Bow Bowing Creek

Back in the days before the public swimming pool at Bradbury was constructed, or Gordon Fetterplace Aquatic Centre as it is now known, most people either swam at The Woolwash or in the Nepean River at Menangle. There was however, another swimming hole that provided relief on a stinking hot Campbelltown day: Bow Bowing Creek.

Bow Bowing Creek's headwaters are found in Glen Alpine and the creek runs permanently, thanks to a natural freshwater spring. Fisher's Ghost Creek and Smith's Creek are two of its tributaries. It would once meander past the township on the western side of the railway line and be prone to flooding at Leumeah and Minto after heavy rain. The original course has altered greatly since a concrete channel was constructed in 1979. The channel cost $198,000 to build and was built to provide reasonable flood protection and to enable projected sales of council land adjacent to Campbelltown Road to proceed.

Many years ago, children from the southern end of Campbelltown would swim in Bow Bowing Creek in a hole known as "the Wattles". Kids from the north would swim in a hole known as the "Leg-o-Mutton". Alf Cooper, who lived most of his long life in Campbelltown, explained "When we came out of school we'd shout "Last to the Wattles is lousy". Across the public school we'd start undressing and by the time we ran down Sewer Lane (today's western end of Dumaresq Street) we'd be naked. The Wattles was a bonzer spot and I was a coot for diving."

It is difficult to imagine that fish were once caught in the creek! A fish called a gudgeon could be found in the creek, which grew to 20-25cms, had very little scale and was quite edible. It became extinct a very long time ago.

Old bridge on Redfern Road, Minto being flooded by Bow Bowing Creek (Jones Collection, Campbelltown City Library)

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

McGILL, Jeff 1995
Campbelltown's Streets and Suburbs: How and why they got their names
Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society

Campbelltown- Ingleburn News, 22 May 1979, p18

FOWLER, Verlie
Reminiscences of Alf Cooper
In Grist Mills Vol. 10, No. 4, December 1997

FOWLER, Verlie
Mervyn and Kathleen Whitten: Living on the Farm
In Grist Mills Vol. 21, No. 2, July 2008

Our Own Pool

It was a long time coming but the people of Campbelltown finally got their own pool in 1967. There was now no need for a hike out to the Woolwash or a drive to the river at Menangle or having to be satisfied with a cool down from the garden hose.

A pool had been planned by council as early as 1960. The following year a swimming pool committee was formed and there were expectations that building of the pool would be started by 1963. When the then Town Clerk Harley Daley was asked by Alderman John Marsden when he thought work would start he replied: "The Summer of 1963". However for a number of years continuous arguments raged over where, when and how it should be built. Finally in 1965, with the help of the Campbelltown Apex Club, council set up a pool construction fund, and six months later a pool was announced as the next fundraising project of the Fisher's Ghost Festival.

Bradbury Pool in 1970 (Geoff Eves Collection)

Deciding on a location then proved to be a problem with the north and south of the LGA staking their claims. It was eventually decided to build in the new suburb of Sherwood Hills which is today's Bradbury. Anticipation in the town was high during the lead up to the opening. Cars would continuously drive around the site checking the construction progress. It was hoped and planned that the pool would be opened in December so the population could cool off during that summer. However they had to wait until March and then suffer the disappointment of a cold weekend for the opening. On Saturday March 11 1967 the Campbelltown Swimming Centre was opened. It was an Olympic-size swimming pool and, at the time, the only nine-lane pool in NSW. It cost $304,000. Despite the freezing wind and cloud for the day after the opening, 1152 people poured through the gates for a dip in the new pool.

Taken in the Summer of 1971-72 (Clarice Stretch Collection)

On the 12th September 1987 a new heated indoor swimming pool was opened at the Centre by Mayor Bryce Regan. The official opening was originally set down for August 15, however for several days prior to the opening  there was a malfunction in the sand filter, causing a major constructional fault.

The official opening of the indoor swimming pool in 1987

In 2011 the pool was re-opened and re-named after an extensive $1.2 million upgrade. It was named after former Campbelltown Mayor Gordon Fetterplace who died in 2008 after a battle with cancer.

Written by Andrew Allen

Woolwash Memories

Almost without fail, everyone remembers the Woolwash as being the best, and favourite swimming spot in Campbelltown. Kids would walk, ride their bikes, or be dropped off, to spend a glorious summer day at this lovely spot on the Georges River.

Swimming, however, was not the only entertainment on offer at the Woolwash.  With great ingenuity, kids created their own forms of fun. Homemade canoes were constructed of tin and wood. These were mainly made of a sheet of corrugated iron bent down the middle and nailed to a piece of timber on each end. Apparently these home made canoes spent a fair bit of time on the river bed! Luckily, they could be retrieved by means of a rope tied to one end of the canoe, and the other end attached to a floating four gallon kerosene tin.

A homemade corrugated iron canoe sinking at the Woolwash in 1940 - photo courtesy CAHS and Col Braithwaite

Jimmy and Frank Lappin were brothers who were born and grew up in Campbelltown. Jim had a canoe he had made from flat iron, which he towed to the Woolwash behind his pushbike.  Frank created a home-made diving helmet, enabling him to walk along the river bed! Using a five gallon oil drum, arm holes were cut out of the drum and a glass viewing panel fitted. By attaching his Dad’s garden hose to the top of the drum, and the other end to a motor car tyre pump, he was able to create an air supply. The pump was operated by a person sitting in the canoe.  All this would work fine until the canoe sank!! Then the helmet had to be abandoned and the diver swim to the surface!

On one occasion, Frank complained that the operators of the pump were “a bit bloody scarce with the air”!!!

Luckily, no one was ever injured during these escapades!

Written by Claire Lynch

 Sources:

Grist Mills

Vol. 13, No. 2 “More Reminiscences of Old Campbelltown by Alf Cooper” by Verlie Fowler

Vol 16, No. 1 “Around the Woolwash in the 1930s and 1940s” by Col Braithwaite

Swimming in the Cattle Tank and Reservoir

Located in Allman Street, Campbelltown are the historic Cattle Tank and Reservoir. Both were constructed and completed by convict labour in the 1830s. They were regarded as necessary as water supply was a constant problem for both farmers and townspeople living in Campbelltown.

Both the Cattle Tank and Reservoir appear mostly to have had an ample supply of water, even during droughts. So of course one can imagine how alluring they were to the locals on a sweltering Campbelltown day. An interesting photograph in our collection is of "Jack's Day"- a regatta held at the site in 1917. It shows a crowd of people gathered around the Reservoir and a couple of local lads cooling off in the water. The newspaper reported "A band of 20 performers headed a procession from the railway station to Hurley Park, where juvenile sports and aquatic displays in the once tabooed reservoir exhilarated spectators".

The Cattle Tank has also been the scene of drowning tragedies over the years. In 1925 seven year old Leniel Johnson drowned after she accidently fell in while playing with her sister. She had been in the water for 20 minutes before she was found but couldn't be revived. Ten years later sixteen year old Betty Humphreys drowned. She had been suffering a nervous breakdown according to the 'Campbelltown News' and ran from her home in Allman Street and jumped in the Cattle Tank. Despite attempts from a young boy named Jack Hadden, she was unable to be revived. The newspaper mentions a mass of tangled wire and rubbish under the water so the days of a clean place to swim appear to be gone by then.

I interviewed both Jim Summers and David Milliken and they described their experiences of swimming in the Cattle Tank when they were boys. Jim, who was born in 1929, recalls his days of swimming there: "we used to swim in those and when I was a kid they were always full of water. We used to catch fish and eels in the smaller one on the bottom side. The tanks would dry up and you could walk in them. Then they would fill up and the fish and eels would be back, they must stay under the mud." He also went on to explain how there used to be a creek that ran down from the tanks in Allman Street. It ran down to Oxley Street and came out in Dumaresq Street. In the late 1930s council, worried about flooding from the Reservoir and tank, decided to drain water from them. Only a year earlier however, there were plans to convert the Cattle Tank into a 'glorified swimming hole', with preliminary estimates of the cost put at 400 pounds for cleaning out and concreting the tank, plus 5 pounds per refill. The proposal was eventually dropped in the late 1930's after another expert calculated a more realistic cost of 2500 pounds for the conversion.

David Milliken described swimming in there as a kid with whatever was underneath! "Every now and again you would get a bite on your foot from a yabby."

The Cattle Tank continued to be used to water stock as late as 1960. By the early 1960s, both the Reservoir and Cattle Tank were all but dry. Subsequent earthworks for a playing field at the top of Hurley Park radically changed the topography of the site. Although dried out today, both catchments continue to provide recreational facilities for nearby residents- albeit in the form of a cricket pitch or sunken volleyball arena.

 

The photograph above shows the regatta held on the cattle tank in 1917. Note the young boy in the water.

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

PEDDELL, Wendy
Conservation Plan Stage 1: Campbelltown Reservoir and Cattle Tank

Campbelltown Water Supply and Cattle Tank: A Conservation Plan

Interviews with Jim Summers and David Milliken held at Campbelltown Library

The Woolwash

Whenever I ask the older generation of Campbelltown where they swam as children the answer is almost always at the Woolwash. The area known as the Woolwash is 4km east of Campbelltown and is a deep gorge along the Georges River around its junction with O'Hare's Creek. Although rumour has it that the Woolwash was at one time used for washing wool, there appears to be no evidence to support this story. In the early days people used the water for their own purposes, and also to water their cattle. But it was as a swimming hole in the searing summer heat of Campbelltown that the Woolwash gained its reputation.

It was during the 1930s that the Woolwash began to be the town's most popular swimming and picnic area. Many Campbelltown residents of that time remember crowds of about 100 people sitting and sunbaking on the sandy beach on the eastern side of the river. Unlike the muddy water hole at Bow Bowing Creek, the Woolwash water was normally very clear, unpolluted and nearly always flowing. It became so popular that in 1946 a kiosk was built and leased by Fred Lower. In 1955, council constructed a parking area near the top of the Woolwash road. Prior to its construction there were often up to about 50 cars parked along the road down to the turning area on a good weekend. A second car park was constructed in 1969 along with a kiosk and dressing sheds.

The area around the Woolwash was very popular for boy scout camps between the two world wars. Two camping areas were established in the 1930s about 200 metres up O'Hare's Creek, one on either side of the creek.

According to local resident Col Braithwaite, broken glass bottles were a major hazard in the area. People drank the contents of the glass soft drink bottles, threw the bottles into the water, then proceeded to throw stones at the bottles until they broke and sank. Many children often received bad cuts to their feet. Still, this was a small price to pay for a day at Campbelltown's charming piece of paradise.

Four unidentified children of the Denison family at the "The Woolwash" A. Denison Collection

Sources:

"Around the Woolwash in the 1930s and 1940s" by Col Braithwaite in "Grist Mills" vol 16 no 1 p26

Written by Andrew Allen