PAMBULA

Pambula has been described as ‘a quiet town on a bend in the Princes Highway’.

But that seriously undersells Pambula, if only because it’s a town with a still clearly-evident and interesting history.

Enormous middens along the banks of the Pambula and Yowaka Rivers and fish traps across the Yowaka River are current-day reminders that Djiringani and Thaua Aboriginal communities inhabited the area for millenia before it was settled by Europeans in the 1830s. The Aboriginals’ name for the area, ‘Panboola’ or ‘Pamboola’, meaning ‘twin waters’, was subsequently taken as the name of the town and the locality.

Peter, George and Alexander Imlay acquired vast swathes of lands between Broulee and Twofold Bay in the 1830s when the area was ‘beyond the limits of location’ (i.e. when the area was crown land, outside a roughly-400km circle from Sydney beyond which no one could legally graze their herds or stock. Unsurprisingly, these bureaucratic ‘limits’ were ignored). Their land included the extremely fertile flats along the Pambula River where the brothers decided to establish their head station.

In 1839, their Pambula Station was described by John Lambie, the Commissioner for Lands, as being 17 square miles in area, having four slab huts, a stockyards, 150 acres of wheat and barley under cultivation, and having 12 people living on the property.

In the early 1840s, when the Imlay brothers experienced financial difficulties, William, Edward and James Walker acquired the title to the Imlay brothers’ land and in 1847 commenced building ‘Oaklands’, a then-typical Australian homestead.

In 1843 the Government Surveyor Thomas Townsend laid out the proposed township of Pambula (which included the ‘Oaklands’ homestead site) on the river flats, and the sale of land started.

In 1844 Captain John Lloyd R.N. was granted 300 acres on the southern side of the Pambula River in lieu of a pension. He built The Grange on this land using stone that was ship’s ballast from Devon in England. (This substantial house survives and today is in Northview Drive in South Pambula). At that time the Pambula River flowed around the bottom of the hill below The Grange and was navigable to this point, so Captain Lloyd was able to moor small vessels that he had navigated up the river at the bottom of his garden.

In 1845 a road was built connecting Eden with the Monaro. It passed near to Pambula. To cater for the needs of travellers, the Walker brothers had a hotel, named the Governor Fitzroy, constructed on the river flats between ‘Oaklands’ and the Pambula River. It seems to have survived until the 1880s when it was demolished.

By the late 1840s the Pambula township was starting to acquire characteristics of a permanent settlement. Anglican and Roman Catholic priests were starting to visit the area, if infrequently initially, and, in 1849, Pambula became one of the first towns in the state to have a National School. Classes were initially conducted in a single room hut provided by the Walker brothers before a ‘permanent’ brick and shingle school was erected the following year consisting of two small rooms for the teacher and two separate classrooms for the pupils.

However, a major flood in 1851 swept away sections of the developing township which had a population approaching 200 at the time, prompting settlers to move to nearby higher ground. Further significant flooding of the river flats occurred in 1860, 1864, 1866 and 1870.

By 1856 Pambula had five licensed hotels. Then, in 1860, the foundation stone was laid for a Courthouse on the corner of Toallo and Monaro Streets, providing status to town development that was taking place at the northern end of town.

About the same time, gold was discovered at Kiandra. Prospectors travelling through Pambula provided it with a further substantial economic boost.

From the late 1860s large areas of the Pambula river flats were given over to the cultivation of maize. This was taken to nearby Merimbula where it was processed into cornflour at Matthew Munn’s Maizena Works that had been established there in 1867.

Dairying also became an important local industry (a Pambula Co-operative Creamery and Dairy Company Limited factory, producing ‘Pambula Butter’, was established in 1897 and operated until 1974; the factory building can still be seen several kilometers up Mt Darragh Road), as was timber-getting (principally supplying railway sleepers that were shipped from Yellow Point on Pambula Lake to Sydney), potato growing, and a wattle bark industry that supplied tanneries, including two that operated in Pambula. Oyster leases in the area were being established by 1885.

In 1888 gold was discovered on the Yowaka and Pipeclay Rivers. (This has been foreseen as early as 1851 when Rev. W. B. Clarke, a clergyman and geologist, visited the area and reported ‘I have reason to believe that gold will be found in creeks running north-east from Jingery Range, which is about 13 miles south-west of Pambula, as in Greig’s Creek …’.) This discovery led to a goldrush and provided a further impetus to the town. By 1891 there were 11 mining companies operating in the Mount Gahan area to the south-west and by 1892 the town was supporting its own newspaper, ‘The Pambula Voice’, which was introduced when ‘The Moruya Advance’ was shut down and its printing press was moved to Pambula.

Regular gold mining declined in the area from 1915 and virtually ceased in early World War II. The population of the area and the town similarly declined.

Pambula, however, remained the dominant town in the area and the hub of the surrounding rich rural district (being the site of the district hospital, courthouse and police station, four churches, a bank, butter factory, racecourse and jockey club) until the 1950s when Merimbula expanded and the town of Pambula gradually declined in importance.

A number of authentic Colonial buildings in Pambula now provide the town with much of its charm.

Sources: www.aussietowns.com.au; www.panboola.com; ‘Pambula’s Colonial Days’ by Jule Higgins; ‘Notes on early settlement of the Pambula River’ by Joan Weeks; ‘Discover Pambula: Walk in the Pioneers’ Footsteps’ by Pambula Area Progress and Planning Association Inc.; ‘Historic Pambula: A Small Town with a Big History’ by Pambula Traders’ Association, and information provided by respected local historian Pat Raymond.