Freeway Opens

The first 9.8km long section of the F5 from The Cross Roads to Raby Road was opened to traffic on 26 October 1973. Costing $13.1 million dollars and taking four years to complete, this was the first of three stages and first section of the F5 Freeway to be opened. The second section between Raby Road and Camden Road at Kenny Hill was opened the following year.

Workmen apparently toiled into the early hours of the morning before that day's opening under floodlights and car headlights to finish the last quarter mile section of roadway. As usual the opening occurred amid claims that it was an election gimmick for the following month's state election. Predictably, the minister refuted these claims.

The Campbelltown Ingleburn News reported that 'At 9.30am the covers came off the huge signs erected at the expressway entrances and a trickle of traffic began using the new road. Most drivers chose the old route through Ingleburn Army Camp apparently (because of the huge crowds of workmen near the entrances) unaware the new freeway was open.' Construction of the new section required building nine bridges, including building twin bridges over Aero Road and Bunbury Curran Creek.

Site of F5 Freeway west of Campbelltown prior to its construction. This photograph was probably taken in the late 1960s.

Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

Campbelltown Ingleburn News October 31, 1973

Journal of the Department of Main Roads, Vol. 46 No. 1, March 1981

Beverley Park

On a perfect Spring day in 1938 a crowd of about 900 gathered for the opening of the Beverley Park Home for Crippled Children. The mansion was generously given as a gift to the New South Wales Society for Crippled Children by Mr and Mrs Herbert Yates. He and his wife had built the house as a holiday place for their family. When their children grew up the couple decided to give the house and its 30 acres of land to the Society to be used as it saw fit.

Men and women gave an enormous amount of voluntary labour to organise and prepare the home. It was envisaged as a centre for the rehabilitation of crippled children undergoing treatment. It was to be a place of rest and holiday care supervised by a house-mother, Miss Woodhart. Locals rallied around the home and their activities in fund raising with various social events were always in the news.

By 1939, a total of 169 children enjoyed rest and holiday care at Beverley Park. A recreation wing was later opened in 1941. The house later became an orthopaedic hospital to provide accommodation to children with physical disabilities with specialist care of muscular dystrophy and spina bifida patients. In 1956, the Education Department set up a school in the grounds for those children who were now institutionalised and began providing long term care for residents with physical disabilities and high support needs.

In 1988, with the opening of 5 modern villas, Beverley Park changed from being a hospital to a residential service for up to 20 young adult residents with high support needs. Ten years later the house and land that were once part of the Beverley Park Hospital were sold to the NSW Government, who transferred the previous house, institution and then hospital into a school for children with special needs.

Many past residents have successfully transferred to independent living houses run by Northcott Disability Services and are living independently in the community.

Beverley Park photographed around 1939. (Bottin Collection. Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society).

Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

BAYLEY, William A 1974
History of Campbelltown
Campbelltown: Campbelltown City Council

COLES, Kenneth  et al 1976
The History of The New South Wales Society For Crippled Children
Sydney: The New South Wales Society For Crippled Children

A Shooting Accident

On 4 January 1934, 16 year old Gilbert Larcombe was accidentally shot while shooting rabbits only a few miles from his home at "Hillcrest" at Campbelltown. He was one of a party of boys hunting rabbits. A 12 gauge shot gun carried by another boy exploded, and the charge entered Gilbert's left leg causing horrific damage.

The Liverpool ambulance had great difficulty in reaching the place where the accident occurred and then it had to travel all the way back to Liverpool. According to the newspaper they had to travel 30 miles from the accident site.

Gilbert Larcombe was admitted to a private hospital in Campbelltown but died early the following morning. His death resulted in a huge outpouring of grief within the Campbelltown community and a long and emotional obituary dominated the front pages of the local newspaper for that week.

"Hillcrest" on Badgally Road, Campbelltown where the Larcombe family were living when Gilbert was tragically shot. (Macarthur Development Board).

Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 January, 1934
Campbelltown News, 12 January, 1934

Early Days of Horse Racing at Campbelltown

As early as June 1827, a race meeting was held by Colonel Henry Dumaresq for the Sydney Turf Club in the bush near Campbelltown. This racecourse was probably located on the flats below Varroville. In June 1836, a meeting was called at John Hurley's King's Arms Inn to form a committee for a subscription race meeting. A two day race meeting was planned for September. The final event of the programme was a women's race in which six of the local 'lasses', 'exhibiting uncommon good judgement and skill', raced their horses around the track to win a saddle.

By the 1840s, horse racing had become an annual event. Every September races were held on the Campbellfield Estate along Bow Bowing Creek (now Memphis, Nelson and Francis Streets, Minto). In September 1842 the "Australasian Chronicle" reported on the previous week's 3 day race meeting at this course. It described how 'No accident occured, and everything went off satisfactorily. The Campbelltonians enjoyed the performances of the Sydney band, which was in attendance, at night, after the sports of the day; and the young people of Campbelltown will bear in mind until next races the amusing gymnastics of Jim Crow, who was likewise in attendance".

 In 1851, the Campbelltown Turf Club leased 60 acres from John Keighran for a racecourse.

Races were held at Menangle Park from the 1870s. Two railway sidings were built to bring spectators, competitors and horses directly to the track. In 1914, local Alfred Rose Payten designed the three grandstands at Menangle Park Racecourse.

There once existed a racetrack at Leumeah. It was originally known in the 1800s as Rudd's Racecourse. The racetrack was roughly bound by where today's Kingsclare Street, O'Sullivan Road and Beverley Park on the old Rudd Road are located. Alf Cooper, who passed away in 2010, used to do trackwork on it in the 1930s. He would train racehorses that belonged to George Chinnocks. Another local man, Clarrie O'Loughlan, trained trotters on the old racecourse as well. The racecourse later became part of the C.B. King Estate.

                  The opening of Menangle Park Racecourse in 1916


Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

LISTON, Carol
Campbelltown: The Bicentennial History, 1988

FOWLER, Verlie
Reminiscences of Alf Cooper
In Grist Mills: Journal of the Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society
Vol. 10, No. 4 1997