Newcastle Harbour - National Engineering Landmark #5 Newcastle East, New South Wales, Australia
By Team MavEtJu on 22-Oct-15. Waypoint GA7680

Newcastle Harbour - National Engineering Landmark #5

The estuary, considerably wider than the harbour is now, was a broad expanse of sand banks and mud flats intersected by moving winding channels with a water depth of 2.5 to 4 metres. Signal Hill (now Fort Scratchley) extended towards the river, with steep cliffs to the river side. Most of the area now forming the Foreshore Park, the old railway yards and Newcastle station was a large shallow lagoon.

An entrance between Signal Hill and Nobbys was beset by shallow reefs but was commonly used for the first few years of settlement. Another channel to the North of Nobbys lay between reefs extending North Eastward and a large submerged sandbank: "The Oyster Bank" which caused the wreck of many ships.

"During heavy gales, waves rolled through the South Channel completely into the harbour, rendering it unsafe for vessels to lie in the more open and exposed parts."

John Henderson, of the Australian Agricultural Company, after inspecting the area in the 1820's, concluded "that the estuary of the Hunter River would not be a suitable harbour for vessels engaged in the export trade".

For the Northern channel, since the 1830's the only harbour entrance, Moriarty recorded in 1861, "The other obstructions to the entrance of the port which render it in rough weather almost inaccessible to sailing vessels, and at all times both dangerous and difficult to leave or enter except with a fair wind and favouring tide are firstly the Bar and, secondly the Oyster Bank, an extensive and shallow sand bank, having only five feet of water on it, which stretches into the very mouth of the harbour. There is a considerable depth of water on the Bar, fully twenty three feet, so that its ill effects are only felt by the rollers or high-rolling waves it creates, and which render vessels at time almost unmanageable when crossing it in rough weather, the peril being increased by its close proximity to the Oyster Bank".

The lure of coal as a potential export (seams were visible at the waterline at Nobbys and Signal Hill and along the coastal cliffs) and the desire to move convicts away from Sydney led to the formation of a convict settlement, despite the inadequacies of the harbour.

The vast rainforest, with much cedar up the river and the shell deposits of Stockton, proved initially even more attractive than coal. By the late 1820's settlers from Maitland to the Upper Hunter needed ship access for their supplies and produce to their wharf at Morpeth.

The trade was there. The problems had to be faced and a port developed.

Contents of the plaque:

Newcastle Harbour

The port of Newcastle has been developed from a shallow estuary into one of Australia's largest deep water ports by more than 170 years of continual engineering works.
Based on E.O. Moriarty's plan of the 1850's, these have involved ocean breakwaters, training walls, dredging and undersea blasting. The port has been the keystone to the development of Newcastle and the Hunter region.

Dedicated by: The Institution of Engineers, Australia, The Public Works Department, NSW MSB Hunter Ports Authority 1989

When logging this virtual, please add a photo of yourself or your GPSr at the plaque.

For more information, please see the nomination PDF at the Heritage Register at the Engineers Australia website: https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/portal/heritage/newcastle-harbour-1850