Former Great Western Road Alignment, Prospect is a heritage-listed stretch of road, now divided into four separately-named sections of road and partially divided by the M4 Western Motorway at, Prospect, City of Blacktown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The road was initiated by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, likely surveyed by George Evans and built from 1815 to 1818 by William Cox. It is also known as The Western Road, The Great Western Road, The Old Western Road and The Great Western Highway. The property is owned by Blacktown City Council. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 27 June 2014.
History
Prospect Hill, being the highest point between the Blue Mountains and the sea, was used as a vantage point and navigational element for the Aboriginal people who moved through the area, referring to the place as "Marrong". The Prospect Hill area has high cultural significance for the Aboriginal community. Oral tradition identifies the area as a meeting and trading place for groups who were drawn from the Rooty Hill, Parramatta, Penrith, Baulkham Hills, Brooklyn and Richmond areas.
It is believed that up to eight different Aboriginal groups inhabited the area around Prospect and that Indigenous groups remained for short stays only along the ridge, with more permanent camps being made along Prospect Creek. Research indicates that the Aboriginal population of the area was quite dense during the initial phases of European contact. Contact with the colonists was often acrimonious, leading to a number of skirmishes. Pemulwuy, an Eora man, led resistance and raids against the colonists (who had claimed large tracts of hunting lands and natural resources) from around 1790 to 1802 when he was killed by bounty hunters. After 1802, Pemulwuy's son Tedbury led Aboriginal resistance to the Europeans until his own death in 1805. Aboriginal trade networks are believed to have deteriorated following European occupation.
Governor Arthur Phillip explored the Prospect area in 1788 south-west of the end of the headwaters of the Parramatta River and named the wide low hill Bellevue Hill (the hill is an ancient volcanic upwelling referred to as a 'Doleritic Laccolith'). Bellevue means "Fine Prospect". The area later became known as Prospect Hill and then gradually as Prospect.
In 1791, Phillip granted land on the eastern slope of the hill to thirteen ex-convicts to take advantage of the more fertile soils on the flanks of the ancient volcanic hill, in contrast to the heavy clay soils elsewhere across the Cumberland Plain. The grantees took up the land, but they all struggled with their improvements on the small plots (up to 70 acres) and remained reliant on the Government stores.
Governor King set aside a large area of land north of the hill in 1802 as a reserve for the Government's livestock herd. Part of this Prospect Stock Reserve was declared a common in 1804 for the use of surrounding settlers. The area of the common was reduced by later grants.
By July 1815, following the completion of the Cox's Road over the Blue Mountains, work was underway on a road from Parramatta to the Nepean River (at Penrith) across the Cumberland Plain that included the section that is the Former Great Western Road, Prospect. The Western Road was one of the three Great Roads that were built with convict labour to open up the colony to European settlement beyond the Cumberland Plain. The other two are the Great North Road (1826–36) to Newcastle and the Hunter Region, and the Great South Road (1819-mid 1840s), parts of which are on the Hume Highway alignment.
The 1812 drought provided an impetus for expansion, as it highlighted the failings of the quality of land in the Cumberland Plain to support crop production for the growing colony. Prior to the crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813, road transport out of Sydney and Parramatta had focused on expansion to the north and south. The successful crossing of the Blue Mountains dramatically refocused colonial attention to the fertile western plains beyond the mountains and highlighted the essential role that the Great Western Road played in European expansion beyond the Sydney basin.
William Cox was contracted to construct the road across the Cumberland Plain (including the subject section) as well as being contracted for the road over the Blue Mountains. Cox's specification for the Blue Mountains road (which may also be applied to the subject road at Prospect) determined a width of at least 12 ft (although 16 ft was preferred by Cox to permit two carts or other wheeled carriages to pass). The timber along the road was cut and cleared out for a 20 ft wide alignment, all holes were filled, and tree stumps grubbed out.