Springwood

Springwood is a town in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia.

Springwood is a town in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. Springwood is located 72 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD in the local government area of the City of Blue Mountains. At the 2016 census, Springwood had a population of 8,475 people.Springwood is near the Blue Mountains National Park and the Greater Blue Mountains Area World Heritage Site. It is 371 metres above sea level and, like most of the towns in the vicinity, is located on a narrow ridge between two gorges. Winmalee is to the north. Springwood railway station sits between Valley Heights and Faulconbridge on the Blue Mountains railway line.

The Springwood area was first occupied by the Oryang-Ora Aboriginal people belonging to the wider Darug Aboriginal tribe of the wider Sydney region. They settled the area about 40,000 years ago, with many rock carvings and art sites in the area. At the time of settlement the chief of the clan was Oryang Jack who was drawn by French artist Pellier."Oryang-Ora" was also the reference to the area that marked the dividing ridge line between the Darug tribes of the north and the Gundungurra tribes to the south in the Blue Mountains area.

In 1815, Governor Lachlan Macquarie and his wife stopped by what Macquarie called a spring. The place was later named Springwood: "Spring" from the springs in the area, and "wood" from the local Mountain Blue Gums (Eucalyptus deanei) of the area. As a town developed, the main street was named Macquarie Road, after Governor Macquarie.

The first railway line was put through the Blue Mountains in 1867, and the Springwood station was built in 1868. This station was replaced by a more substantial building in the Victorian Gothic style, constructed in 1884 under the direction of John Whitton, Chief Engineer of NSW Railways; a porter's cottage was constructed just west of the station. Springwood Station is the second-oldest surviving station in the Blue Mountains. It is listed on the (now defunct) Register of the National Estate as well as having a New South Wales heritage .In 1892, James Hunter Lawson built Braemar, a large, single-storey house situated on a sixty-acre property on Macquarie Road.Braemar started as a family residence, but later became a convalescent home, a boarding house, a private home again and a guesthouse. It was acquired by the Blue Mountains City Council in 1974, restored as a Bicentennial project and reopened in 1988. It serves as a community gallery and centre, staffed by volunteers. The local library is housed in a new building behind Braemar.Christ Church Anglican Church was built on the Great Western Highway from 1888 to 1889, with extensions in the 1960s and 1980s. It was designed by the architect Sir John Sulman, who had a holiday residence at Lawson. Designed in the Victorian Academic Gothic style, the church is the oldest Anglican church building in the Blue Mountains and is heritage-listed. The house originally built as a vicarage, but only used as a private residence known as Southall, is also heritage-listed. The Presbyterian Church building, a sandstone Gothic building located on Macquarie Road, was built in 1895. The Catholic community was originally part of the Penrith parish, but were given their own building in 1892: St Thomas Aquinas Church. The church has since relocated to St Columba's grounds, Winmalee.

Despite its location in the temperate oceanic Blue Mountains region, Springwood has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa). Unlike the upper Blue Mountains area, it generally has mild winters and warm summers. Although Springwood's elevation is at 371 m (1,217 ft), its winter nights are warmer than those of Penrith and Richmond in the lower Sydney metropolitan area, which lie on the footsteps of the Blue Mountains. This is mainly because cool air from the mountains sinks to the Cumberland Plain, thus cooling these suburbs at night. Unlike these aforementioned Sydney suburbs, which border the Blue Mountains, Springwood has a higher annual rainfall amount.Furthermore, Springwood can suffer bushfire damage during the spring and summer months due to it being located in, and surrounded by, a predominant eucalyptus woodland area which encompass the Blue Mountains region.