Leura Blue Mountains History

Blue Mountains History and Aboriginal Communities

The oldest record of Aboriginal Communities in the Blue Mountains is dated by archaeologists as some 22,000 years old. Of the settlements, only a few have been comprehensively studied. Exact numbers are imprecise, but it is certain that an extensive population existed here.

As with many of the world’s early populations, cultural beliefs, traditions and behaviours were passed on through drawings, music, story telling and dreaming – the children were taught by the elders. From their earliest traditions, respect for the land and all its species are today shared across many Aboriginal communities of Australia. Today’s communities strengthen and affirm their traditional knowledge and cultural practices, and across this vast and ancient continent, many across Australian society recognise and appreciate the Aboriginal contributions and its culture.

Designation as a World Heritage Site protects and preserves Australia’s Blue Mountains history following in the steps of Aboriginal tradition – respect and reverence for its important and massive eco system.

The Recent History of Leura

Leura History

One of the first things you will notice about Leura is the orderly arrangement of its streets. Entering off the Great Western Highway, Leura Mall at its highest point, 985 metres above sea level, rolls gently downhill toward the Jamison Valley and Mt Solitary. Wide tree-lined streets — Railway Parade, Megalong, Malvern and Craigend — progress east to west neatly intersecting and framing the busy Mall, giving Leura the appearance of preserved orderliness all the way to Olympian Parade and the World Heritage Site below. As we will see, in the later part of the 19th century neither the street design nor the order was happenstance.

In 1868, only an inn at Katoomba and one at Weatherboard (now Wentworth Falls) provided shelter and food for travellers on a potholed and dangerous roadway. But a major change in transportation occurred about this time.

Between 1868 and 1885, when a railway siding (stop) was built to transport coal from the Gladstone mines, Leura came into existence. By 1881 land speculators had discovered the area, purchasing the lion’s share of property around and including an unnamed waterfall. Property agents advertised “Leura Estate” in December 1881, publicising a permanent village with wide streets and an unobstructed view of Mt Solitary. The advertisement implied a soon-to-be-built train platform, but almost 10 years would pass before the railway platform and waiting room were built and paid for by land developer William Eyre.

As the new platform was unattended by railway staff, passengers had to flag down the train with a lantern. By this time a number of the wealthy from Sydney and rural areas in western New South Wales had discovered the hamlet as a seasonal vacation spot. Perhaps the Sydneysiders, with lanterns in hand, were sufficiently brave or foolhardy to attempt getting the engineer’s attention in a thick white fog or blinding rainstorm.

However, Leura was about to change. A consortium of Sydney and Katoomba businessmen engaged Ernest Bonney, a Sydney architect, and Henry Weine, a respected builder, to design and build a grand guesthouse on a large block of land on Leura Mall.

According to historian Audrey Armitage, the guesthouse was “the last word in adventurous architecture....” The finest of Australian timber had been used, and the dining room could accommodate 120. On Christmas Eve 1892, the Leura Coffee Palace opened. By all accounts, it was a gala affair.

So the train platform and the Coffee Palace became the points on a single axis for the orderly arrangement of Leura.

In 1893, Leura’s request for a post office facility was denied by the Postmaster General because the railway platform was without staff. However, he recommended a temporary office be set up at the Coffee Palace. On February 15, 1893, the receiving office was opened to Leura residents and clientele of the guesthouse alike. This temporary postal office remained active for another 14 years.

Leura’s Raison d’Etre

After the opening of the train platform, Leura’s reason for being was altered. Those seeking respite, the few who could afford to escape the summer heat of New South Wales, had discovered a hillside protected from westerly winds and with the healing powers of the mountain mists. Henceforth, Leura would be a tourist destination.

The Naming Of Leura

Like possessions, legends and folklore are the stuff of a long and vigorous community life, and those who inhabit Leura have always felt a strong attachment to its name. The source has been vigorously debated for decades.

Only recently has the debate been clarified. Brian Fox, in The Origin of Leura, Blue Mountains, shows convincing evidence that in January 1881 Fredrick Clissold purchased 50 acres from James Henry Neale. The property included an unnamed waterfall, which Clissold named Leura Falls after the pastoral properties Leura and Lurline located in Central Queensland. Speculators took the name Leura for the township.

Has Mr Fox put the debate to rest? In all probability, no. Letters still arrive at the Local Studies section of the Blue Mountains City Library declaring that Leura was named for a long-dead relative. And what do we small-town residents think? We prefer our long standing folklore and romantic beliefs, regardless of the facts.

Leura and The Turn of the Century

Milkman

The depression of the 1890s took its toll in the Blue Mountains. The Coffee Palace changed ownership, and the new owners renamed the elegant resort The Ritz. A number of guesthouses fell into financial trouble, and the owners packed up and moved away. But the wealthy continued to trek up the mountainside, and by the turn of the 20th century, tourists were making their way to Leura as a getaway for all the seasons.

Wealthy trade families, lawyers and politicians built large permanent residences along Railway Parade, and on Megalong and Grose streets, a number of smaller cottages for workers were built. New guesthouses and hotels continued to spring up, among them Hurlstone, a boarding house on Leura Mall, and the Alexandra Hotel above the train station. The Alexandra would be the working man’s pub, and historians have described it as “…a complement to the posh Leura Coffee Palace.” Disembarking from the train, travellers and workers would make their way up a narrow dirt trail, “Goat Path”, to The Alex, where a generous-sized bar, a comfortable dining room and an accommodating staff awaited them.

Only a few metres east of The Alex, Yallambee, now The Hillcrest Coachman, was built by shipping broker William Scott Fell. A Sydney millionaire, Miss Evelyn Rebecca, soon purchased Yallambee and made it her residence for many years. The lengthy ownership suggests that The Alexandra’s fun-loving clientele did not disturb Miss Hill.

Another private residence was built around the same time, but at the opposite end of Leura Mall, now commonly referred to as The Mall by locals. Leuralla, a handsome two-storey on Olympian Parade overlooking the escarpment, was completed in 1904, only to burn down in 1909. Owner Harry Andreas immediately rebuilt, and the residence today houses the Toy and Railway Museum.

Along The Mall, a few shops providing groceries and provisions sprang up as early as 1902. Verandahs were typically part of the early buildings, simultaneously providing protection from the weather and supporting posts to hitch up a horse and wagon.

The earliest churches of Leura often held their first services in homes. Presbyterians held their first service in 1897, and finally, in 1902, dedicated the foundation stone of a permanent church, St David. Anglicans constructed a modest weatherboard church in September 1898 near The Ritz.

Gradually over the next 10 years, Leura businesses multiplied. However, The Mall was still dusty, a horrible sag with holes and hillocks.

Leura A Sanctuary for Many

From the turn of the century, inventive and creative people were drawn to the Blue Mountains, some to escape the depressive crowding of Sydney, others looking for a new opportunity and many to recover their health. Among them was Harry Phillips, an injured printing machinist who would become a talented photographer with a passion for the region.

For many, time spent in Leura meant leisure and recreation. Golf became a local pastime when a group of Leura enthusiasts hired professionals to lay out a nine-hole course in the rolling hills not far from the cliff edge. Advertisements invited the tourists to enjoy “golfing, croquet and tennis above the clouds.” Leisure, apart from the view, directly affected the price of rentals and those properties for sale.

Creation of tracks for bushwalking led to preservation and conservationism and a greater awareness of the life of the Aboriginal communities. Hikers coming up from Leura Falls found respite when the Leura Kiosk serving tea and sweets was built above the track.

With the increase in visitors, food and services were now necessary. A young trader, Vivian Colless, well known among the early residents of Leura, drove a horse-drawn turnout, selling fruit and vegetables, hay and machinery from his transportable general store. From his market garden, he traded produce with hotels and guesthouses. Three of his sons settled in Leura and continued the fruit and vegetable business, bringing fresh produce up from Sydney. Now, three generations after Vivian, the Tom Colless family carries on their ancestor’s legacy.

Newspaper publisher Peter Giles Hart settled in Leura with his wife, Rosanna Knight, who owned the Hurlstone guesthouse on The Mall. In 1910, Hart established the Federal Printing Works on The Mall.

The Chateau Napier, another impressive guesthouse, opened in 1910, situated on the highest site of Leura, the north-eastern corner of Bathurst and The Mall intersection. Owners, the McSweeney family, made certain their three-storey hotel offered a luxurious retreat, and Mr McSweeney, who was a patron of the arts, arranged for concerts at the Chateau.

Between 1910 and 1918, The Mall was paved. Shops now included grocers, butchers and a mercantile store. Real estate companies, architects and builders occupied the corner of Railway Parade and The Mall. By 1918 the shopfronts looked much as they do today.

To attract returning veterans from “the Great War”, Leura guesthouses added a continental flair to their advertising. One guesthouse, the Beau Saada, promoted: “Pension chic des montagnes bleu" and offered “CUISINE FRANÇAISE”. Cars were more readily available, and the old hitching posts on The Mall gradually disappeared.

World War II brought the next noticeable social changes across Australia. After the Japanese submarine offensive into Sydney Harbour, families such as that of Trisha Hogan were split apart as they joined the 1942 winter exodus from Sydney to Leura. With makeshift modifications to accommodate dormitory living, several of the larger guesthouses, including Chateau Napier, were quickly converted to boarding schools. Leura provided a remote haven for the daughters of Sydney families. Trish recalls that by Christmas of 1943 her family was reunited in a small cottage on Murray Street.

Even the fashionable Ritz fell to the demands of the time. For the duration of the war, it would be converted into a Rest & Recreation centre for wounded servicemen. However, for everyone, student, worker or wounded, rationing and brown outs were a way of life.

For some at the close of World War II, life in Leura would return to normal. Like teenagers across the world, Leura’s youth attended Sunday Mass, Catholic or Protestant, learned the latest dance steps, played tennis and saw popular movies at the Victory Theatre.

Immigrants like Michael Lekkas arrived in Australia and made their way into the Blue Mountains seeking stability and a new life. Ken Jackson, young son of a Leura gardener, began his apprenticeship at the Leura Golf Club in 1941 under Scottish greens keeper Robert Hood. Later on, Ken would become head greens keeper, continuing in that role for 30 years.

Leura History NSW

Ten-year-old Audrey Shoobridge moved with her mother to 90 Railway Parade prior to the war’s end. She would live there for the next 40 years. Like many, her childhood was cut short when at age 13 she became caretaker of her ill mother.

The refurbished Ritz, now owned by the McNiven family, welcomed back affluent families. Trish Hogan accepted a supervisory position in the hotel dining room. “The McNiven sons, Don and Jack, planned mystery picnics, hikes and fancy dress events for the children so mum and Dad could go out to sightsee,” Trish remembers. She was 18 at the time.

Margaret Graham moved to Leura where she recalls each Anzac Day ceremony, commemorating the beginning of World War I. “The McNivens hosted a lovely breakfast at the Ritz for the entire community. We would walk from Lone Pine Street up The Mall to the Ritz.”

Travellers from across New South Wales in newly purchased cars made their way back to vintage guesthouses. But Leura itself looked much as it always had, and it would take a new generation of civic leaders in the late1970s to recognise that The Mall had fallen into disrepair. The Mall was in desperate need of a renovation to capture the new budding tourism industry.

Today while many locals will disagree on the merits of a village filled to overflowing with shoppers, big buses and cars, Leura’s economic history was and continues to be determined by those seeking holiday retreats in the mountains. And as in time past, creativity continues to flourish among Leura’s more recent residents: screen writer Tony Morphett, fibre artist Inga Hunter, authors John Maddocks and Stephen Measday, and television personality and film critic, David Stratton all call Leura home.

Commercial Leura is a multi-million dollar enterprise centred around The Mall and Megalong Street, the B&B accommodation and the stylish resorts. Many of the current generation of shop owners have children younger than 12. Thus, there is a constant regeneration and vitality of Leura’s commercial and civic life, and it is only through the support and goodwill of these businesses that this Guide has come into being.

The Leura Bushwalks will introduce you to the Leura history that stands in marked contrast to the daily modern world. While you won’t leave these conveniences and pleasures too far behind, there is much to discover in Leura, then and now.

On behalf of the residents and the business people in Leura, we’d like to thank you for visiting here. We hope you enjoy your stay and that the history of Leura seems a little more real now. We especially hope you will return to Leura again and again.

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