Mount Kirkley
Convict Stockade

Historical records document four 1830s convict stockades in the Lithgow area of NSW: Mt Victoria, Hassans Walls, Bowens Hollow and Mt Walker. However, Ollie Leckbandt has discovered a fifth site that was once a convict work camp. Ollie has called this camp, Mt Kirkley Stockade.

<== To Sydney To Bathurst ==>

Five stockade sites along the Mitchell's Road between the Blue Mountains escarpment at Mt Victoria and Rydal on the way to Bathurst: Mt Victoria, Hassans Walls, Bowens Hollow, Mt Kirkley and Mt Walker.

Relics documented by Ollie Leckbandt from the Mt Kirkley Stockade included buttons and nameplates from soldiers of the 4th, 17th, 28th, 39th, 50th and 80th regiments. So there was a substantial miliary presence there during the 1830s. Other artefacts discovered on the site included coins, buckles, boot heels, insignia, clay tobacco pipes, eating utensils, tools, nails, bolts, locks and hinges.

Ollie also discovered evidence of building foundations and stonework on the site, probably of an official building, military barracks, tradesman's workshop and store hut.

Ollie thinks that this site may have started as a road surveyors' camp. Later the convicts stationed there may have been general duty hands and tradesmen rather than men in irons.

Ollie Leckbandt has comprehensively documented the relics that were found on this site and explained their history in his book, The Forgotten Stockade of Old Bathurst Road. This book also provides site photographs, maps and fascinating historical notes about people associated with the relics found at the Mount Kirkley Convict Stockade.

Mt Kirkley Stockade is a good example of how, even in the absence of written records, Australia's lost history can be traced by careful documentation and interpretation of historical artefacts left behind in the ground.

References

The Forgotten Stockade of Old Bathurst Road. Ollie Leckbandt. (2002).