We’d heard these well preserved relics of the NSW gold mining days were worth a visit and weren’t disappointed when we spent a few days driving and walking around the district. A coffee in the Hill End store across the road from the double storeyed Royal Hotel put us in the mood to stay the night.
The town was fortunate to have Beaufoy Merlin and Charles Bayliss open a photographic business in the rush days and their long lost but now treasured photographs form a record of the buildings and residents of Hill End from those times.
http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/society_art/photography/holtermann/
Apricot and plum trees in full and tasty fruit marked where residences once stood. National Parks have erected information boards in front of these grassy allotments and Merlin and Bayliss’ photographs allow the mind to create images of the town in its day. Piles of brick rubble reconstruct and men, women and children appear to stand in front of their humble abodes. In quite a few photos I sure I saw a man with a camera slung around his neck pinching fruit from the trees.
