Prospect Creek (New South Wales)
Prospect Creek is an urban watercourse of the Georges River catchment that is located in the western region of Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia. Situated within the local government areas of Fairfield City and Canterbury-Bankstown Councils, the creek is long, starting at the Prospect Reservoir at the top of the catchment and flows south-east to the Georges River at Georges Hall, as its tributary. In the north, the creek forms the border between Cumberland and Fairfield City Councils. Running through a prominent open space corridor, Prospect Creek drains the encompassing floodplain.
The creek offers of recreational area and winds through a number of parks and reserves, including walkways and cycling paths that parallel the creek. As Prospect Reservoir forms a part of the Sydney metropolitan water supply, the flow of the creek is regulated in accordance with the operational requirements of Sydney Water. The catchment area of the creek is approximately, and is largely urbanised with industrial land uses, residential and open space for recreation.
For the first British settlers, the creek and the surrounds offered essential food and water resources, and thereby encouraged the development of local agriculture and industry. At time of its European discovery, Prospect Creek was a series of freshwater ponds, rather than an unbroken stream, particularly north of Carramar. During the early 20th century, the lower Prospect Creek was a large part of life for residents in the Fairfield LGA area with numerous pleasure grounds and recreation spaces, that included boating. The lower Prospect Creek is affected by tides, and that part of the creek was referred to as a 'river' by the locals in the early 20th century.
History
Indigenous
Prospect Creek was a traditional travel route that connected the Darug and D'harawal people. Early colonial evidence also indicates that the Bidjigal people lived closed to the creek. There have been Aboriginal camps along the creek and as well as other areas of Sydney through the late 19th century and to as late as the 1950s.For the Aboriginal Australians, the creek and surrounding areas provided areas for hunting and gathering. Casuarina nuts were used in traditional medicine and basalt pebbles were used to create traditional axes. The Cabrogal people near the creek acquired tidal system plants and animals, including bankias, woodlands foods such as possum and freshwater fish. Around thirty sites with Aboriginal artefacts, such as stone tools, had been identified around Prospect Creek. The area near the Lansdowne Bridge at the creek, in what is now Shortland Brush, was a traditional sit down place for the Indigenous Australians as it featured ample aquatic and land foods.
Colonial era
In the late 1780s, William Bradley went on an expedition from Rose Hill to Prospect Creek to determine whether Prospect Creek led to Botany Bay. Bradley described a place on the Creek where the water changed from fresh to salt with a drop of. The presence of salt water confirmed Prospect Creek's connection to the sea. Prospect Creek provided a camp for Pemulwuy, a Bidjigal warrior leader who led in the resistance against the British during the early colonisation. In 1785, George Bass and Matthew Flinders began exploring the Georges River and went as far as Prospect Creek. In 1789, Governor Arthur Phillip probed the country between Salt Pan Creek beginning at Prospect Creek.In December 1790, Captain Watkin Tench's party scoured the entire area from Cooks River to Prospect Creek to search for a group of resisting Aboriginal people during the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars. In July 1791, Tench and his group spent a ‘miserable night’ in the riparian woodland and hoped to find fresh water on the banks of the creek, but instead they discovered salty water and a layer of thick ice covering the creek – Historians have claimed this may have occurred in the area that is now the Lansdowne Bridge. In January 1797, Governor John Hunter travelled to Botany Bay to track the Georges River up for. Whilst doing so, he examined Prospect Creek, before he travelled to Parramatta.
File:Prospect Creek Pond.jpg|thumb|The pond along the creek in Smithfield is reminiscent of the “chain of ponds” that existed there during colonisation.
A feedlot for government cattle was constructed in front of "a fine chain of fresh water ponds", which was Prospect Creek around what is now Kenyon's Bridge in Smithfield, where of she-oak forest was cut and another burned down. In 1798, First Fleet Captain George Johnston received a land grant and constructed his first home located near Prospect Creek, close to Henry Lawson Drive and Beatty Parade. In 1800, just beside Prospect Creek, Lieutenant John Shortland from the First Fleet acquired an initial grant of over the northern part of Lansdowne Reserve which he increased to. In 1802, French explorer Francis Barrallier led an exploring team to the Gandangarra, where they sought passageway through the Blue Mountains in the southwest as they took a route that bypasses the marshy areas of Prospect Creek.
On January 1, 1806, two grants were made to James Gowan, one of them being on the northern bank of the creek. On January 1810, settlers Thomas Hanson and James Larra also received land grants just north of the creek, proximate to the Carramar railway station. In 1820s, Joseph Kenyon's Woodlands on the eastern bank of Prospect Creek were described as having "immaculate lawns", "ornamental gardens" and a "showplace of the district". In 1832 Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell commissioned David Lennox for a sum of £1,083 to build Lansdowne Bridge "at the intersection of Prospect Creek and Southern Street"; it was completed in 1836. Henry Whitaker purchased land near Prospect Creek in East Fairfield and established 'Orchardleigh', which is now part of Fairfield East.
In 1848, German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt and politician Sir Henry Parkes cooled their feet in Prospect Creek near Jacob Stein's vineyard in Carramar. By the 1850s, there were numerous grand homes and estates beside the creek that became more accessible with the advent of the railways. By 1860, an industrial zone also became established in the area near the Prospect Creek. In the 1880s, a woolwashing workshop was constructed on the creek at what is Fairfield Park Precinct today, with a brick weir to "keep a head of fresh water from the salt tides".
Modern
In the first half of the 20th century, venues such as Latty's Pleasure Grounds, the Butterfly Hall, and Hollywood Park were popular among tourists due to the area's rural feel and close proximately to the waterway, so popular in fact that the first games of Rugby League football in Australia, in early 1908, were trial games that took place in Lansvale, at Latty's Pleasure Grounds. From 1925, the Widemere Quarry Line crossed the creek until its closure in 1945. Between the 1890s to around 1941, the creek became a popular weekend recreation area, and boating was common among visitors, who came to the picnic zones and hired boats there at Latty's Boatshed in what is now Heiden Park at Carramar. Though with the advent of the Second World War in the early 1940s, access to the creek became restricted for visitors due to warfare security measures. At that time, the part of the creek from Vine Street to its confluence with Georges River was commonly referred to as 'George River', 'Prospect River' and 'Fairfield's River' due to its watercraft navigability and wideness.From the 1970s to 1990s, a small amusement park named Magic Kingdom operated in Lansvale on the banks of the creek and was a popular attraction for visitors. Over time the creek has also slowly lost its shine as successive governments and communities turned their backs on the waterway, this coupled with industrialisation occurring upstream led to the declining water quality which is reflected in warnings today from authorities to avoid swimming in the catchment as it is not recommended.
In 2005, a chain of illustrative Indigenous artworks were placed on the banks of the creek to encourage awareness about the Indigenous identity of the creek's corridor. The project constituted of four groups of artworks and path markers, displaying the flora and fauna of Prospect Creek, as observed by the Darug people. The artworks include four stories passed down through generations of Darug people, such as, the Australian raven and crows, The Eagle Warrior, The Casuarinas, and The Story of the Local Wattles. In 2023, Sydney Water Corporation was convicted and fined $200,000 in the Land and Environment Court of NSW after 282,000 litres of sewage was spilled into the creek.
Geography
Course
Prospect Creek flows south from Prospect Reservoir, just north of Bulls Hill in Prospect, within the Blacktown local government area. It then streams southeast through the local government areas of Cumberland, Fairfield, Liverpool and Bankstown, where it reaches its confluence with the Georges River at Georges Hall, as it flows into Dhurawal Bay in the Chipping Norton Lakes. From north to south, the creek runs across the suburbs of Wetherill Park, Greystanes, Smithfield, Fairfield, Yennora, Canley Vale, Carramar, Lansdowne and Georges Hall. The creek's corridor extends across the Aboriginal Land Councils of Deerubbin and Gandangara.From northwest to southeast, the creek crosses roads such as Prospect Highway, Gipps Road, Cumberland Highway, Fairfield Road, The Horsley Drive, Fairfield Street, Vine Street, Hume Highway and then meanders parallel of Henry Lawson Drive as it heads south to Chipping Norton Lake. Prospect Creek's tidal limit is located around the Liverpool & Inner West Line crossing at the Canley Vale/Carramar border and the tidal reach may extend to the confluence of Orphan School Creek just south of Riverview Road at the Fairfield/Canley Vale border.
Bridges crossed include Konemanns Bridge at Fairfield, Carramar Railway Bridge which was constructed when the Main South Line was extended from Regents Park to Cabramatta in 1924, Waterside Crescent Pedestrian Bridge which connects Cook Park in Canley Vale to Carrawood Park in Carramar, and Lansdowne Bridge, a sandstone arch bridge which has the largest span of any masonry bridge in Australia.