Sofala
19 creative works found
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Thank you to EarthGipsy for inspiring me to dig out these old shots of Sofala NSW – a small historic gold town with its quaint streets full of buildings from the gold rush era. I must admit I don’t know the history of this particular shop and would be pleased to update the details if someone else can fill me in. / / /
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This once regal looking property in Sofala was unoccupied when we were there five years ago and looked like it needed restoring badly. I haven’t been able to find out the history of this one but it looks like it would have been owned by someone quite well-to-do. During the 1851 gold rush in this region the masses followed the gold along the river but after heavy rains and reports of other finds many migrated to where the “bullock track between Mudgee and Bathurst forded the Turon River”. This site was surrounded on all sides by towering mountains and it was here along the river’s banks that half of the Turon’s overal population of over 2,000 settled in an area of less than 20 acres. Visualise the mass line of tents, with no sanitation or general cleanliness, the frost and snow that blankets this area in winter and the stinking heat in the summer. The Sydney Morning Herald of 21st July 1851 announced that this settlement would be known as Sofala, so named after a district in Mozambique.
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Just one of the many old cottages scattered amongst the mullock heaps along the Turon River near Sofala NSW. Gold was first recorded as being discovered in Australia in 1823 by James McBrien (a Government Surveyor) at the junction of the Eusdale Creek and the Fish River but nothing further came of this. That same year a Bathurst convict also found gold while working on the chain gang however his overseer dismissed it as being something ‘stolen’. In 1839, Count Paul Strzelecki located small amounts of gold at Hartley Vale in the Blue Mountains. This news was kept quiet because of the fear of mutiny by the convict community. There were other finds in 1841 by a Scottish clergyman, The Rev W B Clarke but again he was asked to keep the news quiet … and then Hugh MacGregor a shepherd from Inverness … etc. It wasn’t until 1851 that Edward Hargraves was credited with finding gold at Ophir on the Turon River however history initially omitted to tell the true story that it was actually James Lister, James Tom & William Tom Jnr who had actually found the gold although Hargraves could be credited with showing them how to ‘cradle for gold’ – a technique he had learnt in the Californian Gold Fields. The gold rush then followed the Turon River before spreading far and wide. Sofala is one such town along the river that sprung up during this era and remains today, almost untouched by the outside world. / /
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Lone tree on hill near Sofala
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Sofala, NSW /
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Sofala, NSW /
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Sofala, NSW Featured in Mood & Ambience Group
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Sofala, NSW
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Forgotten and abandoned Anglican church in Sofala, NSW /
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Blossom’s_Photo_Gallery A Place Where Time Has Stood Still!!! Of all the old gold mining towns in New South Wales, Sofala is one of the most interesting and unusual. While hardly comparable with Hill End, which is 35 km further on and much more carefully preserved, Sofala is a village with an authentic olde worlde charm. In essence its nothing more than two streets which have no formal construction and no curbing and guttering and yet which can legitimately claim to be ‘Australia’s oldest surviving gold town’. Sofala is located 245 km north west of Sydney and 45 km north of Bathurst in the Turon River valley. It came into existence as a direct result of the goldrush which had been precipitated when Edward Hargraves discovered gold at Summerhill Creek on 12 February, 1851. By June that year a tent city spread across the valley and both the Royal Hotel and a General Store were built in 1851. By 25 June more than 200 ounces of gold taken from the Turon Valley had been sold in Bathurst.
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Sofala, NSW Australia
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Sofala, NSW / Cannon 350D / using 3 layers
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Sofala, NSW /
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Sofala, NSW /
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Sofala Cottage. Payable gold in N.S.W was first discovered at Ophir,near Orange and shortly after at Sofala.Nothing of the original village of Ophir remains today,whereas the nucleus of the village of Sofala remains as testimony of the wealth of the region. / The township originally stretched for 16 km’s along the banks of the Turon River with over forty licensed hotels,general stores and associated premises to supply the prospector’s needs.
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Sofala is an old gold mining town near Bathurst, it is completly derelect and run down. but that ads to the attractivness of the place.
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Oil Painting on Canvas; Size: 111×83cm included in “Groundswell” exhibition at United Galleries, Perth March -April 2009, and The Sheraton, Perth. www.gabriellejones.com.au
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Feature in Goldrush & Ghost Towns
by Bev WoodmanYahoo – I have just recently posted my “Shopping From Bygone Days – Sofala NSW” in the new group, Goldrush and Ghost Towns and was reward…
Yahoo – I have just recently posted my “Shopping From Bygone Days – Sofala NSW” in the new group, Goldrush and Ghost Towns and was rewarded with a feature. Thank you so much to the moderators of the group for featuring this one, I really appreciate it.
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To get away from the city and spend time in Sofala is bliss. The landscape is dry and rugged but retains a unique beauty. I’m sure there are many places west of the Great Dividing Range that present the same honest charm as Sofala.
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