Bowenfels, New South Wales
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Bowenfels is a small town on the western outskirts of
Lithgow, New South Wales Lithgow is a city in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia and is the administrative centre of the City of Lithgow local government area. It is located in a mountain valley named Lithgow's Valley by John Oxley in honour of W ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
. Today there are effectively two Bowenfels. Near Lithgow, on the Great Western Highway, is Bowenfels (with the homestead of the valley's first settler, Andrew Brown). About a
kilometre The kilometre (SI symbol: km; or ), spelt kilometer in American English, American and Philippine English, is a unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), equal to one thousand metres (kilo- being the SI prefix for ). It is the ...
south is . Although both are now essentially suburbs of Lithgow, Bowenfels was, in fact, the first settlement in the valley, pre-dating the existence of Lithgow by nearly 40 years.


History

Mount Blaxland, a short distance from South Bowenfels, was the furthest point reached by Blaxland, Lawson, and Wentworth on their historic expedition across the Blue Mountains in 1813. Later in that year
George Evans George Evans may refer to: Arts and entertainment * George "Honey Boy" Evans (1870–1915), American songwriter and entertainer * George Evans (bandleader) (1915–1993), English jazz bandleader, arranger and tenor saxophonist * George Evans (sin ...
followed in the footsteps of the explorers to Mount Blaxland and then headed west to discover the O'Connell plains and the Bathurst plains.''Two Journals of Early Exploration in New South Wales''
by George William Evans. Entry for Wednesday, Decr. 6th, 1813. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
At South Bowenfels, Magpie Hollow Road heads west to Lake Lyell and then on to
Tarana ''Tarana'' is a type of composition in Hindustani classical music, Hindustani classical vocal music in which certain words (e.g. "odani", "todani", "tadeem" and "yalali") based on Persian language, Persian and Arabic language, Arabic phonemes are ...
and
O'Connell O'Connell may refer to: People *O'Connell (name), people with O'Connell as a last name or given name Schools * Bishop Denis J. O'Connell High School, a high school in Arlington, Virginia Places * Mount O'Connell National Park in Queensland ...
. Bowenfels was founded in the 1830s to service travellers along the new road to Bathurst, which opened in 1832, following the opening of the Victoria Pass, which sealed the fate of the old Bathurst road in its descent of Mt. York. It was named by Surveyor-General Thomas Mitchell after George Mears Bowen, a former member of his department. The town was the first settlement in the valley and pre-dated Lithgow by 40 years. The
railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
opened in 1869, and was electrified in the 1950s, although passenger services no longer service Bowenfels station.


Heritage listings

Bowenfels has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: * Great Western Highway: ''Fernhill'', Bowenfels * via Kirkley Street: Lithgow Heavy Anti Aircraft Gun Stations and Dummy Station * Main Western railway: Bowenfels railway station * Main Western railway: Bowenfels rail viaducts


Population

According to the 2016 census of population, there were 2,048 people in Bowenfels. * Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 9.5% of the population. * 78.9% of people were born in Australia and 84.8% of people spoke only English at home. * The most common responses for religion were Catholic 25.5%, No Religion 24.2% and Anglican 21.8%.


References

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