Lady Martin’s Bath was thought to be built by stone mason Paddy Ryan, as part of James Martin’s home. James Martin QC was Attorney General in 1856 and 1857 and Premier from 1862 - 1872; he owned land in the Blue Mountains.

He intended to build a grand home overlooking the mountains and during excavation, a spring was found and the bath made. It was named after James Martin’s wife, Lady Martin, however she never used the bath, and ultimately James Martin never completed his grand home. Only the foundations were ever completed.

Additional trivia on this location reveals that the bath was the scene where a murder took place, when in 1896 Frank Butler shot and buried a mineralogy student, Arthur Preston, and buried him in a hole near the bath. Butler fled to the United States, but was eventually caught and hanged in Sydney in 1897.

Source: Springwood Historians; New South Wales Heritage Register.

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The land on which the Bethany Gospel Hall was built in 1952 - 1953 had never previously been developed. Before World War 1 (WWI) the area on the south side of Waratah Street east of Cascade Street, encompassing the present numbers 21 to 31 Waratah Street, was held by a dairyman, James Routley Davey, and was presumably used as a grazing paddock.

Sub-division took place in 1914 and lot 3, now number 25, was purchased by Mrs Elizabeth O'Connor, the matron of the Royal South Sydney Hospital, which had been founded by Joynton Smith, the new owner of the Carrington Hotel. It was probably through Smith, who was on the hospital board, that Mrs O'Connor decided to invest in Katoomba land.

Matron O'Connor died in the 1930s but her estate continued to own the land, without developing it, until it was sold to the Christian Brethren in 1952.

The Christian Brethren built their Bethany Gospel Hall on the vacant site in two stages over 1952 and 1953. There was no architect involved but two experienced local bricklayers, Frank Bailey and Frank Price, both members of the Brethren, created a building of striking effectiveness and fine brickwork. The lower storey was built and roofed in 1952, with a chimney at the rear. In 1953 the roof was removed and the upper storey with its impressive frontage, was completed.

Source: New South Wales Heritage Register.

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The site of 18-22 Station Street is part of the land grant made to Mary Finn in September 1868.

The building that comprises 18-22 Station Street was reputedly erected by the Bank of New South Wales as the first bank to have opened in Mt Victoria, and one of the first buildings erected by the bank in the Blue Mountains. If this is the case, at some time the building was sold to the Australian Joint Stock Bank, which also came into the possession of other property along Station Street.

In August 1907 the Australian Joint Stock Bank Limited sold a number of allotments on Station Street, identified as Lots 10 and parts of Lots 9, 11 and 12 in Deposited Plan 648 to Ellen Wilson, the wife of local storekeeper John Wilson. Mrs Wilson already owned Lot 8 and 12 and part of Lot 9 of the same subdivision. At the same time she mortgaged the property to the Australian Joint Stock Bank Limited.

In 1945 the property was inherited by Violet Grace Russ, who was the wife of grazier Thomas Russ of Albert and also possibly the daughter of Mt Victoria storekeeper John Wilson. It remained in her possession for a number of years before she sold it to Michael Cvesper, a cook of Cooma, and his wife Marie in July 1957. Mr and Mrs Cvesper mortgaged it at the same time to Violet Russ and John Wilson. In December 1967 the property was sold to Gerald Thornhill, a railway employee of Junee and his wife Marion, who sold it in turn to Clarice Morris, a school teacher of Wentworth Falls, in the middle of 1973.

It is possible that the terrace was leased for commercial purposes prior to this time, but the individual dwellings were let to various persons during the mid 1980s and later.

Source: New South Wales Heritage Register.

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Many lost treasures slumber in the depths of the Blue Mountains valleys. Some have been grouped into the scenery of walking tracks, others have been lost in time forever; but not the rustic ruins found along Linden Creek beneath the ridges of Faulconbridge.

When bush whacking through lush forest greenery there are several railway remnants returning to the earth in the waters of the creek - the most prominent feature of course being a large boiler with matured ferns growing around it. None of these ruins will appear on any map which is certainly for the best, however their story goes far back as the early 20th Century.

Around 1910, a cable incline was built at Faulconbridge by Henry Joyce to provide access to a sawmill beside Linden Creek. There must also have been a tramline or track connecting the sawmill to the base of the incline. The remains of a cutting may be seen at the end of a fire trail which runs off Highland Road. Lack of visible remains lower down suggest that the line, which used timber rails, was largely elevated on a trestle. Timber extracted from the Linden Creek area was milled on the site and hauled up the funicular railway, ready to be transported to Sydney for furniture making.

In 2016 a Ward 2 Greens candidate called upon the Blue Mountains City Council to build a walking track to an historic site. Luckily, this never happened as it would have resulted in unwarranted vandalism/graffiti in the same way the abandoned trains at the Zig Zag railway line were damaged.

The ruins of the Faulconbridge Funicular Railway lay at the bottom of the valley, slowly decaying into the earth.

Source: Blue Mountains Gazette; Info Blue Mountains Railway Pages.

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Tourism to the Blue Mountains developed in the late nineteenth century, when the fresh mountain air and scenic views were promoted as a healthy retreat for consumptives.

With the opening of the Great Western Railway across the Mountains to Wentworth Falls in 1867 and then to Mount Victoria in 1868, the journey to the Blue Mountains was made more comfortable and accessible to the upper and middle classes. A simple timber platform at Katoomba was opened in 1874.

The opening of the Great Western Hotel (soon to become the Carrington) at Katoomba in 1882 guaranteed that Katoomba would evolve into the tourist centre of the Blue Mountains. From the 1890s, guesthouses began to appear along the major scenic villages of the Blue Mountains, particularly Katoomba, Blackheath, Wentworth Falls, Springwood and Lawson. Tourism continued to develop in the first two decades of the twentieth century, with the 1920s being the heyday of the guesthouses.

Before becoming the guesthouse known as the Palais Royale, the two buildings on Katoomba street functioned as a convent, day and boarding school, and later guesthouse. The two cottages which form the Palais Royale were built in 1896 by Mr Spear of Summer Hill and were named Glen Eric and Hillside. In 1900 the Sisters of Charity obtained Glen Eric and the house became known as St. Canice’s convent. Within a year, the Sisters of Charity had opened a school under their direction, using both Glen Eric and Hillside. Known as Mount St Mary’s Ladies’ College, the college was a "Day School and Boarding School for Young Ladies". They offered English, French Latin, German, Mathematics, Plain and Fancy Needlework, Drawing, Painting, Wood Carving, Callisthenics, Vocal and Instrumental Music. As the two buildings soon became inadequate for the purposes of the school, a new site was decided upon up near the Court House, with His Eminence Cardinal Moran laying the foundation stone for the new building in April 1909. The Sisters of Charity moved into their new school at the start of 1910.

By 1912 the two buildings were being used as a guesthouse. The proprietress Miss Jessie Nichol adopted one of the original names of the cottages, and the establishment was known as "Hillside". She offered "comfortable accommodation" for 50 visitors and fees were from 30s per week.

In 1914 Miss Nichol shifted the residence for her guesthouse to Waratah Street, taking the name Hillside with her. However the twin cottages continued to be used as a guesthouse.

The Palais Royale is first mentioned in 1921. The guesthouse was up for sale in April 1923 by Soper Bros. The terms were "25% deposit - £500 per annum, balance end of 3 years, interest 7 percent". The Palais Royale appears to have been bought by Mrs A. Marsh, since in 1924 she was advertising the guesthouse could accommodate 130 guests. The business prospered and by 1930 the Palais Royale was revamped and given a new impressive cream-coloured facade with a classical style portico. Nevertheless the original roof line and chimneys were still discernible in a 1931 photograph. One of the new additions to the Palais Royale in the 1930s was its ballroom. The private ballroom with "3-piece orchestra" was advertised as "the largest on the Blue Mountains" and "one of the most beautiful ballrooms in Australia". The description which the Marshes supplied in one advertisement was quite simply bedazzling:

"The whole of the walls, from the seats to the frieze, have been panelled in bevelled mirrors. The effect created is entrancing and magnificent, and gives the impression, on entering, of walking into a vastness of space. The ballroom is illuminated from hanging baskets of ferns, carrying festoons of coloured fairy lights. As each wall reflects into that opposite, these lights are repeated thousands of times into a vast infinity producing a truly amazing effect." The ballroom was a popular dancing venue until the 1950s.

The Palais Royale continued to run as a private hotel during the declining guesthouse tourism in the 1950s and 60s, but in the 1970s it was bought, along with another guesthouse opposite called the Homedale, by the Assembly of God. The building became a bible college, providing accommodation for single students and lectures in the ballroom. In 1999, after extensive renovation, the Palais Royale resumed its existence as a luxury private hotel.

Source: New South Wales Heritage Register.

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