Indigenous Heritage

The Original inhabitant of the Hunters Hill area was the Wallumedegal clan, who used the Woolwich area for thousands of years prior to European settlement.

At the time of European contact, the Wallumedegal Aboriginal tribe lived along the Parramatta River. Being south facing and shaded, the area now known as Kelly’s Bush, was mostly a summer camp and from time to time early settlers saw people setting the bush alight, which we now know was a means of controlling their environment and flushing out available food.

The indigenous people also ate fish and shellfish which were plentiful along the rocky shores and a shell midden remains today as evidence of this. There are rocky overhangs where people cooked, ate and slept and sandstone waterholes that we are told were part of a series of ponds made to collect rainwater, which was the only source of fresh water in this location. The indigenous people lived for many thousands of years in balance with a fragile environment moving from one food source to another as depletion or season dictated and the advent of white settlement was devastating.

The 1988 Heritage Study below identifies Aboriginal prehistoric sites in the Hunters Hill Municipality.

Hunters Hill Heritage Study, 1983.(PDF, 8MB)