Australian Heritage Festival

The Australian Heritage Festival is the country's largest community-driven celebration of heritage.

For more than 40 years the National Trust has connected the nation through the Australian Heritage Festival celebrations. Spanning cities and regions across Australia, the Festival offers unique opportunities for the community to engage with the country’s rich and diverse stories, bringing heritage to life for thousands of people to enjoy.

Queanbeyan Palerang Regional Council celebrates Heritage Week in April and May each year by organising activities that showcase and celebrate our natural, built and cultural heritage. 

Every year Queanbeyan Landcare creates events around the nominated theme.

2025 Heritage Festival Old Sydney Road Walk

As part of the 2025 Heritage Festival, with the theme “Unearthed – revealing the past, bringing to light lesser-known histories and stories,” Queanbeyan Landcare organised a guided walk along remnants of the Old Sydney Road in Cuumbeun Nature Reserve on Sunday 4th May. Local Carwoola residents Graeme Clifton and David Hanzl were on hand to relate different aspects of the history of European settlement and land-use changes in the area on top of the escarpment above Queanbeyan.

Graeme discussed the impact on Cuumbeun Nature Reserve of its proximity to the growing Queanbeyan population in the early 1900's. Evidence of timber harvesting, damage to the “chain of ponds” creek lines, sheep grazing with associated shepherds’ huts, its use as a rubbish tip, and for recreation, was discussed and remnants of wooden and rock camp sites remain. A large aerial photo was used to show the changes to the alignment of the Old Sydney Road to Bungendore, evidence of native vegetation clearing and subsequent regrowth.

David Hanzl then led us across Captains Flat Road and down towards the 1920's site of the brickworks established by a local entrepreneur builder in 1926.  After winning major contracts for buildings in early Canberra, Walter Mason expanded his businesses rapidly using the brickworks to construct, amongst other buildings, the 97-room Queanbeyan Hotel (now Top Pub). Unfortunately Walter over-extended himself, and his assets were sold up in 1928.  Although no original photos exist, there is some evidence of significant infrastructure associated with the brickworks, which originally included kilns, drying sheds, an elevator, offices and dams. At liquidation some 50,000 bricks and 600 cords of firewood (21.7 cubic metres!) were sold off the site, indicative of the massive removal of trees from the surrounding area.

Above images courtesy of Fran Curtis