Forbes. Old gold mining town with grand buildings. Nearest is the 1891 Town Hall. Beyond is the 1881 built French Renaissance style Post Office designed by colonial architect James Barnet. : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Forbes. Old gold mining town with grand buildings. Nearest is the 1891 Town Hall. Beyond is the 1881 built French Renaissance style Post Office designed by colonial architect James Barnet. / denisbin
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-改変禁止 2.1 |
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| 説明 | Forbes. Almost thirty years after the Botany Bay settlement was founded the first white explorer Surveyor General George Evans found the Lachlan River south of Bathurst. That was in 1815 as Bathurst was being established as the first white settlement beyond the Blue Mountains. He named the river after Governor Lachlan Macquarie. The river running through Bathurst had already been named after him too. Just three years later explorer John Oxley followed the Lachlan River for three days westward to the site of what was to become Forbes which he named Camp Hill. The first white squatters moved into the valley from 1834 and by the time Major Thomas Mitchell passed this way in 1836 all land was in the valley as taken up with leaseholds. The pastoralists had the area to themselves along with the local Aborigines until everything suddenly changed in 1861. In June of that year gold was discovered along the Lachlan River on Rankin’s run and within a short time 28,000 diggers and followers were camped where Forbes stands. Harry the German who is credited with the gold discovery made £40,000 out of his mining lease but soon had little more than a pack horse to ride! A town was laid out and named after Sir Francis Forbes the first Chief Justice of NSW who arrived in the colony in 1824. This early town was a tent city with stores, services and hotels. It was claimed that the first hotel the Albion sold more liquor in the 1860s than any other Australian hotel! In just two years between 1861 and 1863 around 285,000 ounces (8,100 kilos) of gold was extracted at Forbes. The gold was taken by armed police escort to Bathurst and on to Sydney. The gold rush was over in 1863 but several thousand people remained in Forbes which grew into a regional service centre. By 1863 the town had a saw mill (always needed for erecting shafts in mining areas), a weir to provide town water from the Lachlan River, and stores of government services. The South Lead deep shaft gold mining continued but the alluvial gold was finished. This mine, and others, between 1865 and 1915 extracted another £13,200,000 worth of gold. Forbes was proclaimed a municipality as early as 1870. The passing of the Robertson Land Acts of 1861 helped people stay on in the district as people could select between 40 and 320 acres for purchase before survey from the leaseholds of the pastoralists. So small properties were quickly established around the gold fields by then being run by companies. Early Forbes might have been a tent and wooden city but the town remained even as the rush subsided because of its facilities. Between 1861 and 1863 the first hospital was built (1861) as was the first Post Office (wooden), the first courthouse and police station were erected, the first flour mill opened for local residents and bakers, butcheries were opened, dairy produce was supplied by farmers etc. The first timber framed Anglican Church opened in 1861, soon followed by a Methodist church (1863). The town’s newspaper the Lachlan Reported began publication in 1862. Forbes had enough people, good land, farmers and services to maintain itself as a thriving town and not one heading towards becoming a ghost town. In fact during the 1870s and 1880s the town replaced earlier buildings with impressive and substantial stone and brick structures. Around civic square the new Post Office was built in 1881, the Courthouse was completed in 1880, the foundation stone of the grand Town Hall which cost £5,000 was laid in 1890, the red brick school was finished in 1870, the Presbyterian and Anglican churches were built in 1877, the Vandenberg Hotel was rebuilt in 1879, the Catholic Church opened in 1880 and the Albion Hotel was rebuilt in the late 1880s. To solidify its position the town was helped with the arrival of the railway in 1893 from Molong and Orange. Then in 1904 the municipality spent £10,000 on building a gas works to provide gas to town houses and premises. Forbes continued to grow in the 20th century and during World War Two it was one of the western NSW towns with a munitions works operating as an offshoot of the big Lithgow small arms factory. Forbes ammunition works employed 350 people. Orange, Cowra, Young, and Parkes all had feeder ammunition works. After the War the Lachlan River flats were irrigated and the district began producing lucerne, apples, oranges and vegetables. A tomato pulping factory opened in Forbes in 1948. Its industrial base has changed and diversified since then. The town now has 7,000 residents and the district 10,000. Forbes has an average annual rainfall of 525 mms or 21 inches of rain. Forbes history Walk. Buildings not covered in the Information Centre brochure. A. Forbes Library. The library was built in 1923 as the Literary Institute. It is next to the Courthouse. Built in the Art Deco style. It was attached to the old School of Arts building which appears to date from the 1890s. The School of Arts was established much earlier in 1870. B. Forbes School. Near the Library is the red brick Forbes School. The earliest part of the school was built in 1870. In 1942 a new red brick and terracotta tiled roof school was built down the street. Note the very steep gable on Browne Street. This old school is now part of the TAFE campus. C. Forbes Uniting Church formerly a Wesleyan Church. Near the school is the red brick Gothic style Methodist Church. The first Methodist services began in 1863. The first church was destroyed by winds a few months later. Services were then held in the Jewish synagogue but that closed in 1870 as the first rush of gold diggers moved away from Forbes. A second wooden Methodist church opened in 1877. The foundation stone of the current brick and freestone Gothic church was laid in 1906 and the church opened not long after that. In 1977 it became Uniting. D. Post Office Hotel. 117 Lachlan St. Built 1867 and one of oldest structures in Forbes. Has ashlar stone work with splayed corner. Topped with a parapet and windows small which is typical of the 1860s era. This was rebuilt recording the two building dates of 1864 and 1897. The veranda was removed in1975 and the upper floor French windows were partially bricked up and turned into normal windows. What a pity. E. Anglesey House in Templar Street near the old fire Station. This beautifully restored two storey Victorian town house in Templar Street was built in 1884 by merchant William Thomas. He was the Mayor of Forbes who donated the fountain to Victoria Park. Anglesey House is screened by a fine cast iron balcony and veranda. Complementing the house is an elegant brick and cast iron fence. It has stone stables at the rear. It still has its slate roof and superb cast iron lace work and veranda posts. The tri part main windows are very gracious. Return to Lachlan Street. F. ANZ Bank buildings at 74 Lachlan St. This was built in grand Italianate style with a tower in 1892. The corbels below the roof line indicate it probably originally had a slate roof which needed these supports. G. National Australia Bank - Designed by Mansfield Bros and built in 1884. This was one of the first substantial bank buildings in Forbes. It is almost original and occupies a corner site, which makes it of great importance to the streetscape in Lachlan Street.H. Rankine Street Arcade. This avant guard shopping centre was built in 1892. Rare for an Australian country town. Built in partial Federation style and classical style. These premises have been restored to bring this large historic arcade back to life.I. Turn left into Johnson St at the end of Lachlan St. Not far is St Laurence O'Toole's Catholic Church & Presbytery. Designed as a neat cut stone church with eleven Gothic windows and a porch and tower, the foundation stone for St Laurence's was laid in 1878. The church opened in 1880. The sanctuary was added in 1905. It was the third Catholic Church in Forbes. The first was destroyed by a spring hurricane in 1862. When the site was chosen for the present church it was regarded by the congregation as the finest church site in Forbes. The elegant Federation period Presbytery was built around 1895 to 1900. Other historic sites. Forbes Pioneer and new Cemeteries. Once referred to as 'God's Acre', the Forbes pioneer cemetery was sited near the old Victoria Lead. It is the final resting place for many of Forbes' earliest residents - most who came seeking gold in the 1861-1863 gold rush. Early in the 20th century the last of the worn wooden headings for police officer Bagwill from the Sofala Gold Police became illegible. Officer Bagwell died in 1862. Many who lie here were victims of 'Lachlan' (typhoid) fever. Since 1862 most burials have taken place in the new general cemetery when this cemetery closed. Famous bushranger Ben Hall was buried in the new cemetery when shot by police in May 1865. Ben Hall’s grave is marked with a headstone erected in the 1920s by the local history society but other members of his gang have unmarked graves in the Forbes cemetery. |
| 撮影日 | 2019-01-03 11:03:20 |
| 撮影者 | denisbin |
| タグ | |
| 撮影地 | |
| カメラ | DSC-HX90V , SONY |
| 露出 | 0.001 sec (1/1250) |
| 開放F値 | f/4.5 |