Hill End

Hill End is a former gold mining town in New South Wales, Australia.

Hill End is a former gold mining town in New South Wales, Australia. The town is located in the Bathurst Regional Council local Government area.

What is now Hill End was originally a part of the Tambaroora area: Tambaroora town was a few kilometres to the north of present-day Hill End. In the 1850s the Hill End area was known as Bald Hills. In 1860 a village was proclaimed, first as Forbes, then in 1862 it was altered to Hill End. Tambaroora had been the larger centre; in 1865, it had seven public houses to Hill End's two. Following the discovery of rich gold reefs at Hawkins Hill (Hill End), in the early 1870s. Hill End overtook Tambaroora as the main town in the area.

Hill End owes its existence to the New South Wales gold rush of the 1850s, and at its peak in the early 1870s it had a population estimated at 8,000 served by two newspapers, five banks, eight churches and twenty-eight pubs.The town's decline when the gold gave out was dramatic: by 1945 the population was 700. At the 2006 census, Hill End had a population of166, which now has dropped to 80 people during the year 2017. The photographer Beaufoy Merlin recorded daily life in the town at its peak; his photographs can be found in the town museum/visitor information centre. The glass plate negatives are held in the State Library of New South Wales.

In October 1862 the Telegraph line reached Hill End (Tambaroora) from Bathurst via Sofala, the Telegraph Office opened for telegraph messages bringing the remote town into instant contact with the rest of the Colony. Prior to this event communications took 12 hours by the mail stagecoach to Bathurst.

After delays due to lack of materials a telephone line was installed into Hill End in 1914; after 60 years of Morse code telegraph messages Hill End could now speak to adjacent towns and even Sydney if necessary.In 1923 a telephone exchange was installed at the Hill End Post Office; before this calls could only be made from the Post Office to other towns. The exchange allowed new telephones installed in businesses and private homes to connect locally and to other towns

In the late 1940s Hill End was discovered by artists Russell Drysdale, who painted possibly his best-known work, The cricketers there, and Donald Friend, and it quickly became an artists' colony. Other artists who worked there included Jean Bellette. Today, the Hill End artist-in-residence program aims to ensure the continuity of this connection.