Man-sized brick barrel drains discovered at Thompson Square last month could be the oldest government infrastructure in Australia, according to a decades-old report compiled by a highly respected archaeologist.
In 1992 Dr Edward Higginbotham, of Edward Higginbotham & Associates Pty Ltd., compiled an historical and archaeological assessment of the brick culvert in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens, built in 1816.
In a table contained within the report, Dr Higginbotham points to the earliest example of brickwork in culverts and drains in the former colony of NSW as being the brick barrel drain in Thompson Square, dating from 1814.
Dr Higginbotham’s report is being used by Thompson Square supporters to lend weight to calls for the drains to be preserved in situ, rather than salvaged and stored.
Hawkesbury architect and historian Graham Edd has forwarded the information to local, state and federal representatives, including Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg to provide “significant additional criterion to substantiate the nomination for emergency National Heritage Listing for Thompson Square”.
“The barrel drain is a most significant archaeological find and potentially the earliest piece of government infrastructure constructed in Australia,” he told the Gazette. “The NSW Government and the RMS should regard this barrel drain as far too significant to salvage and destroy and must stop work, evaluate it professionally, establish it true significance to Australia and stop the Windsor Bridge Replacement Project.
“This piece of archaeology together with other archaeology that has not yet been uncovered has huge tourism potential for the Hawkesbury.
“Its destruction must not be contemplated.”
Macquarie MP Susan Templeman raised the issue on radio last week, saying the discovery proved the need to stop the archeaological work until after the current NSW Upper House inquiry releases its findings, and the federal emergency heritage listing request is decided.
“They’re convict bricks, hand dried,” she said. “They’re big, man-sized tunnels from what we understand. [The RMS] plan is to remove those drains, to take them apart … and put them off in a warehouse somewhere.”
Ms Templeman agreed the find could present the area with more tourism opportunities.
“It could become a real opportunity to reinvent Windsor, to showcase how Australia’s colonial forebears put this colony together,” Ms Templeman said.
”It’s an outrage, anywhere else this work would be stopped, it would be on hold given the historical and archaeological significance of what’s there.”
