NSWRail & telegraph
Springwood
A governor’s campsite by a spring became a railway town.
1815Macquarie names Spring-Wood
WHAT STARTED IT
Governor Macquarie stopped here in 1815 on the new road over the mountains, beside a spring of good fresh water on a wooded plain. A military outpost followed, and travellers used the place as a stopover, especially in the 1850s gold rush.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
The railway arrived in 1867, and a station built in 1868 was replaced in 1884 by a Victorian Gothic building. Wealthy Sydney families built country retreats, and churches, a school and houses such as Braemar followed.
TURNING POINTS
1815Governor Macquarie stops at the spring and names the place Spring-Wood.
1816A military outpost is set up nearby; it operates until 1845.
1868Springwood railway station opens.
1884A larger Victorian Gothic station replaces the first building.
1888Christ Church, designed by John Sulman, is begun on the highway.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A lower Blue Mountains town on the Great Western Highway and the railway. Its heritage-listed station is the second-oldest surviving in the mountains, and Braemar is now a community gallery.