. (Derbyshire & Allen, 1984, pp. 32, 38, 56, 70, 112)
Frazer Creek is named on an 1860 map of Terry's Meadows and was named after tenant farmer, William Fraser who occupied that part of the estate on the eastern side of the creek for at least twenty-two years. The Fraser family were prominent in the Albion Park district, with John Fraser serving as manager and director of the Albion Park Butter Factory in 1885, then as Mayor from 1890 and an Alderman for over twenty years. William Fraser's farm was eventually owned by James Stapleton, after whom Stapleton's Hill and Stapleton's Bridge are named. James Missingham established a tannery at Stapleton's Hill in 1892, employing nine people until the 1920s. (Tongarra Heritage Society, correspondence, 2004; Derbyshire & Allen, 1984, pp. 50, 56, 70)
The first roads in the district developed from rough cedar tracks linking Calderwood, Tongarra and the Wentworth Hills with Shellharbour. Surveyor Mitchell first proposed that a direct road link be established between Sydney and the Illawarra in 1831 to provide an alternative to the circuitous route via Liverpool through Appin. The direct route between Sydney and Wollongong followed by the Princes Highway was laid out by 1843, though it did not supplant the old route until about 30 years later. In 1843 the main track south passed though Albion Park and onto the village of Jamberoo, closer to the Escarpment than the coast. By 1865 the South Coast Road ran along the coast to Twofold Bay. (DMR, 1976, pp 36, 37, 48; Derbyshire & Allen, 1984, p. 64)
Tongarra Road links up with the Illawarra Highway, formerly known as Shellharbour and Macquarie River Road, which was originally part of the main South Coast Road from Wollongong to Jamberoo. (Tongarra Heritage Society, correspondence, 2004; DMR, 1976, p. 48) It branches off the Princes Highway near Albion Park, crossing Jamberoo Road, and links the Illawarra to the Southern Highlands via the Macquarie Pass. The latter was originally an Aboriginal track, cleared in 1863 but not properly constructed until 1898. As well as providing a commercially useful link between these areas, the scenic beauty of the route, particularly along the Macquarie Pass, attracted tourists, a growing industry in the late nineteenth century; and trips from Albion Park to Macquarie Falls were a popular local attraction. From the late 1870s coal seams were discovered in the Escarpment at Tongarra in what is now the Macquarie Pass National Park and mining began in 1893. From this time onwards, therefore, the Illawarra Highway and Tongarra Road became an important coal transport route between Tongarra and the coast. (Broomham, 2001, p. 90; Tongarra Heritage Society, correspondence, 2004; Derbyshire & Allen, 1984, p.76)
It is unclear when the first crossing of Frazer's Creek was built, but in 1859 the newly formed Shellharbour Municipal Council road committee called for an estimate of the probable cost for a new bridge across Frazer's Creek and tenders opened in September 1860. In March 1866 tenders were called for forming "the portion of the Tongarra Road between Albion Hotel and the bridge known as Frazer's". By the 1870s the bridge was known as Stapleton's. In 1873, George Clarke, a thirteen-year-old post boy, was returning from Shellharbour with mail for Albion Park, when he was drowned at Frazer's Creek. The creek had flooded and the following day, when the water had subsided, his body was found in a paddock about 300 yards from Stapleton's Bridge. (Derbyshire & Allen, 1984, p.76; Tongarra Heritage Society, correspondence, 2004)
Following the introduction of a system of Federal aid for road development and the establishment of the Main Roads Board in 1925, improvements were carried out on the State's major roads, a process which also necessitated the replacement of bridges, which by that time were inadequate. The present Stapleton's Bridge was built in 1929. It was one of more than 1,000 bridges constructed across the State by the Main Roads Board, later the DMR, during the period 1925-1940. During this period the Department adapted existing standards of bridge design to meet the requirements of improved motor vehicle performance: they were generally wider than previously with an improved load capacity. The principal types of bridges constructed during the period were: reinforced concrete beam; concrete slab; steel truss on concrete piers; and timber beam bridges. Concrete was favoured in many instances because it was perceived to be a low maintenance material (DMR, 1976, pp.55, 88-89, 169, 170). Based on RTA bridge database records, reinforced concrete beam or girder bridges were the most common form of concrete bridge construction to 1948, with more than 160 extant. They have been very popular in NSW, and elsewhere, providing an efficient and often aesthetically pleasing solution to a wide range of crossing types.
The years following the end of World War Two brought massive industrial expansion to the Greater Wollongong area, and its population almost trebled between 1947 and 1971. As a result there was a huge increase in the volume and nature of vehicular traffic, making the development and improvement of roads and bridges a vital part of this process. Guardrails were installed on Stapleton’s Bridge in 1986 and in 1989 maintenance was needed to repair end posts and badly spalled concrete in the cantilever section. The bridge was widened in 1991. (Derbyshire & Allen, 1984, pp. 70-71; Regional Histories, 1996, pp. 185-186; RTA File: 401.1201) |