Category Archives: Maps

The other Hill street

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In my article on Doctor John James Hill in March 2017, I wrote that while Hill St in North Lambton was possibly named after Doctor Hill, given the timing of the road naming (first mentioned in 1872) I was sceptical that was the case. However I have since found there was another Hill Street in North Lambton, that almost certainly was named after John James Hill, because it was in a subdivision of land owned by Doctor Hill. This Hill St had its name changed to Percy St in 1920.

Alderman Lightfoot … moved that the necessary procedure be taken to have the name of Hill-street, North Lambton, changed to Percy-street. It was most confusing to have two streets in the municipality bearing the same name.

Lambton Council Meeting, 18 May 1920.
Official change of name of Hill St to Percy St in Government Gazette, 24 September 1920.

Background

As I was searching through various land titles in the Historical Lands Records Viewer, I found Vol-Fol 1122-48 from 1894, that showed blocks of land between Hill St and William St in North Lambton. This was curious because today, Hill St in North Lambton is nowhere near William St in Jesmond?

The mysterious Hill and William streets on Vol-Fol 1122-48 from 1894.

The solution to the mystery is that the Hill St in this map is actually Percy St today, and the William St in the map is the east end of Michael St today.

In 1867, Daniel Jones purchased 50 acres of land between Jesmond and Lambton which he named “North Lambton” (not to be confused with the modern suburb of North Lambton).

Historical Land Records Viewer

In July 1871 Jones sold a large portion (about 16 acres) of the North Lambton subdivision to Doctor John James Hill, who then began reselling individual blocks of land.

Vol-Fol 123-202.

Notice that in this map that “Frederick St” is below section E, and “William St” is below section C. Today this is Michael Street, and whereas the map from Vol-Fol 123-202 shows William St joining on to George St, this part of the street does not exist today and probably never did. This is a good reminder of the care needed to interpret old maps, particularly in land titles and deposited plans. A street marked in an old map can either be an indication of a street that has been built, or a street that is planned to be built. You have to use other evidence to decide which.

Map from Vol-Fol 123-202 overlaid into Google Earth.
Historical parish map showing the one street with three differently named sections – Michael St, Frederick St, and William St. Historical Land Records Viewer

In 1873 Doctor Hill lodged Deposited Plan 96, which was a re-subdivision of the land he had bought in Sections C and E of North Lambton.

96 | Hill, J.J. | County of Northumberland | North Lambton, Lambton, Newcastle, re-subdivision of part of Sections C & E on Deposited Plan 40.

Deposited Plan 96 in the Plan Lodgement Book. Historical Land Records Viewer

There is no map I can find of the DP96 subdivision, but presumably the purpose was to subdivide into a greater number of smaller blocks in order to maximise profit. In the new subdivision, Doctor Hill added an extra street running east-west through the middle of Section C and named it Hill St.

Hill, William, and Arthur Streets on Vol-Fol 512-82 from 1880.

This “Hill St” was then renamed to Percy St in September 1920 to avoid confusion with the original Hill St above High St in Lambton. As if to graphically and ironically underline the need to reduce the confusion caused by having two Hill Streets, in one of the historical parish maps someone has added an annotation renaming the wrong Hill St! Oops.

The wrong Hill! Historical Land Records Viewer

But wait – there’s more …

The extra other Hill Street

In Hill’s subdivision of Section E in North Lambton, a narrow east-west lane was also added above Hill St. It seems that when Hill St became Percy St in 1920, that this laneway running behind the houses on the north side of Percy St came to be known as Hill St, and is marked as such on some maps.

Another “Hill St” – between Percy St and Fifth St. Sheet 5, Northumberland County District Map. University of Newcastle, Living Histories.

This lane was a private road in the subdivision until Newcastle Council passed a resolution in 1991 to dedicate it as a public road, and noting that it was “also previously known as Hill Street.”

Dedication of Wall Lane (also known as Hill St) as a public road. NSW Government Gazette, 22 May 1992.

The name “Wall Lane” was in honour of the Wall family who ran the shop on the south-east corner of Arthur and Percy Streets for many years.

Vol-Fol 690-71. Purchase of land in August 1941 by George and Julia Wall of land on the corner of Hill (now Percy) and Arthur Streets.

But wait – there’s even more …

The additional extra other Hill Street

Some 500 metres away from Percy Street, opposite Jesmond Park, there is a short stretch of road today that is also named Hill Street, and also named after Doctor Hill.

Hill Street, Jesmond

This Hill Street appears in records as early as 1878, where at the Lambton Council meeting on 26 November 1878 a letter was received …

“… from the Trustees Lambton Building Society dedicating Hill & Abel Streets Jesmond to the Council.”

Dedication of Hill and Abel Streets. Lambton Council minutes of meeting on 26 November 1878.
Hill and Abel Streets in Jesmond. National Library of Australia.

These two streets were located on Lot 5 Section B of DP92 (Vol-Fol 163-244). This land was mortgaged to the Lambton and Building Investment Society in 1876. In November 1878 when the two streets were dedicated to Lambton Council, Doctor John James Hill was Chairman and Trustee of the Society, and Thomas Abel was Secretary.

Lot 5 of DP92 on Robert St Jesmond, mortgaged to Lambton Building and Investment Society in September 1876. Vol-Fol 163-244.

While Hill Street in Jesmond is still there in 2021, Abel Street officially ceased to exist in July 1962 when “in accordance with the provisions of the Public Roads Act, relating to Unnecessary Roads in Our State of New South Wales”, the road was closed. The eastern part of Abel Street was sold to Clarence and Annie Powell, the owners of an adjoining property, and became number 4 Hill St. (See Vol-Fol 8389-31). On the west side, the Anglican church erected a building sometime after 1974. However the transfer of ownership of that little western patch of Abel St was never officially made. This caused some confusion and a costly delay when the Anglican Church sold the property to the non-profit organisation Zara’s House in 2018.

Hill Street, Jesmond. The location of the no-longer existing Abel St is marked in green. SIX Maps.
The non-profit organisation Zara’s House now owns the block of land on the western side of Hill St, where Abel St used to be. Google Maps.
A Robinson’s Street Directory (c. 1960) has three Hill Streets marked in Jesmond and North Lambton.

The many monikers of Michael

Earlier in this article I mentioned that what is Michael St today, originally was three differently named sections – Michael, Frederick, William. But that was just in the stretch of road that lay in Lambton municipality – the section of road in the Wallsend municipality had yet another name – Robroy St.

Robroy St (now Michael St) shown on Vol-Fol 4928-170 in 1938,

A newspaper article from 1945 titled “Postman’s Headache at Jesmond”, notes that

The street in question, before the advent of Greater Newcastle was Frederick-street from the North Lambton area to Steel-street, Jesmond, Michael-street outwards to the old Lambton-Wallsend boundary, and Rob Roy-street thence to Blue Gum road in the Jesmond area. It is stated that, although it is now all Michael-street, officially, the three names still persist with the uninitiated, and piecemeal house numbering adds to the confusion.

Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 5 December 1945.

Coon Island

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Coon Island in Lake Macquarie has been in the news lately, with calls for its name to be changed given the overt derogatory nature of the current name. I wholeheartedly agree that changing the name is the right thing to do.

I had to look up where the island is located, which is at the northern point of land above Swansea. 

I found an old Regional Charting Map in the Historical Land Records Viewer that shows the island.

Location of Coon Island on Regional Charting Map
Regional Charting Map overlaid into Google Earth, showing location of Coon Island.

How it was

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A few weeks ago I attended a Zoom seminar run by Newcastle Family History Society, at which Jeff Madsen explained how to navigate and search the Historical Land Records Viewer to find old land title certificates, which can contain valuable historical information, as well as the occasional map.

I had used this service before to find some old maps, but was never able to find anything when searching the Torrens (land titles) records. I learnt that the reason why I never found anything is because none of the contents are indexed. The only way you can find a land title certificate is if you know the Volume and Folio number. This is often referred to as the Vol-Fol, and is searched for by entering the numbers separated by a hyphen as shown below.

Without a Vol-Fol number, your chance of finding what you want is literally millions to one. However, having found a title certificate (that’s a story for another post), it will often contain a reference to the previous certificate, and possibly one or more references to following certificates. These links then form a ‘Chain of Title’ that shows the progressive changes of ownership and subdivision of land. Using this concept of ‘chain of title’, starting with my own property in Lambton I was able to trace the chain back to the original mineral lease granted to Morehead and Young in 1863 (Vol-Fol 2-4), and then trace the chain forward to Vol-Fol 3-156 from 1864 wherein the plan of the township of Lambton appears on page 3.

Finding this map was very exciting. It is the oldest map I had found of Lambton, more than 30 years older than what I had seen before. The map revealed a few interesting details:

  • It confirmed my previous suspicion that the original name for Howe St was How St, almost certainly named after Robert How, an investor in the Scottish and Australian Mining Company.
  • The main road from Wallsend to Newcastle was originally going to be Dickson St.
  • The section of Grainger St between Dickson St and Young St (Newcastle Rd now) was originally called Reservoir St.
  • Grainger St appears on this map as “Granger” without the ‘i’. Unlike the ‘How/Howe’ discrepancy, this is almost certainly a mis-spelling on the 1864 map. Newspaper reports and Government Gazettes overwhelmingly and from an early date spell it as “Grainger”. The street is named after “Charles Garston Grainger” which returns 454 results in Trove, whereas searching for “Charles Garston Granger” returns no results.
Map of the planned Lambton Township, 1864. Vol-Fol 3-156.

Tharwa Road, Lambton

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For quite some time as I researched Lambton history, I’ve come across references to “Tharwa Road”, which no longer exists in Lambton. I wondered whether it was a mis-spelling or variant of “Tathra Road”. Recently while perusing old maps I discovered that a 1906 real estate poster map shows that “Tharwa Road” used to be the section of Wallarah Road north of Womboin Road.

Tharwa Road, Lambton. University of Newcastle, Living Histories.

It made sense that the road had two names, for they began as two completely separate roads divided by the Lambton colliery railway. Each road was also in a different council area – Tharwa Road in the Lambton municipality, Wallarah Road in the New Lambton municipality.

As early as 1926, residents of East Lambton were agitating to have the roads connected to make a thoroughfare to New Lambton. The joining of the roads appears to have happened around 1941, with The Newcastle Sun reporting on 11 Feb 1941 …

It was decided to ask the Newcastle Council to attend to … the renumbering of Wallarah Road, which has now been extended to include Tharwa Road.

Railway Deviation, Teralba

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While looking at Google Earth this weekend I noticed that it was somewhat odd the way the Sydney-Newcastle train line has a big eastward loop just south of Teralba.

Why didn’t the train line just continue north-south in a relatively straight line? Consulting Parrott’s 1893 map revealed that’s exactly what the line used to do. Here’s the map overlaid onto Google Earth, with the present day path of the rail line shown in red.

So why the change, and when did it happen?

A search of Trove revealed that construction of the deviation was commenced around 1901. It was one of a number of re-alignments and deviations between Adamstown and Morisset designed to reduce the grade (steepness) of the track, and thus improve the efficiency of haulage. The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate reporting on the program of rail deviations on 2 July 1901 stated that …

The grade will be 1 in 80 as against 1 in 40 and 1 in 50 on the present line. It is estimated that this deviation of the line, though a costly matter, involving as it does the expenditure of some thing between £70,000 and £80,000, will enable one engine to do work which it now takes two to do, and thus the expenditure is believed to be justifiable.

Construction of the Teralba deviation was halted in October 1901 because of a legal dispute. The deviation passed over the workings of the Pacific Co-operative Steam Coal Company, and the Railway Commissioner’s had offered £2,000 in compensation for the resumed land. The coal company thought this too little, and put in a counter claim for £25,000 compensation. Construction of the deviation recommenced in early 1902 while the legal arguments about compensation continued. In June 1902 it was reported that “the Teralba section is being pushed forward rapidly, giving employment to from 300 to 400 men”. The construction was reported as completed in April 1903.

However the argument over compensation was not completed. At an arbitration hearing in January 1903 the Railway Commissioners were ordered to pay £18,460 in compensation. The Railway Commissioners thought the award too high, and immediately asked “to have the amount of compensation settled by a jury, under the provisions of the Public Works Act of 1900.” On the other hand the Pacific Co-operative Coal Company thought the award too small, and immediately upped the ante by suing the Railway Commissioners for “£60,000 damages for the deprivation of mining rights.”

After a lengthy court case in March 1903, the jury awarded the coal company £17,609 in damages. On 11 June 1903 the coal company signed a “judgement for the amount of the verdict, with interests and costs.” But two months later in August 1903 the matter was back in the courts, where a ruling was made that the coal company “were not entitled to recover such costs.” To make matters even more complicated (as if they weren’t complicated enough), the Pacific Co-operative Steam Coal Company didn’t own the land they were mining. They leased it from the Perpetual Trustee Company for an annual fee based on the amount of coal extracted. The Perpetual Trustee Company thought that their payments would be reduced due to the resumption of land by the railway, and therefore they launched separate legal action against the Railway Commissioners for payment of compensation.

Convoluted legal proceedings continued for years, going all the way to the Privy Council in London in September 1904, other proceedings to the High Court of Australia in September 1905, and continuing in other courts until at least May 1906. With the massive amount of time spent in the courts and associated legal fees, I suspect the 3km Teralba deviation became the most expense piece of railway construction in NSW at the time.

Update to historical real estate maps index

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I’ve just updated my visual index to historical real estate maps by adding maps from Creer and Berkeley, catalogued by the National Library of Australia. There were 130 items that were not in the University of Newcastle Flickr archive.

The two most interesting discoveries I made while adding the maps were

Platts Hill

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While researching the history of trams in Newcastle, I came across a newspaper article from 1900 that mentioned “Platt’s Hill” in Waratah.

A movement was recently made by Lambton people to have a connection with Waratah by way of Platt’s Hill.

I wasn’t familiar with this name and initially wondered whether it referred to the Braye Park hill. But a quick check of my index of historical real estate posters revealed a poster from 1914 that showed Platt’s Hill is where the Mater hospital is located today.

Real estate poster from 1914, showing land for sale on Platt’s Hill. University of Newcastle, Living Histories.
1915 Real estate map overlaid into Google Earth

New Lambton Colliery

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“In the depths of the bush, about half a mile to the south of the rising and flourishing township of Lambton, there was celebrated, on Thursday last, an event of no ordinary interest and importance.”

Thus began a Newcastle Chronicle report on the ‘turning of the first sod’ of the New Lambton colliery on 25 June 1868.

James and Alexander Brown were mining coal from the ‘Old Dog and Rat’ pit in East Lambton when they had a lucky break in 1868. On learning that the owners of Lambton colliery had failed to make payments on a mining lease, the Browns quickly stepped in and bought the mineral rights for 265 acres in the area we now know as New Lambton.

They immediately investigated the potential of their acquisition by commencing a trial shaft in April 1868. In June, at a depth of 100 feet, a good payable seam of coal was found and the Browns committed to developing a colliery at a cost of £10,000.

To inaugurate their new venture the Browns invited their employees and local dignitaries to a ceremony at the site on 25 June 1868. Two barrels of ale which had previously been conveyed to the ground, were at once tapped, speeches made, and the assembled company called upon to drink “Success to the New Lambton Colliery”.

Success came quickly, a new working shaft 16 feet in diameter was sunk, an engine house erected and a railway constructed to convey coal to the port. The colliery attracted miners and their families, and a town began to grow. Just a year later New Lambton was described as “going ahead, and buildings of all descriptions are multiplying fast.”

By 1884 the payable coal was exhausted, and the Brown’s moved on to establish other mines. The pit closed, but the town endured. The Chronicle was correct in asserting that the event celebrated 150 years ago was of no ordinary importance, for it marked the birth of New Lambton.

Major T S Parrott’s 1893 map of Newcastle showing the railway and a shaft of the New Lambton colliery. National Library of Australia.

Google Earth, showing the New Lambton Colliery mining lease, railway line, and a shaft located near present day Oxford St.

The article above was first published in the June 2018 edition of the Lambton & New Lambton Local.

Additional Information

In working out the history of the New Lambton colliery I have used the following sources:

  1. Contemporary newspaper articles retrieved from Trove.
  2. “The Coal Mines of Newcastle NSW”, George H Kingswell, 1890.
  3. Map of Waratah Coal Company blocks, 1873. National Library of Australia.
  4. T S Parrott’s Map of the country around Newcastle, 1893. National Library of Australia.
  5. Plan of the Hartley Vale Railway, 1867. State Library of NSW.
  6. The Hartley Vale Railway Colliery act of 23 Dec 1867
  7. “Coal, Railways and Mines, Vol 1”, Brian Robert Andrews, 2004. (Although much of Andrew’s information is taken from the above sources.)

Trying to work out the history of the New Lambton Colliery, and the mines of J and A Brown in Newcastle is a tricky matter for a variety of reasons.

  • The newspaper articles are sparse and often very cursory, and can sometimes contain errors.
  • The term “pit” is ambiguous – it could mean
    • a specific shaft
    • a collection of mine buildings at a particular location
    • a mining lease
    • a mining company
  • Suburb names in a mine name can be misleading and bear no relation to geography. The classic example of this is the “East Lambton Colliery“, which was located in New Lambton, and operated by the Waratah Coal Company!

Bearing in mind these difficulties, here’s my summary of the Brown’s  mining leases and the history of New Lambton colliery.

Colour Notes
White Development of this 310 acre lease commenced in 1863 as the Hartley Vale Colliery. The colliery was ready for production at the end of 1864, but was a commercial failure. In a c. 1873 Waratah Coal Company map this area is marked as “Brown’s Colliery” and “Brown’s shaft”.[ Brian Andrews on page 36 of his book “Coal, Railway and Mines, Vol. 1” indicates that this coal lease began development in 1861, but I cannot find any corroborating evidence for this. A report on Alexander Brown’s death in 1877 suggests that the Browns only acquired the land at Hartley Vale after they had sold off their Minmi colliery, which occurred in early 1863.]
Pink
 This 54 acre block was considered part of the Hartley Vale Colliery. The land was sold to Thomas Adam in 1869 and became the township of Adamstown.
Blue This 280 acre lease was obtained by J&A Brown in 1862. Two pits  (marked as A and B pit on the 1867 Hartley Vale railway map) were commenced to the north of the Lambton colliery railway in 1866. The B Pit later became known as the “Dog and Rat Pit.” These workings were connected to the New Lambton/Hartley Vale railway via a tunnel underneath the Lambton railway. The reason for the tunnel is described in the Empire newspaper of 2 September 1867.

The Messrs. Brown have coal bearing land between Lambton and Waratah, which they cannot work without passing from the Lambton railway, or going under it to their own Hartley Vale railway. Having waited two years to get an Act passed to amend the Amended Railway Act without success, they have apparently taken the law coach into their own hands, and will drive it, not through the Act, but under it : so they have commenced operations by driving a dip tunnel from their own land, intersecting the Lambton railway at an angle of forty-five degrees, but so much below it as to leave it perfectly secure, even to the most fastidious.

In 1867 the “New Lambton Coal Pit” was opened on the 280 acre lease, to the south of the Lambton colliery railway, with a short curved branch line off the New Lambton railway. This pit later became known as New Lambton A Pit when the new ‘B’ workings were opened up in the 265 acre lease in 1868. (See below.) Some time around 1883 the New Lambton A Pit was renamed New Duckenfield Colliery.
Green This 265 acre lease obtained by Stephen Foyle (on behalf of the Browns) in late 1867 when Morehead and Young failed to pay rent on lease. A trial pit was finished in June 1868 and a celebration held to inaugurate the “New Lambton Second Coal Working”, the first New Lambton coal working being the 280 acre lease in East Lambton. A working pit was commenced soon after. Somewhat confusingly, this New Lambton second coal working also became known as “the B or New Lambton Pit” (Kingswell)

Kingswell gives two contradictory dates as to when this pit ceased. On page 46 he states that the “B or New Lambton Pit” was “worked until the beginning of 1888”, and in the very next paragraph state that in 1884 “the old B Pit (was) finally abandoned.” (Although possibly this second reference is to the Old Dog and Rat pit in East Lambton?)
Orange/Red This 640 acre area consisting of two 320 acre leases was obtained by J&A Brown and Stephen Foyle in March 1867. The December 1867 Hartley Vale Railway act shows that the Brown’s intended to build a railway to this lease, but it was not completed at this time. After the New Lambton second workings began to wind down in 1884, the New Lambton ‘C’ Pit was commenced in this area in 1884, and the railway finally completed in March 1884.

The mining leases of J and A Brown.

The mining leases of J and A Brown in Newcastle, overlaid onto 1873 map.

1867 Hartley Vale Railway map showing location of New Lambton Colliery pits.

1944 aerial photograph that shows the remnants of the New Lambton railway traversing the park.

Path of rail line to New Lambton B pit marked in red, and the short branch line to the New Lambton A pit marked in yellow.

Kingswell’s 1225 acres

On page 45 of “The Coal Mines of Newcastle NSW”, Kingswell states that the New Lambton Estate consists of 1225 acres.

In the year 1867 Messrs. J. and A. Brown commenced to work coal from the New Lambton Estate, which at present is the freehold property of Messrs. George R. Dibbbs, and Alexander Brown, M’s. P. It consists of 1225 acres, and is bounded on the north and east by the Commonage, on the south by the Waratah Coal Company’s land, while the estate of the Scottish Australian Mining Company forms the western boundary. Prior to opening a mine the firm obtained a mineral lease of some 280 acres from the Government, and on this block, which lies to the north of the present estate, the now celebrated Dog and Rat, or A Pit, was sunk.

Where was this 1225 acres? It is difficult to be certain, but given that in the next sentence he refers to the 280 lease as being “prior” and to the north of the “present estate”, then it is reasonably clear that the 280 acre lease (blue) is not included in the 1225 acres.

Thus adding the 310 acres (white), 265 acres (green) and the 640 acres (orange/red), comes to a total 1215 acres, which is very close to the figure of 1225 acres that Kingswell state. The discrepancy of 10 acres could be accounted for in two ways. It is possibly simply an adding up error, or possibly because the 265 acre lease on the maps is marked as “ex rds”, and that these excluded roads account for the missing 10 acres.

Newspaper articles

Article Date Event DateNotes
3 Dec 1867First mention of New Lambton colliery in the newspapers. The article is reporting on the opening of a section of the Hartley Vale Railway, that leads to a new pit a pit "about half a mile ... from the Lambton Colliery, and which has been denominated by the Messrs. Brown 'The New Lambton Coal Pit.' "
If the distance of half mile is correct then this is almost certainly referring to a pit in the 280 acre lease in East Lambton. The article goes on to state that "The line further leads to a pit on the other side of the South [sic] Australian Company's Railway, underneath which a tunnel has been made." This is possibly referring to a connection to the Dog and Rat Pit which was to the north of the Lambton colliery railway.
4 Jan 1868James and Alexander Brown obtain the mineral lease for what would become the New Lambton mine, after Messrs. Morehead and Young of the Scottish Australian Mining Company indavertently fail to keep up payments on the mineral lease.
27 Jun 1868
25 Jun 1868		'Turning the first sod' of the New Lambton Colliery.
30 Jun 1868"The tunnel now in operation [the 280 acre east Lambton lease] will I believe give remunerative employment to about sixty miners, and I have no doubt, a profitable return to the proprietors for capital invested therein, until the new pit [265 acre lease in New Lambton] is in full working order."
4 Jul 1868"The new railway works at the New Lambton Colliery are being pushed forward as fast as practicably, and are I believe progressing satisfactorily."
4 Jul 1868Advertising for tenders for the sinking of the new working pit, and for earthworks in the extension of the New Lambton railway.
18 Jul 1868"The new line of railway at the new Lambton colliery is making considerable headway but the sinking of the new working pit has been considerably delayed in consequence, I believe, of the difficulties experienced in getting a boiler across a swamp separating the new pit from the end of the present railway."
5 Sep 1868"The extension of the New Lambton railway, is, I believe, progressing satisfactorily, and will, it is expected, in a short time, be so far advanced towards completion as to enable the proprietors to convey direct, any materials that may be required at their new pit, which is now down about seventy feet. It is expected that the coal in this shaft will be found at a depth of about 120 feet."
31 Oct 1868The Brown's New Lambton colliery "line of railway will be shortly completed."
29 Jul 1869"New Lambton is still going a-head, and buildings of all descriptions are multiplying fast. I am glad to see that those enterprising and really spirited men, the Messrs. J. and A. Brown, have commenced making a new line of railway to another new pit."
3 Mar 1877"Plans and specifications have been prepared for a bridge to cross the New Lambton Railway, and tenders will be called for the erection at once."
This was for a bridge on Lambton Rd (where Royal Place is now) to go over the New Lambton railway.
25 Aug 1883"The proprietors of the New Lambton Colliery are sinking a new shaft on their estate some mile and a-half from the present pit." This was the New Lambton C pit, which was located in the present day suburb of Adamstown.
22 Mar 1884"The railway to the new pit [C Pit] on the New Lambton Company's estate has been completed throughout in a very workmanlike manner by the contractor, Mr. Chas. Turner, and a large staff of workmen. The line is about two and a-quarter miles in length from its junction with New Lambton railway to the pit mouth."
1 Aug 1890New Lambton council prepares "specifications for the work of pulling down the New Lambton Railway Bridge, on the main road, and filling up the road."
6 Aug 1890Tenders called for "filling in roadway over New Lambton railway at main road bridge."
19 Jun 1925"The old shaft in Cromwell-street, New Lambton, the covering of which collapsed last week, has not yet been filled. The Mayor informed the council meeting that he had arranged to tip into it eight or 10 truck loads of rubble from the quarry, and New Lambton Coal Co, had agreed to complete the filling."