The Oberon Outdoor Festival Black Springs Heritage Tour

Departs: Saturday 19th November

Cost: $40pp

Includes

• Transport

• Tour Guide

• BBQ lunch

• Light refreshments

9.00am: MEET at Oberon Visitor Information Centre, 48 Ross Street, Oberon. (amenities) A chance to have a look around the Centre. Register with the staff and pick up your ‘souvenir bag’ before meeting your bus driver and guide for the day

9.15am: LEAVE to begin your tour…

• The grave of John Hogan and Ann Scott/Hogan, Oberon

• Mt Erin, John Hogan’s house

• Oberon Cemetery 1876

• Lake Oberon built from 1943-1959

From Oberon your tour will venture out onto the Abercrombie road towards Black Springs. En route you can view:

• Sloggetts Rd lane to Ben Hall hut, old post office/school & house previously owned by John Laws (formerly part of Essington Park, 7,000 acres owned by King and Stevenson Bros of Swatchfield)

• The original site of the Oberon Timber Mill at ‘Willow Springs’

• Brisbane valley creek where old roads went to Goulburn and to Tillsbury /Hillsbury

• The ‘Little Church’ originally the Anglican Church built in 1891 on land brought from the Catholic Church (now a Community Church)

• Tillsbury Lane loop, ‘Bonfield’, originally Burchers homestead, Gilmores’ sheep enterprise, Jim Perrotts’ classic cars, site of first school ‘Mimosa Dell, Original Shop at Mt Bathurst near 2nd site of school, Healeys’ Mt Bathurst Dorset Stud

Arrive Black Springs Hall, (amenities)

• After lunch cross the road to Pioneer Park to see the History Wall, Charles Throsby bust and Forestry talk

• Campbells River tour, Claremont, the Historic Well and Avoca Church, (foundation stone laid in 1887).

• The spot where John Foley (Bushranger) died

John Foley, (photographed above) in September 1873 (from his Pr*son discharge file)

Born John Joseph Foley, 1833 Kelso, New South Wales, Australia

Died 26 February 1891, near Swatchfield, Oberon district

Resting place Black Springs, New South Wales

Occupation Bushranger, farmer

• Kalgoorlie Hall, Swatchfield, the property granted to William Davis in 1825, original residence of J C Stevenson who bought the property from Davis. This was the first house, along with Burchers on Tillsbury Lane, to have a telephone in Black Springs!

• Past ‘Daisy Bank’ school site to the Black Springs Historic Cemetery where the Matriarch of the Mary McMahon/Hogan 1777-1859 and other ancestors are buried. Across the paddock is the original ‘Black Springs’, the property of Patrick Hanrahan and Catherine Hogan. Also here, the ruins of the first Post Office can be sighted

• Return to Black Springs, Daisy Bank Hill and the highest point in the region and Quarry Hill where the stone for the Church came from

1pm - 3pm BBQ Lunch - enjoy a history display and commentary at the Black Springs Hall (amenities)

3pm Tour of Black Springs Village, oldest home, RFS Forestry Depot, sports ground, Community Hall, Black Springs School and talk on history of education in the area (amenities)

Return to Oberon Visitor Information Centre by approx 4pm (amenities)

Host or Publisher Oberon Visitor Information Centre