| Historical notes: | The Glenbrook area is located in Darug Country.
Prior to European settlement the Blue Mountains was the home of many autonomous Aboriginal groups who lived and moved around the region. There are six distinct tribal groups who have traditional rights and custodial responsibilities for the indigenous heritage of the region that are: the Darug, the Gandangurra, the Wanaruah, the Wiradjuri, the Darkinjung and the Tharawal.
Evidence of Aboriginal occupation and custodianship of the country within Blue Mountains National Park dates back to possibly 22,000 years B.P ((Stockton and Holland 1974; Williams et. al. 2012). The Blue Mountains contain a large number of significant sites which capture the relationship that Aboriginal people have had with country for thousands of generations.
The rich and varied evidence of traditional occupation of the reserves include archaeological deposits in open sites and rock shelters, stone implements, factory sites for tool production, axe grinding grooves and extensive art-work, including drawn, painted and stencilled images. Tracks and figurative motifs dominate the art sites (NPWS 1998). Motifs include anthropomorphic figures, animals, hand stencils and tracks of birds and kangaroos (NPWS 1998).
Colonial exploration and settlement:
Until 1813 the Blue Mountains proved a restriction to the expansion of settlement in Australia. In that year Gregory Blaxland, William Charles Wentworth and William Lawson made the first successful crossing and opened the vast interior of the country to settlement.
The construction of a road soon followed and in 1863 a railway was built as far as Penrith and extended as far as Mount Victoria by 1868. By the 1870s it had become fashionable for elite families to acquire mountain retreats with magnificent views where in summer the air was considerably cooler than Sydney. Villages such as Leura developed to serve these retreats which over time developed large European gardens.
The Great Western Railway:
The original line of railway was opened in 1867 (Urbis, 2013, 8 say 1865, adding that the line from Penrith to Wentworth Falls opened in 1867), scaling the escarpment above Emu Plains by the Lapstone Zig Zag. At the top of the Zig Zag the railway followed the route now occupied by the Great Western Highway through Glenbrook as far as Blaxland. When increased rail traffic caused delays on the Lapstone Zig Zag, it was decided in 1891 that a tunnel should be built bypassing the Zig Zag. The tunnel and its new approaches were designed to form an elegant S-shape, starting at the Bottom Points of the Zig Zag and ending at old Glenbrook station (now demolished, on the present Great Western Highway) (Blue Mts Heritage Study).
Glenbrook:
A stone cottage was designed in 1870 in the office of John Whitton, Railway Chief Engineer, to replace an earlier slab building occupied by the pointsman and his family. The building was constructed a year later in Wascoe's Siding. Wascoe's Siding became Brookdale in 1878 and Glenbrook in 1879 (Urbis, 2013, 8). When the Station Master's position became available in the late 1870s, the cottage became known as the Station Master's residence. It is the oldest remaining structure that provides evidence of the original railway alignment through Glenbrook, and possibly the oldest remaining building in Glenbrook (Urbis, 2013).
The building of the Glenbrook Railway tunnel in 1891-2 was contracted to George Proudfoot, whose labourers and their families were established in two substantial camps at either end of the works, one at Glenbrook, the other at Lapstone. Sir Arthur Streeton's famous painting 'Fire's On!', saw the building of the tunnel and the fatal blasting accident which killed Thomas Lawless become a part of Australian mythology as well as railway history. (Blue Mts Heritage Study) Streeton was spending three months at Glenbrook at the end of 1891 where he was studying and painting the landscape. He had become interested in the construction of the railway tunnel and the engineering feat that was the Zig Zag Railway. (National Gallery of Australia) The tunnel was also depicted in several other works, both informal and informal. Among these were Cutting the Lapstone Tunnel (1892) and Sketch - Blue Mountains (1891).
The new tunnel opened to traffic on 18 December 1892, but it was never a success, because of the steep incline and the suffocating atmosphere particularly in the west-bound trains. Traffic flow and water dripping from the roof also caused engines to slip badly on the reverse curve. (Pratten & Irving, 1993:32-33) The problem was finally addressed after the Lithgow Zig Zag deviation was completed in 1910 and the railway gangs were moved to Glenbrook. Bypassing Glenbrook Tunnel involved some major works, including a new viaduct (G 025) over Knapsack Gully to the east and the new line then ran through virgin country south of the old alignment as far as the present Lapstone station and then turned west through a short tunnel under The Bluff and finally north to the present Glenbrook station. (Blue Mts Heritage Study)
Initially it was planned to continue using the 1892 Glenbrook Tunnel for up trains. When the new deviation opened on 11 May 1913 the tunnel was still used for east-bound trains. However, the deviation was quickly duplicated and a new "up line was activated in September. Glenbrook Tunnel was last used for trains on 25 September 1913 and old Glenbrook station was closed. (Blue Mts Heritage Study). The lines in the tunnel were raised and the tunnel left to quietly decay.
In 1913 the Glenbrook tunnel was leased from NSW Railways by Herbert Edward Rowe, an out of work master builder. Previously a Stan Breakspear had fenced off an area close to the tunnel where he kept a bull. The Rowes had the idea of growing mushrooms in the tunnel. They created living quarters from an old circus tent, a small cave and a culvert under the highway. Herbert Rowe built his own mushroom growing beds which were three metres wide with a narrow path down the left side for access and working space. About three quarters of the length of the tunnel was taken up by the beds. When the Rowes renewed their lease in 1936 the Commissioner of Railways warned them that in the event of war, they would be given three months notice to vacate the site. The Rowes are believed to have actually been given only one weeks notice to vacate the site when war broke out in September 1939. (Plunkett, 2007:141-42),
In 1926 the cottage was absorbed into the adjacent petrol station (site) and encased in a large shed. The Great Western Highway was opened through Glenbrook at this time (Urbis, 2013, 8).
There were several alterations and additions to the (service station) garage in the 1920s and 1960s (Urbis, 2013, 8).
In 1989 a permanent conservation order (no.713) was placed on the site, and the cottage was listed by the National Trust of Australia (NSW). In 1996 the shed around the original sandstone cottage was removed and the building was restored with a plaque (placed) facing the road. A new service station store and canopy over the petrol bowsers was built on the western portion of the site. In 1999 the cottage was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register (Urbis, 2013, 8). |