North Beach Precinct
North Beach Precinct is a heritage-listed precinct at Cliff Road, North Wollongong, City of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. It includes North Wollongong Beach, the North Beach/Wollongong Bathing Pavilion, Puckey's Salt Works, the Tram Cutting, Battery Park and Smiths Hill. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 17 June 2005.
History
Early history
The earliest people to have enjoyed North Beach were the Aboriginals who inhabited the Illawarra district. The five tribes that lived in the region favoured the coast because of its abundant resources of food. Although relationships between the Aboriginal people and early European settlers were initially peaceable, by the 1830s they had deteriorated as a result of the Europeans' laying claim to land and clearing it. As a result, the Aboriginal population declined sharply – by 1846 it was reported there were less than one hundred indigenous people remaining. Descendants from this small proportion of survivors still live in the area.Although the existence of coal in the area was recognised by the end of the 1790s, the development of a coal industry had to wait for about fifty years, early forays into coal mining were to have an effect on the physical character of North Beach. The first but short-lived coal mine was opened up at Mount Keira in 1849 by James Shoobert. In 1857 a second and vastly more successful mine was opened, and in the following years mining began at Woonona, Bellambi, Coalcliff and Mount Pleasant. The Mount Pleasant Colliery began production in July 1861. The construction of a tramway that gave direct access to Wollongong harbour was a crucial element in the success of the mine, and it was decided to route it from the mine incline east to Fairy Creek and then into a reserve where it turned south and ran along the coast past North Beach and along the base of the cliff to Belmore Basin. It was built under the provisions of the Mount Pleasant Tramroads Act 1862 which enabled the Illawarra Coal Company, which owned the colliery, to construct the tramway through the coastal reserve. The tramway was to be open for public use on the payment of a toll and was opened for use in December 1862. It was upgraded in the early 1880s to accommodate locomotive haulage, and the company took delivery of its first locomotive in 1884.
Industry came briefly to North Beach the following decade when an English pharmacist, Courtney Puckey, established an experimental saltworks at the southern end of the beach adjacent to the railway cutting, which still forms a prominent landmark. The saltworks operated for about ten years from the middle of the 1890s onwards. Although short-lived and "commercially inconsequential" it is significant as the only Australian example of a "tea-tree framework" presently known to be recorded pictorially.
During the 1920s Wollongong Council expressed some interest in the possibility of acquiring the land between Stuart Park and the Illawarra Coal Company's wharf, and requested meetings with the Company to discuss the issue. In April 1932 a meeting was held at the NSW Public Works Department in Sydney which included delegates from Wollongong Council to discuss the removal of the tramway from the foreshores, but apparently little or no action was forthcoming. The Mount Pleasant colliery closed in 1933 as a result of the Great Depression, and went into liquidation the following year. It was acquired by Broken Hill Proprietary in December 1936. In the meantime, Wollongong Council had been persistently "endeavouring to secure the removal of the Mt. Pleasant Railway Line and the conversion of the site of the line into a promenade...but with little success". Then, on 16 November 1937 representatives of Broken Hill Pty met with members of Council. They advised that the company had decided to abandon the Mt Pleasant and Mt Keira railways and donate the land to Council, and expressed the hope "that the company's action will be useful to the Council in clearing up and beautifying the foreshores of Wollongong". In 1938 the land was finally given to Wollongong Council.
A tradition of sea bathing
Early bathing facilities were established in Wollongong not long after its foundation. Bathing facilities for ladies and men were in place at Brighton Beach by 1839. In 1856 public baths were established at Flagstaff Hill and the following year the Brighton Hotel introduced bathing machines to improve its seaside amenity.Despite its apparent popularity, however, sea bathing was heavily proscribed. In 1870 it was forbidden to bathe between the hours of 8 a.m. and 7 p.m.. Furthermore, men and women were segregated and made to bathe at different locations. During the 1880s men bathed at Clarke's Hole and Gibson's Hole while women were confined to Flagstaff Point, but as the decade moved on restrictions eased a little, and sea bathing was only forbidden between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. However, in 1888 it seems that crowds of recalcitrant men bathed from 3 p.m. onwards in defiance of the regulations, thus rendering the areas that they frequented unfit for the presence of women. Around the same time work began on upgrading the various bathing facilities in Wollongong, which at this period was frequently described as the "Brighton of NSW".
In March 1894 the first moves towards organised beach activities came about with a meeting held at the Brighton Hotel to form a men's swimming club. This almost coincided with the first incursions into surf life saving in New South Wales when a member of the St George Swimming Club suggested that life saving classes be started up in 1893.
After surf bathing hours were relaxed in 1902 there was a notable surge in the popularity of ocean bathing, but the dangers of the surf soon became very apparent. A public meeting was held in Wollongong Council Chambers on 11 January 1908 "for the purpose of forming a surf bathing and life saving club" with almost one hundred people in attendance. The mayor of Wollongong presided, and mentioned discussions that had taken place between a "visitor from Manly" and himself. The popularity of surf bathing, its attendant dangers and the necessity for a life saving club were raised. So were more some tangible benefits associated with the surf - "during the past four or five years the population of Manly, Bondi and other places had increased to a marvellous degree through surf bathing...surf bathing was not only a pleasant and healthy pastime, but was the means of bringing a large number of tourists to the town". As a result of the meeting the Wollongong Surf Bathing and Life Saving Club was formed, with the immediate enrolment of 57 members. It is indicative of the nature of the surf life saving movement at this time that the nascent club was offered support and encouragement from a number of clubs in Sydney, most scarcely a few years old themselves.
At the club's first practice session, held on 19 January 1908, some 600 spectators looked on at the activities. This was an impressive figure given that the population of Wollongong was then just under 3,000, and indicates the amount of interest that with surf bathing held for the local populace.
Though the Wollongong Surf Bathing and Life Saving Club was the first such organization to be formed in the Illawarra region, there were several others founded very shortly afterwards. For instance, the Helensburgh-Stanwell Park Life Saving and Surf Bathing Club commenced operating on 11 February 1908, Kiama Surf Bathers Club was founded on 14 March 1908 and a Club was established in Thirroul around August 1908.
In April 1908 a meeting was held concerning the erection of dressing sheds on North Beach. It was agreed that the Club and the Wollongong Municipal Council would raise a quarter of the required amount each while the balance would come from a pounds for pounds subsidy from the State Government. The Club set to work and staged fund raising activities such as dances, but it still took a year for it to accumulate the required sum of money. Still, by the end of 1909 a timber dressing shed for men was standing on what is now the site of the present North Beach Bathers' Pavilion and it was opened by the mayor at a surf carnival held on 30 November to celebrate the jubilee of the Municipality of Wollongong. Indeed, the Club was promoted as one of Wollongong's prime assets in a booklet that was published by the Council to promote the jubilee - "As a seaside resort Wollongong offers every attraction to the tourist. The surf bathing is of the best and is under the management of a most efficient club" - and a photograph of the new dressing shed took up an entire page. Should it be thought that the locals were demonstrating excessive pride in this matter, the Surf Bathing Association of NSW made it known that "accommodation provided at Wollongong for surf-bathing, thanks to an energetic Council and Life Saving Club, is probably the best on any of the beaches in the State, and in recognising the need for such, the Council have taken a step which could be followed with advantage by many other seaside municipal bodies".
Public facilities were expanded shortly afterwards. On 2 December 1910 a special Sand and Sport Day was held to celebrate the completion of a dressing shed for women and a kiosk. This too was officially opened by the Mayor of Wollongong. The new dressing shed was located near Stuart Park while the kiosk, which was leased out, was located between it and the men's shed. Further improvements in the form of fencing and seats had also been constructed along the cliff above the beach.
While the amenities for the public at North Beach may have been improving, the situation within the Wollongong Surf Bathing and Life Saving Club was certainly not. A group calling themselves the Water Rats, which took an intense interest in life saving, broke away from the Club in 1911. The Water Rats also began their operations on North Beach and friction between the two clubs inevitably developed because both wanted control of the beach. The Water Rats decided to change their name to the North Wollongong Surf Life Saving Club in September 1914. At a Mayoral conference held on 28 December 1914 attended by members of both clubs it was moved that a unified North Wollongong Surf Bathing and Life Saving Club be formed. This motion was carried unanimously, thus resolving the awkward situation.
Over the next few years a number of improvements were carried out or proposed on and around North Beach. Extensions to both sheds so that children could be accommodated were made in 1912. A room for the Surf Club was built several years later. It was funded jointly by the Club, the Council, and also the North Wollongong Progress Association and was officially opened on 19 December 1917. A proposal for a lookout station on the beach was put forward in 1920, while the pleasures of a visit to the Beach were enhanced by the installation of a soda fountain in the kiosk. Wollongong Municipal Council maintained its involvement in the running of North Beach by employing a lifesaver in November 1921. It handed over control to the tenant of the Kiosk in the second half of 1922 and the tenant ended up employing the lifesaver and attending to the dressing sheds.
The site has been used for major surf life saving events throughout the twentieth century. The first annual combined surf carnival, organised by the South Coast Surf Lifesaving Association, was held at North Beach during March 1922. The first State Championship Carnival staged by a country branch of the Surf Life Saving Association in NSW was held there during the 1949-50 season and then the Australian Championships in March 1952.
From the 1970s particular groups of youth subculture such as "surfers" and "revheads" have used this area extensively, adding more informal and unofficial usages and meanings. The beach and its associated buildings have been increasingly important also to older Australians, offering sites for gatherings of informal groups of friends and relatives, often made up of retired people from nearby suburbs.