The setting
The curtilage of the State Listing extends to the east, to include Wallarah House and the Jetty Master’s House. These dwellings are intrinsic to the company town and identify the essential dynamic between “manager’s and worker’s housing” and the oversight of key operations at the Jetty. The area associated with these houses therefore represents some of the most significant areas within the Catherine Hill Bay Conservation Area in terms of the expression of the Company Town presence, its social and importantly its hierarchical built form. In considering the heritage listing, it was noted that the jetty was excluded until an appropriate adaptive reuse could be established.
The curtilage of the Lake Macquarie Council LEP Listing extends to the ridge lines which define the setting of the town.
Distant views over the town are as important as close up views. The distinctive urban pattern of the main village set within its coastal and bush landscape can be appreciated from a range of vantage points, particularly from the important northern approach. The high visibility of the main village precinct, including rear yard areas, with natural bushland edges, makes it highly sensitive to new development. This is a clear reflection of the historic use of underground mining which left the above ground undisturbed.
The Precinct is set in a landscape, now largely dedicated as a National Park, which is distinctive both for the coastal topography that forms its natural visual catchment and for its evidence of coal mining dating from the 1890s.
The build form
The Catherine Hill Bay Cultural Precinct is now rare, as an intact surviving example of “Company Town” development.
No other mining locality contains such an intact and compact representation of 19th and 20th century coal mining, rail and sea transportation, jetty and remnant railway in an isolated coastal environment which remains in much the same natural state as it was in the 1880s.
All dwellings display a high degree of consistency in size, scale, form, setbacks, siting and materials. This integrity is also unique, relative to other older precincts in Lake Macquarie.
The original buildings, a majority of which date from the 1880’s to the 1920’s, were mostly small vernacular cottages. There were very few buildings recognisable as belonging to a particular style or period.