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Memories of Mount Colah since World War 2
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DetailsMEMORIES OF MT COLAH SINCE WW2
By an unknown author, estimated to be written around 2010, found amongst the late Tom Richmond’s material
Before 1945 few people lived in Mt Colah. There were some small farms but not many Sydney-siders knew the place existed, excepted for a sign on a railway station glimpsed as steam trains roared through.
Deference should be paid to those early farmers. Mt Colah would have had little to offer in the way of facilities and much of the soil was poor. Years later, after the start of the post-war influx, there was still a fairly large area right at the end of Northumberland Avenue, which was green pasture in contrast with the surrounding bushland.
After World War II there was an extreme housing shortage. Very little building had occurred during the War as all available manpower and materials were needed for the war effort. Peace-time production of domestic items took some years to return.
Men returned from the War, marriages took place and children were born, causing the phenomenon known as the “baby boom”.
Hornsby Council saw an opportunity to open up the area north of Asquith. To do this, leniency was granted to those people prepared to live in tents or garages to enable them to get started.
In Mt Colah land was relatively cheap and a block between a quarter and a third of an acre would sell for around one hundred pounds. If a buyer was lucky enough to get a block through a Lands Department auction, the price would be even less.
The houses built then were almost always timber-framed fibro buildings. Bricks were almost impossible to buy and there was much jubilation if a home builder could manage to obtain enough for piers. Many of the houses were built by the owners who had some skills and were prepared to “have a go”.
The Pacific highway, with a few exceptions, was the only sealed road in Mt Colah. The exceptions were the road over the road bridge, down Belmont Parade, Cowan Road and part of Telopea Street. The bitumen finished at the northern end of the property of Judge Berne, which was bordered by Telopea Street, Kooyong Avenue, Neridah Avenue and the then Colah Street. Colah Street was renamed Wonga Road because of the confusion with Colah Road, also in Mt Colah.
The Pacific Highway and the railway line, running contiguously, cuts Mt Colah in two.
On Mt Colah’s eastern side, confined between the railway line, Ku-ring-gai Chase National park and Asquith Golf Links, there have been no new roads and relatively little change except for the building of the school, community hall, scout hall and many more houses. On the western side there has been more change. Pre-war roads were built mainly with pick and shovel and roads came out like arms from the Pacific Highway. These roads were developed along the reasonably flat areas on top of the ridge, but with post-war mechanization it became possible to develop down into the gullies. Many new roads have been built and the population of the tiny community back in 1950, has exploded.
Few people then had cars so residents were dependent on public transport. There was a private bus and a fairly infrequent train operating. Some steam trains stopped at Mt Colah but mainly the residents depended on the two-carriage diesel-operated rail motor, operating between Hornsby and Cowan. They became very fond of what they regarded as “their train”.
The steam train and motor rail drivers were a friendly lot and would often stop the train to pick up or let down passengers between stations. One resident in Colah Road was nearly always late in the morning and could be seen running towards the railway line where the driver stopped and picked him up.
Many track maintenance men, known as fettlers, lived with their families in tents along the edge of the railway line, which was a very dangerous and noisy place. Supplies and water were brought up for them on a special train. Detonators on the track further away warned the fettlers of approaching trains.
Mt Colah then had a couple of shops – a small grocery store run by Mrs Maisy and a service station. Most residents went to Hornsby to shop.
Around 1951 a petition to have a school built was organized by Mary Cox, of Colah Road. The result of this petition was startlingly quick. Several acres of land was acquired in Telopea Street on the site of a former asparagus farm once owned by Mr Pierre (the former publican of the Hornsby Railway Hotel). His name is now perpetuated in the street between the school and the railway.
Two weatherboard rooms were built on the land and it opened for pupils in the last term of 1952, under the tutelage of Mr Hanson. In 1953, Mr Samuels was appointed Principal and the school was officially opened by the Minister for Education, Mr Heffron.
Mt Colah Public School was not only a place of learning. It also became the centre for all the organizations springing up in the district. A Progress Association and a branch of the Labor Party met there. A committee, for the building of a public hall also used the school for meetings. Later on, when soccer, rugby union and softball clubs were formed, the school became the place for their meetings as well.
Mt Colah was a small cohesive community. Both the Progress Association and the Labor Party circulated monthly four-page reports, typed on a stencil and run off on a Gestetner machine and then distributed in the letter boxes of the residents. The Progress Association paper was called “Advance” and reported on matters concerning the Hornsby area. “Labor Call” was not didactic or intended as a pamphlet but presented issues to be thought about.
Very early on there were deliveries of bread and milk, with the milk coming via horse and cart.
By the 1960s the population had increased and those people who had started in garages and tents were now living in houses. There were a number of new businesses established such as the first fruit market, which fifty years later was still a fruit market. There was a butchery owned by Mr Porter, Clarke’s hardware store, a newsagency run by Mr McKenzie, the Ampol Garage owned and run by Mr Wilkes, where two-stroke petrol used to cost four shillings for a gallon, and Stewart Ward’s Pharmacy, amongst others. On the eastern side was Colah Cottage – on the corner of Colah Road and Grey Street. This was a general store where schoolchildren bought meat pies for eleven-pence and ice blocks for a penny, much to their delight. There were a few other businesses as well, the Northern Caravan Company, Norwood Pre-school kindergarten, a hobby centre, a shoe repairer and a concreter.
The 1960s also brought an improvement in rail services. In 1949, during off-peak hours, one could wait two hours for a train into Hornsby. But with the coming of electric trains in the late fifties, firstly to Gosford, then to Wyong and ultimately to Newcastle, our waiting times between trains were lessened. Those who speak of the romance of steam trains, with their noise and dirt, never lived near them. Mt Colah, where there was no rail attendant in 1949, by the sixties had a full-time attendant. Young Ronnie Burton extended his service by carrying the shopping bags up the station steps for elderly ladies who loved him.
Sewerage did not exist in the Mt Colah of the fifties or sixties. One owner in 1951, enquiring about how long he might wait for a sewage connection on to his property, was told “twenty-five years”. In 1958, Hornsby Council passed a motion to make septic tanks compulsory in the Shire. Those whose land could not absorb the run-off from their septic tank were provided with a pump-out service. And the Water Board prediction of about “twenty-five years” was correct. In 1976, sewage came to Mt Colah.
If anyone wonders why the road which runs from Mountside Avenue to Edgeworth David Avenue, in Hornsby, has four different names, it is probably due to housing development in earlier days. In 1950, there was a house at the end of Lord Street in Mt Colah, which, when it was demolished, opened up the road across the golf links to Asquith. Belmont Parade and Royston Parade in Asquith maintained their original names and there seems to be doubt about a name for the road across the golf links, which was always known as the “Golf Links Road”. At one time there was a sign post which stated that it was Royston Parade, but that disappeared. Pierre Close, without houses, languished nameless until the school was built.
At the end of the War, on Mt Colah’s eastern side, the land had been subdivided into large blocks, but on the western side there were still very large tracts of land which needed subdivision. A case in point is the acreage which the Libbesson family owned just north of the road bridge. Unable to afford to subdivide they sold it all to the Park Department, who created Amaroo Avenue and some of the roads leading off it. The adjoining area further west was owned by the Burke family and most of this was later subdivided.
Sport for the youth has always been a part of the Mt Colah scene. Soccer was played by just about every boy who lived in the area and later on, one of the mothers, Miriam Bacon, organized softball as a sport for girls. By 1957 about six such teams had been established. The soccer parents put in a great deal of time and effort and eventually the Soccer Club published its own paper, also on a Gestetner. Jack Berry, whose boys, Danny and Jimmy, both played, had Berry Park named in his honour after his death in 1964.
Little Athletics, cricket and baseball came later and there were few children in Mt Colah who weren’t involved in at least one sport. Today there are three large playing fields in the area.
Children tended to play outdoors more in those early days. A lady, now in her late fifties, tells of hair-raising rides on a bike or billycart down a steep, unmade, rocky road in Mt Colah.
Children played in Ku-ring-gai Chase as well, when the waterfalls could be reached before they disappeared under the F3 roadway. Yabbies could be found in the creeks and the same lady recalls how she and her sister used to jump from rock to rock across the top of the waterfall which dropped down to rocks below. As an adult she went back before the Freeway was built and was horrified to find out how dangerous it had been jumping along those moss-covered rocks.
Additional to sport, there are other organizations such as the Scouts and Girl Guides. Unfortunately, owing to arson, twice the Scout Hall has been destroyed but a new one, like the Phoenix, has risen from the ashes and been completed on the grass area opposite the railway station and next to the Community Hall, that was finally built by Council in the 1990s.
People have come and gone over the sixty odd years since post-war start of the suburb, but there are still some who linger on and wouldn’t live anywhere else. “You can take me out in a box!” one old timer said. It is a green, relatively safe, relatively quiet place, a one hour run on the train from Sydney, close to Bobbin Head and the Hawkesbury. May it continue to flourish, but not too much!
By an old-timer of 61 years residence.
We are not sure if the author knew Mount Colah was voted "Australia's Best Suburb" through a national online poll conducted by Ninemsn in 2010.
Keywords Mount ColahMary KirbyMt Colah
DetailsMEMORIES OF MT COLAH SINCE WW2 By an unknown author, estimated to be written around 2010, found amongst the late Tom Richmond’s material
Before 1945 few people lived in Mt Colah. There were some small farms but not many Sydney-siders knew the place existed, excepted for a sign on a railway station glimpsed as steam trains roared through.
Deference should be paid to those early farmers. Mt Colah would have had little to offer in the way of facilities and much of the soil was poor. Years later, after the start of the post-war influx, there was still a fairly large area right at the end of Northumberland Avenue, which was green pasture in contrast with the surrounding bushland.
After World War II there was an extreme housing shortage. Very little building had occurred during the War as all available manpower and materials were needed for the war effort. Peace-time production of domestic items took some years to return.
Men returned from the War, marriages took place and children were born, causing the phenomenon known as the “baby boom”.
Hornsby Council saw an opportunity to open up the area north of Asquith. To do this, leniency was granted to those people prepared to live in tents or garages to enable them to get started.
In Mt Colah land was relatively cheap and a block between a quarter and a third of an acre would sell for around one hundred pounds. If a buyer was lucky enough to get a block through a Lands Department auction, the price would be even less.
The houses built then were almost always timber-framed fibro buildings. Bricks were almost impossible to buy and there was much jubilation if a home builder could manage to obtain enough for piers. Many of the houses were built by the owners who had some skills and were prepared to “have a go”.
The Pacific highway, with a few exceptions, was the only sealed road in Mt Colah. The exceptions were the road over the road bridge, down Belmont Parade, Cowan Road and part of Telopea Street. The bitumen finished at the northern end of the property of Judge Berne, which was bordered by Telopea Street, Kooyong Avenue, Neridah Avenue and the then Colah Street. Colah Street was renamed Wonga Road because of the confusion with Colah Road, also in Mt Colah.
The Pacific Highway and the railway line, running contiguously, cuts Mt Colah in two.
On Mt Colah’s eastern side, confined between the railway line, Ku-ring-gai Chase National park and Asquith Golf Links, there have been no new roads and relatively little change except for the building of the school, community hall, scout hall and many more houses. On the western side there has been more change. Pre-war roads were built mainly with pick and shovel and roads came out like arms from the Pacific Highway. These roads were developed along the reasonably flat areas on top of the ridge, but with post-war mechanization it became possible to develop down into the gullies. Many new roads have been built and the population of the tiny community back in 1950, has exploded.
Few people then had cars so residents were dependent on public transport. There was a private bus and a fairly infrequent train operating. Some steam trains stopped at Mt Colah but mainly the residents depended on the two-carriage diesel-operated rail motor, operating between Hornsby and Cowan. They became very fond of what they regarded as “their train”.
The steam train and motor rail drivers were a friendly lot and would often stop the train to pick up or let down passengers between stations. One resident in Colah Road was nearly always late in the morning and could be seen running towards the railway line where the driver stopped and picked him up.
Many track maintenance men, known as fettlers, lived with their families in tents along the edge of the railway line, which was a very dangerous and noisy place. Supplies and water were brought up for them on a special train. Detonators on the track further away warned the fettlers of approaching trains.
Mt Colah then had a couple of shops – a small grocery store run by Mrs Maisy and a service station. Most residents went to Hornsby to shop.
Around 1951 a petition to have a school built was organized by Mary Cox, of Colah Road. The result of this petition was startlingly quick. Several acres of land was acquired in Telopea Street on the site of a former asparagus farm once owned by Mr Pierre (the former publican of the Hornsby Railway Hotel). His name is now perpetuated in the street between the school and the railway.
Two weatherboard rooms were built on the land and it opened for pupils in the last term of 1952, under the tutelage of Mr Hanson. In 1953, Mr Samuels was appointed Principal and the school was officially opened by the Minister for Education, Mr Heffron.
Mt Colah Public School was not only a place of learning. It also became the centre for all the organizations springing up in the district. A Progress Association and a branch of the Labor Party met there. A committee, for the building of a public hall also used the school for meetings. Later on, when soccer, rugby union and softball clubs were formed, the school became the place for their meetings as well.
Mt Colah was a small cohesive community. Both the Progress Association and the Labor Party circulated monthly four-page reports, typed on a stencil and run off on a Gestetner machine and then distributed in the letter boxes of the residents. The Progress Association paper was called “Advance” and reported on matters concerning the Hornsby area. “Labor Call” was not didactic or intended as a pamphlet but presented issues to be thought about.
Very early on there were deliveries of bread and milk, with the milk coming via horse and cart.
By the 1960s the population had increased and those people who had started in garages and tents were now living in houses. There were a number of new businesses established such as the first fruit market, which fifty years later was still a fruit market. There was a butchery owned by Mr Porter, Clarke’s hardware store, a newsagency run by Mr McKenzie, the Ampol Garage owned and run by Mr Wilkes, where two-stroke petrol used to cost four shillings for a gallon, and Stewart Ward’s Pharmacy, amongst others. On the eastern side was Colah Cottage – on the corner of Colah Road and Grey Street. This was a general store where schoolchildren bought meat pies for eleven-pence and ice blocks for a penny, much to their delight. There were a few other businesses as well, the Northern Caravan Company, Norwood Pre-school kindergarten, a hobby centre, a shoe repairer and a concreter.
The 1960s also brought an improvement in rail services. In 1949, during off-peak hours, one could wait two hours for a train into Hornsby. But with the coming of electric trains in the late fifties, firstly to Gosford, then to Wyong and ultimately to Newcastle, our waiting times between trains were lessened. Those who speak of the romance of steam trains, with their noise and dirt, never lived near them. Mt Colah, where there was no rail attendant in 1949, by the sixties had a full-time attendant. Young Ronnie Burton extended his service by carrying the shopping bags up the station steps for elderly ladies who loved him.
Sewerage did not exist in the Mt Colah of the fifties or sixties. One owner in 1951, enquiring about how long he might wait for a sewage connection on to his property, was told “twenty-five years”. In 1958, Hornsby Council passed a motion to make septic tanks compulsory in the Shire. Those whose land could not absorb the run-off from their septic tank were provided with a pump-out service. And the Water Board prediction of about “twenty-five years” was correct. In 1976, sewage came to Mt Colah.
If anyone wonders why the road which runs from Mountside Avenue to Edgeworth David Avenue, in Hornsby, has four different names, it is probably due to housing development in earlier days. In 1950, there was a house at the end of Lord Street in Mt Colah, which, when it was demolished, opened up the road across the golf links to Asquith. Belmont Parade and Royston Parade in Asquith maintained their original names and there seems to be doubt about a name for the road across the golf links, which was always known as the “Golf Links Road”. At one time there was a sign post which stated that it was Royston Parade, but that disappeared. Pierre Close, without houses, languished nameless until the school was built.
At the end of the War, on Mt Colah’s eastern side, the land had been subdivided into large blocks, but on the western side there were still very large tracts of land which needed subdivision. A case in point is the acreage which the Libbesson family owned just north of the road bridge. Unable to afford to subdivide they sold it all to the Park Department, who created Amaroo Avenue and some of the roads leading off it. The adjoining area further west was owned by the Burke family and most of this was later subdivided.
Sport for the youth has always been a part of the Mt Colah scene. Soccer was played by just about every boy who lived in the area and later on, one of the mothers, Miriam Bacon, organized softball as a sport for girls. By 1957 about six such teams had been established. The soccer parents put in a great deal of time and effort and eventually the Soccer Club published its own paper, also on a Gestetner. Jack Berry, whose boys, Danny and Jimmy, both played, had Berry Park named in his honour after his death in 1964.
Little Athletics, cricket and baseball came later and there were few children in Mt Colah who weren’t involved in at least one sport. Today there are three large playing fields in the area.
Children tended to play outdoors more in those early days. A lady, now in her late fifties, tells of hair-raising rides on a bike or billycart down a steep, unmade, rocky road in Mt Colah.
Children played in Ku-ring-gai Chase as well, when the waterfalls could be reached before they disappeared under the F3 roadway. Yabbies could be found in the creeks and the same lady recalls how she and her sister used to jump from rock to rock across the top of the waterfall which dropped down to rocks below. As an adult she went back before the Freeway was built and was horrified to find out how dangerous it had been jumping along those moss-covered rocks.
Additional to sport, there are other organizations such as the Scouts and Girl Guides. Unfortunately, owing to arson, twice the Scout Hall has been destroyed but a new one, like the Phoenix, has risen from the ashes and been completed on the grass area opposite the railway station and next to the Community Hall, that was finally built by Council in the 1990s.
People have come and gone over the sixty odd years since post-war start of the suburb, but there are still some who linger on and wouldn’t live anywhere else. “You can take me out in a box!” one old timer said. It is a green, relatively safe, relatively quiet place, a one hour run on the train from Sydney, close to Bobbin Head and the Hawkesbury. May it continue to flourish, but not too much!
By an old-timer of 61 years residence.
We are not sure if the author knew Mount Colah was voted "Australia's Best Suburb" through a national online poll conducted by Ninemsn in 2010.
Keywords Mount ColahMary KirbyMt ColahClick on the image to add
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Memories of Mount Colah since World War 2. Hornsby Shire, accessed 04/04/2026, https://hornsbyshire.recollect.net.au/nodes/view/6402