The Heritage of Rylstone Shire by Ian Jack

R. Ian Jack, MA, PhD, FRHistS, FRAHS was born and educated in Scotland at two of its oldest schools and at a university which had just celebrated its 500th anniversary.

He came to Australia to re-establish medieval European history in the curriculum of the University of Sydney, but in the 1970s the influences of an archaeologist and the burgeoning heritage movement made him more and more involved with the development of the Australian rural scene and its physical remains.

He retired from the Department of History some 10 years ago and has served 8 years as the longest-serving President of the Royal Australian Historical Society.

He has contributed to a number of heritage studies in the Central Western region over the past 20 years and worked with NSW Heritage Office and others in developing the thematic approach to writing of histories.

Following is an Extract from Ian Jack's Thematic History 2003 report prepared for the Rylstone Shire Community Heritage Study.

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The Heritage of Rylstone Shire

Heritage is the living embodiment of history. Three themes in particular clamour for attention in the history of Rylstone Shire: grazing and its corollaries of rural industry; cement-making; and the formation of two highly significant but contrasting towns.

The cultural landscape of the Shire, even around Kandos, has been shaped by European pastoralism. The use of the watenruays, the clearance of forest, the siting of homesteads, woolsheds and mustering yards have created a landscape much changed from that familiar to the Wiradjuri in the eighteenth century. The modified natural environment of modern Rylstone Shire is an historical artefact. From the drama of Glen Alice or Nullo Mountain to the meadows by the Cudgegong the landscape makes the Shire an uncommonly attractive place for residents and visitors alike.

 Within this pastoral scene, the presence of fine early homesteads and their outbuildings is of cardinal importance. lt is ironic that not a single homestead is included in the list of heritage items in the Shire's 1996 Local Environmental Plan, not even Dabee, the jewel in Rylstone's crown. The Fitzgeralds' Dabee, with its stone woolshed and its rare sheep-wash near the supremely elegant homestead, farmed by one family for over 170 years, is of state and national importance: and Dabee is only one of a series of major historical properties associated with the Coxes, the Nevells or the Thompsons.

Within this context of significant pastoral heritage, the presence of the cement works at Kandos and its quarries_nearby is the more striking. No cement works anywhere has a more dramatic natural setting and it has created its own aesthetic in the landscape. The industry is also the prime creator of the acute contrast between Rylstone town, a mellow service centre and seat of local government redolent of the nineteenth century, and Kandos, a twentieth- century workers' town laid out by the cement company, whose product is prominent in the buildings and the fences. Both Kandos and Rylstone are residential and service focal points for the Shire, but the contrast in design, style and aesthetic is telling. Each is very important and a heritage item in its own corporate self. Each is greater than the sum of its component parts, although the residences, churches, schools, shops and public buildings are all independently significant. The difference between Rylstone and Kandos is one of the significances of Rylstone Shire.

The community is protective of the Shire, but each geographic sector of the community has its own vision, a separate vantage-point from which the Shire's history and heritage are viewed. The purpose of a Heiitage Study, and especially a Community Heritage Study, is to bring together these various viewpoints and to give them a coherence within the historical themes which have shaped the modern Shire.

Out of this process a well-balanced understanding of the components which make Rylstone Shire a special place should evolve, so that the Coucil and the community can use the Heritage Study as a powerful tool for the identification and management of their heritage. By doing this, the historical basis for the cultural landscape and the contrasting streetscapes can be put to work. The heritage values which have organically evolved over two centuries make Rylstone congenial to its residents and attractive to outsiders. Heritage is core business in Rylstone.