City of Newcastle Bathers Way Upgrade South Newcastle Beach

Update on the Bathers Way and skate park project

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:05 The National Trust is delighted the Stone Arch has been retained.

00:08 The Stone Arch was built in 1907.

00:11 It's part of a beach improvement work under Mayor Cook.

00:14 The city engineer at the time was a guy called Louis Blackbott, who went on to design the Ocean Park.

00:19 And the Stone Arch project cost $65.

00:22 The whole beach improvement work project cost £1,000 from a state government grant.

00:27 It included work on sea walls, promenade and a total of five shelters.

00:32 The Stone Arch is the only remaining shelter.

00:34 So we think it's very important that we retain this because it marks the start of Newcastle's bathing culture,

00:39 which is quite distinctive and probably one of the most distinctive beach culture towns in Australia.

00:44 Prior to 1903, bathing was highly regulated.

00:48 So the women were forced to paddle in about a metre of water at South Newcastle Beach,

00:53 a ladies' bathing place, whilst men were confined to swimming at night.

00:58 And they normally swam naked.

01:00 And you weren't supposed to swim between the hours of 6am and 8pm at night.

01:05 And basically the beach wasn't a desirable place to go.

01:08 Anti-social acts took place there.

01:11 It was hard to get to. It was sandy.

01:14 There was rubbish coming from the Pacific Park tip.

01:18 Sewage coming from Fort Scratchley.

01:21 So basically this project opened up the beach.

01:23 And once the beach was opened up, the families came down.

01:26 And a year later, Newcastle surfed life-saving public slopes.

01:29 So these are really important works because they start off our culture.

01:33 And today they're still being integrated with the skate park, South Newcastle Exhibition.

01:38 [Music plays]