COAL-mining scars at Merewether have long vanished. But the seaside suburb's 19th-century industrial past is still vividly with us.
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In June, Newcastle restaurateur Neil Slater and architect Barney Collins, fresh with the success of the Anzac Memorial Walk, had a new dream - to re-open the old coastal mining tunnels between Merewether and Burwood beaches to extend the Bathers Way Walk towards Glenrock.
Who knows if the idea will ever come to fruition, but it again highlights the interesting background of suburban Merewether.
So many mines were dug there over the last 190 years that old miners claimed much of the suburb's history was concealed in a labyrinth of coal tunnels.
More than 30 years ago, before rock falls blocked the way, it was claimed people could walk about 3.5 kilometres underground from the Glebe Hill pit, near Macquarie Street, and travel by way of West Burwood, Nott's, Morgan's, Brown's and Hillside collieries to Happy Valley colliery (at Rowan Crescent), then to an opening overlooking Merewether beach.
That's the story anyway from the days when there was a racecourse near Frederick Street, up to seven brickworks, a pottery with tall landmark stack, a forgotten copper smelter in Smelters Gully and several busy coal railways.
So, as the suburb's character now seems to be ever changing, let's peep a little more back into the past.
The recent story on this history page about Merewether's demolished Llewellyn Street arch also stirred many memories.
The arch, a low coal railway bridge, spanned Llewellyn and Merewether streets as part of a big earth embankments, stretching south from behind the Mitchell Park grandstand. This familiar Llewellyn Street bridge was finally taken down in 1957. The embankments soon also began to be physically removed, with the soil soon dumped behind Dixon Park beach on levelled sand dunes to provide parkland, according to the then Lord Mayor Ald Frank Purdue in late 1960.
The same recent Weekender yarn also revived readers' memories of Jim and Mabel Curley's grocer shop on the corner of Llewellyn and Mitchell streets. They said trade declined with the arrival of supermarkets and eventually the shop closed down.
Then there were the memories of people, then youngsters, who picked up lumps of coal fallen from rail wagons along the route of the old Burwood line.
One reader, I'll call Greg, had a particular interest in the Llewellyn Street arch old coal line.
Although some of his memories seem at odds with other residents, they're worth recording.
"My father owned 67 Merewether Street [which had been built for the then headmaster of Central School in the mid-1930s] until 1969 when he sold it," Greg wrote to Weekender.
"The train line ran at the back fence as it was at the rear of our house that [the railway up Merewether Street] began to curve to cross Caldwell Street and head up to the telephone exchange [in Ridge Street]. I remember the trains on this line very well. I am unsure what evidence you have relating to the line going to the Hillside Colliery . . . which was a few hundred [metres] south-west of the old Hillcrest family home."
Greg said he couldn't recall the Hillside Colliery operators ever using the bridge.
"It had its own trackbed parallel to Mitchell Street which was owned by Donaldson's mine. Later Marheine's mine took the coal out by truck," he claimed.
(Part of the problem assessing the past of Merewether railways is that while the parent coal link, the Burwood rail line, ran from The Junction into Newcastle wharves, one map of historic Merewether shows five separate coal railways to the south and south-west converging at The Junction.)
Greg believed the Llewellyn Street arch/bridge was actually built to carry the very heavy trains from the Newcastle Coal Mining Company's colliery (possibly B pit from 1882 to 1910). It stood "where the Merewether Bowling Club clubhouse now stands and after that it carried the long trains from the colliery at The Glebe.
"The train was often of mixed [8-ton coal] wagons as some came from the very productive Hillside Extended tunnel which nestled in the corner of the valley below Yule Road - almost directly below the gate down into Murdering Gully," he said. "There was a spur line to this tunnel's loader which left the main railway after crossing Yule Road, the main line continuing up to the big loader at the Newcastle Coal Mining company's vertical shaft.
"There were several other tunnels in the vicinity of the main pit which worked under franchise."
Greg said the furthest tunnel in the Glebe Valley was up in the hillside and was the old West Burwood No. 2 pit. (The valley is below City Road.) Going down the hillside then into the valley itself was Nott's Tunnel and near it was the Victoria Tunnel.
On a flatter section of Glebe Valley, just above Little Edward Street, Merewether, was the Glebe Hill Tunnel, Greg wrote.
A sketch map of Merewether mines and lost railway lines produced by local history enthusiasts in 1983 confirms these details and also shows the famous A Pit nearby.
Colloquially called Glebe Pit, this pit was a major undertaking of the Newcastle Coal Mining Company.
Today's historic picture (above), taken by Ralph Snowball, shows the mine in full swing on February 24, 1899. It operated from 1876 to 1921.
"I remember all these Merewether places all so well and particularly the trains. It was a hive of activity," Greg wrote.
"I think the closure of these local lines was terrible."
The last official coal train to run from the area was on August 23, 1954. According to Herald files, the last journey of what was called the Glebe coal train ended about 50 years service on this railway.
It also only carried coal from four small pits of Hillside and Hillside Extended, Glebe End and Glebe Main.
And now, another mystery. Many original Burwood (Merewether) Estate names when the land was subdivided for development came from the family links of pioneer E.C.Merewether.
But what about other local names? Rather surprisingly, at least 14 and possibly 17 early tenants of the Burwood Estate had streets named after them.
According to research by former Newcastle librarian Charlie Smith, the tenant names include Berner, Caldwell, Dent, Hopkins, Lingard, Livingstone, Llewellyn, Morgan, Nott, Patrick , Ranclaud, Snedden, Watkins and Winsor.
mikescanlon.history@hotmail.com
