This weatherboard and galvanised iron cottage was built between 1908-1915. The ‘Wallarah Coal-mining Company built the cottage to house its mineworkers.
Perc Mascord and his wife lived in this house.
In 1964 the coal company ‘Coal & Allied’ subdivided some of its land. The Company determined that this house and larger than normal block of land would be purchased for 400 pounds. Mrs P Mascord was given the opportunity to buy but she decided to go into a Housing Commission House instead. The Company allowed her to stay in the house as a tenant until she could secure a Commission house.
Barry and Pauline Wiltshire bought the house from the Company and moved in. The house has been extended and modernised internally. Barry was a very active member of the progress association for many years. Pauline was a Chinnock from Mine Camp. They had two sons who attended the Bay school.
A car track led past the side of this house and up about a hundred yards there was a house built in a clearing. Igger Hooey owned this house and sold it in about 1935/6 to the Spring family for 9 pounds. There was only one child Bill (there is a wonderful photograph of this house). Previously this family had lived in the tennis shed of the Excelsior tennis Court throughout the Great Depression. The family had lived in Newcastle until Mr Spring had lost his job with the bus company when the government decided to run government buses and had imposed a seat tax on the private bus companies. Mr Spring’s parents lived in Middle Camp and he knew many townspeople who agreed to let the family live there if they maintained the tennis court. Originally the Excelsior tennis court had been a male only affair putting on a high membership cost to achieve this which the women could not afford to pay. Eventually the members realised they did not have sufficient members and so lowered the cost so that the women could then afford to join. The Spring family then moved into Swansea so that Mr Spring could get to work more easily. This house was later destroyed in a storm.
Mr Spring used to visit his parents in a Chrysler car, which backfired as it came around the seven bends so he was given the nickname ‘bang’. His son Billy was called ‘Little Bang’.