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| Canowindra New South Wales |
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 Gaskill St, the main street of Canowindra |
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| Population: | 1,499 1 | ||||||
| Established: | 1847 | ||||||
| Postcode: | 2804 | ||||||
| Elevation: | 300 m (984 ft) | ||||||
| Location: | |||||||
| LGA: | Cabonne Shire | ||||||
| State District: | Dubbo | ||||||
| Federal Division: | Calare | ||||||
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Canowindra (pronounced Can-noun-dra, not the commonly used Can-oh-win-dra) is an historic township located near Cowra in the central west of New South Wales, Australia in Cabonne Shire. Canowindra is on the Belubula River. The curving main street, Gaskill Street, is partly an urban conservation area. At the 2006 census, Canowindra had a population of 1,499.1
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History
A post office opened at Canowindra in 1847 with mail coming from Carcoar, but the village was handicapped as part of a main route to the lower Lachlan, first by the lack of a bridge and later by the construction of the railway to Orange. Today the main street has an old-world air, with its kerbside verandah posts lining the dog-leg course of what was once a bullock team track.
In October 1863, Ben Hall's gang took over the village for three days and entertained the whole population, as well as some stray travellers, all herded into the inn. An account of the incident was reported in the Bathurst Times, also quoted in the Maitland Mercury. A monument to Ben Hall, on the site of Robinson's inn, the Travellers' Rest, was erected in 1951, but evidently further research has indicated that the events recorded here happened at the inn on the other side of the river.
Modern Canowindra
The Royal Hotel is on the site of another inn owned by Robinson and the plaque on the wall indicates present day understanding that this was the inn where Ben Hall's gang had their spree. Other notable buildings include the nursing home, the Junction Hotel, Finn's Building, the Victoria Hotel, the former Bank of NSW and the former CBC Bank. The Trading Post, a homewares shop, won the inland tourism award for 2006.
Canowindra is also popularly known as the Balloon Capital of Australia. One of the largest festivals in Australia used to take place here every April. This was called Marti's Fiesta, which is sadly no longer held due to lack of funds.2
Australian country music star Captain Flange makes his home in Canowindra.
Fossils
Canowindra is the site of one of the world's great fossil discoveries. A chance discovery by a road worker in 1956 uncovered a rich find of 360 million year old fish fossils, dating from the Devonian period in the Paleozoic era. The "Canowindra slab" was removed to the Australian Museum, Sydney. The fish had been buried when trapped in a pool of water that dried up, stranding two armoured antiarch placoderms, Remigolepis walkeri and Bothriolepis yeungae,3 and Canowindra grassi, a lobe-finned crossopterygian fish, with two rare juvenile arthrodire placoderms, Groenlandaspis species.
No further fossils had been recovered until January 1993, when a trial dig on the site using an excavator rediscovered the fossil stratum, where the mass mortality of fishes was preserved in detail (see Lagerstätte). Specimens can be viewed in the specially established Age of Fishes Museum, with scientific support and funding from the Australian Museum. The Canowindra site has now been listed as part of Australia's National Heritage because of its international scientific importance.456
Footnotes
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Canowindra, New South Wales |
- ^ a b Australian Bureau of Statistics (25 October 2007). "Canowindra (Urban Centre/Locality)". 2006 Census QuickStats. http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/ABSNavigation/prenav/LocationSearch?collection=Census&period=2006&areacode=UCL117400&producttype=QuickStats&breadcrumb=PL&action=401. Retrieved on 2008-11-27.
- ^ "Canowindra". Orange town and around website. 2006. http://www.orange-nsw.com/Canowindra.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
- ^ Other Remigolepis species have been discovered in Devonian rocks in China, Greenland and Russia.
- ^ "The Canowindra Story - The Australian Museum and The Age of Fishes". Australian Museum. 2002. http://www.amonline.net.au/palaeontology/field_sites/canowindra.htm. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
- ^ "The Great Devonian Fish Fossils". Canowindra.org. http://www.canowindra.org/fishes.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
- ^ "A Unique Discovery". Ageoffishes.org. http://www.ageoffishes.org.au/disc.htm#species. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
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- This page was last modified on 5 December 2008, at 12:10.
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