Pemulwuy

Pemulwuy is a suburb in Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Pemulwuy is a suburb in Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Pemulwuy is located 30 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the Cumberland Council. Pemulwuy is home to the highest point between the Blue Mountains and Sydney, the summit of Prospect Hill.

The quarrying of blue metal, basalt and dolerite was abundant in the area in the past two centuries.

Pemulwuy, formerly part of Prospect, is a relatively new suburb, with development beginning in 2004 on the site of a former Boral quarry and CSIRO sites.

Pemulwuy is named after the Aboriginal warrior, Pemulwuy, who led attacks on the British settlements in the surrounding areas, particularly on the Toongabbie settlement. When Captain-Lieutenant Watkin Tench made another official journey to the west in 1789, he began his journey with reference to Prospect Hill, which commanded a view of the great chain of mountains to the west. The first recorded ascent of Prospect Hill by a colonist is that of Tench and his party on 26 June 1789.In 1791 Governor Arthur Phillip started granting plots of land (mostly 12 to 28 hectares (30 to 70 acres)) to emancipated convicts in what is now Pemulwuy. Thirteen grants of land in the region were made in July 1791. In 1799 Ensign William Cummings of the New South Wales Corps was granted 30 hectares (75 acres) at Prospect Hill. From its commencement in 1791 with the early settlement of the area, agricultural use of the land continued. Much of the land appears to have been cleared by the 1820s and pastoral use of the land was well established by then. When Governor Macquarie paid a visit to the area in 1810, he was favourably impressed by the comfortable conditions that had been created.On 1 May 1801 Governor King took drastic action, issuing a public order requiring that Aboriginal people around Parramatta, Prospect Hill and Georges River should be "driven back from the settlers" habitations by firing at them'. In 1808 William Lawson was granted 220 hectares (550 acres) on the western slopes of the west ridge where he was to build his home Veteran Hall. He then bought Cummings' grant and it was here that his third son, Nelson Lawson built a magnificent home, Grey Stanes, on the crown of Prospect Hill. Prompted by suggestions to the Reverend Samuel Marsden by local Prospect Aboriginal groups that a conference should take place "with a view of opening the way to reconciliation", Marsden promptly organised a meeting near Prospect Hill on 3 May 1805. The conference led to the end of the conflict for the Aboriginal clans around Parramatta and Prospect.

Quarrying in the area began in the 1820s and naturalist Charles Darwin visited the region in January 1836, to observe the geology. By the latter part of the nineteenth century coarse-grained picrite, and other doloritic rock types were being extracted from William Lawson's estate on the west and north sides of the Hill. By the early twentieth century, thel land had been acquired by quarrying firms anxious to expand their land holdings near this valuable source of raw material. The bulk of the present CSIRO site was acquired by the Commonwealth in 1946, and a further 15 hectares was acquired in 1963. In the early 1950s the site became operational and sheep were pastured for research purposes. Prospect Hill was for many years the primary source of road stone for the city's expanding infrastructure until the reserves of dolerite were exhausted.

Quarrying companies gradually took over more and more of Prospect Hill, mining the dolerite for use as roadstone until it was almost all gone and much of the hill with it. The Prospect quarry is formed by an intrusion of dolerite rock into Ashfield Shale. At least seven different rock types occur in the intrusion. The material is predominantly coarse grained picrite with olivine-dolerite and dolerite. Roads were paved with grey dolerite from Prospect Hill as early as the 1820s. By the end of World War II, the quarries closed down except for two that had the best class of basalt.

As at 19 February 2001, the southern portion of the land, located within the Boral Brickworks site, has been extensively quarried; however the CSIRO site has largely retained its original surface form. In 2002 Delfin Lend Lease entered a joint venture with Boral to develop the residential lands. On 30 January 2004 the eastern part of Prospect, which includes the quarry gap, became a new suburb called Pemulwuy containing the new housing estates of Lakeside and Nelson's Ridge and the industrial area within the oval-shaped ridge of Prospect Hill. Nelson's Ridge is being developed by Lend Lease in two stages with the first comprising the northern employment and northern residential lands and the second comprising the southern equivalents. This site will eventually be integrated with the Nelson's Ridge development through Driftway Drive as well as cycleways and pedestrian links being established between the two.Quarrying last occurred in 2007. Subsequently, the land inside the oval-shaped ridge was levelled from 2008 to 2010. The gap in the ridge that had previously been created by quarrying has been lowered to the floor level of the quarry and the drainage of the area reversed from its earlier northward flow to empty into Prospect Creek, while a new road, Reconciliation Road, has been driven through the centre of the hill and across the gap to Wetherill Park. In the early 2010s, the 330ha quarry gap was transformed into light industry area with several warehouse distribution centres being established by 2015. Prospect Highway now winds through the gap. The Northern Residential lands have been established since the early 2010s. As of 2021, the Southern Residential lands, which will be built on Prospect Hill's woody South-Top, are under construction.