Histories of Green Square - City of Sydney

Histories of Green Square
Fig. 3.1 Sydney and Environs: Average annual rainfall (Source:
Howell & Benson, Sydney’s Bushland, 2000, p.13, courtesy
Doug Benson.)
Variations in the vegetation between Sydney Cove and Botany
Bay were also noted early in 1788. Between the 26 th and 28 th
February, Captain Hunter, upon finding the seas too rough to
return to Sydney by boat, made his way overland with another
officer and two seamen ‘through the woods and swamps, of
which there were many in our route’. 4 Historian Joan Lawrence
describes their trek:
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...they used a pocket compass as an aid and said of
the land some two miles south of Port Jackson that it
‘abounds with high trees, and little or no underwood;
but between that and Botany Bay, it is all thick, low
woods or shrubberies, barren heaths, and swamps, the
land near the sea, although covered in many places
with wood, is rocky from the water-side to the very
summit of the hills. 5
In 1790 a search party was sent out by Governor Philip to kill
a number of the Aboriginal people living on the north side
of Botany Bay, in retaliation for the alleged murder of John
McEntire by an Aboriginal man, Pemulwuy (see Chapter 5).
Tim Flannery recounts the tetchy and ironic observations of
the terrain by Lieutenant Watkin Tench, who was ordered to
take part in this expedition:
...Our march ended at sunset, without our seeing a
single native. We had passed through the country
which the discoverers of Botany Bay extol as ‘some
of the finest meadows in the world’. These meadows
instead of grass, are covered with high coarse rushes,
growing in a rotten spongy bog, into which we were
plunged knee-deep at every step. 6
Tench also noted the flora and fauna of the area in his
journal. They included the once common Cabbage Tree Palm
(Livistona australis): ‘That species of palm tree which produces
the mountain cabbage is also found in most of the freshwater
swamps, within six or seven miles from the coast’. The Swamp
Wallaby Tench described as ‘the red kangaroo, from the colour
of its fur, which is like that of a hare, and sometimes is mingled
with a large portion of black: the natives call it bagary’. He
also pointed out that, besides being an important food source
for Aboriginal people, bagary’s greatest destroyer was the
dingo. Tench sighted emu, which he named cassowary: ‘We
came suddenly upon them, and they ran up a hill exactly like
a flock of turkeys, but so fast that we could not get a shot at
them’. The emus were feeding upon ‘either grass or a yellow
bell-flower growing in the swamps’. He also found numerous
reptiles there. 7
To the casual European observer, the Botany Basin, including
Green Square, appeared inaccessible and useless because it
did not offer land desirable for cultivation or grazing. Open
park-like country was preferred, something they often identified
with ‘gentlemen’s parks in England’ and most suitable for
grazing. The inhospitable nature of this un-European environmental
landscape was later described by Thomas Woore,
who also made observations in the vicinity of Green Square.
He described the area that includes Waterloo Swamp while on
an expedition with Baron Carl von Hugel between 1833 and
1834:
…Our principle object was the collection of aquatic
plants, which at that time grew in considerable variety,
as a great part of the surface was covered with water.
This occupation led us over almost every part of the
swamp that we could obtain footing on; but it was very
difficult to travel, and in many places impossible to do
so, from its semi-liquid state...Much stunted timber
and some large trees were at that time growing on the
sand slopes in sheltered hollows, and the whole was
covered with a thick coat of brushwood, that effectually
prevented the sun’s rays and hot winds from penetrating
to the surface... I have now many specimens
of Utricularia and other plants of a similar nature we
collected there, that can only exist in quagmires. 8
These early observations present the area as a hazardous and
uninviting environment, by highlighting its rugged swampiness.
However, they do provide an important insight into the
great abundance of native plant and animal life that existed
there. Birds were particularly attracted to the large supply
of fresh water. This environment was formed as a result of a
unique combination of natural environmental factors.
3.3 Natural environmental factors
3.3.1 Geomorphology
Sydney is renowned for its Hawkesbury Sandstone, which
covers a wide geographical area that includes the Botany Basin.
It is massive in nature, the result of a uniform deposital phase
of Permian and Triassic age (270–180 million years ago), in
which over the millennia sediments were laid down in a freshwater
alluvial environment. 9 The Hawkesbury Sandstone of
the Botany Basin is overlain with Quaternary sand deposits.
Erosion by wind and water continuously reshaped this
landform.
© Jason Doran
3.3.2 Geology
The Quaternary Period (the last 1.8 million years) is the most
recent stage in landscape development and during this time
‘dune sands were blown inland from the coast where today’s
southern and eastern suburbs lie’. 10 It is this sand that constitutes
much of the soil around Green Square today. These sands
mainly overlie a bedrock of Hawkesbury Sandstone, except for
along the southern margin of the Botany Basin, where they rest
on Wianamatta Shale. The thickness of sediment in the Basin
varies from about a metre or so, to a maximum of seventy-five
metres in the channel of the Georges River. 11 Hawke defines
these sediments more precisely as:
…dominantly of fine-grained, uniform quartzose
porous and permeable sands interspersed with thin,
discontinuous impermeable lenses of clay, peat and
“Waterloo rock” (weakly cemented ferruginous
sands). They overlie the relatively impervious Triassic
Wianamatta Group and Hawkesbury Sandstone
bedrock... The basin sand deposits are a product of
rising sea levels in the Late Quaternary which have
sorted and moved back formerly more easterly terrestrial
deposits and redeposited them in coastal depressions.
The depression in this case was provided by the
basin and the former large estuarine system in it. The
deposits are probably related to more than one change
in sea level. 12
The Eastern Suburbs as a whole is covered by these Quaternary
and Pleistocene sands and clays. Aeolian sands occur at Green
Square, while estuarine silts and clays occur along nearby
Shea’s Creek. Soil type, including moisture content, affects
the distribution and diversity of the native flora and fauna
that thrived in this environment. Disturbing this geology by
improving soil quality can upset the fine adaptive balance that
the ESBS achieved, and needs in order to survive.
3.3.3 Soils
The soils on the Quaternary alluvium of the Botany Basin
and Green Square can vary in nature. Loamy soils (containing
sand, clay and organic matter) are found on younger
sediments, though simple profiles of siliceous sands are more
common, particularly around Green Square. Benson and
Howell point out that ‘slightly more phosphorus is found
in the soils derived from shales than in those derived from
sandstone but the biggest differences in quality between these
relate to soil structure and the ability of the heavier textured
soils to retain more soil moisture’. 13 The soil quality is also
very ‘poor’ because it is lacking in the nutrients that European
plants need to survive, and like most of Australia’s soils, they
are acidic.
3.3.4 Hydrologic regime
The Green Square Town Centre is situated� on reclaimed land
that was once known as Waterloo Swamp. Waterloo Swamp
and the swampland that still exists in Centennial Park and at
Eastlakes Golf Course are the result of the hydrology of the
Botany Basin Sand Beds (see also Chapter 4.0). These are
defined by the quantity of water moving in and out of the area.
Hawke points out that precipitation provides the basic inflow
to the system following three main paths: ‘(i) direct runoff to
surface storage or to Botany Bay, (ii) atmospheric return by
evaporation, and (iii) infiltration to the zone of aeration which
is either transpired or moves down to the zone of saturation
to become groundwater’. 14 This groundwater has ‘a uniform
© Jason Doran
Chapter 3 – The Pre-European Environmental Landscape
flow to the northern shores of Botany Bay with a water table
gradient of 1 in 120’. 15 Today, much of the rainwater that falls
at Green Square is collected as storm water runoff in drains,
which empty into Botany Bay.
3.3.5 Climate
The southerly aspect of the Sydney Basin leaves Green
Square open to west-southwesterly winds. These are the most
frequent winds here and had a large impact on shaping the
pre-European environment. However, main wind directions
also vary with the season and time of day, for ‘in the afternoons
northeasterly or east-northeasterly winds are most
common in all seasons except winter’. 16
Hawke notes the importance of the climate for the distribution
of water and the ecology of the area:
... [Climate] is of considerable importance when evaluating
shallow, basically unconfined aquifers [rock
mass or layer that readily transmits and holds ground
water] which are continually recharging with water,
because ultimately rainfall is the source of all fresh
water in the Botany Basin....Climate has a marked
influence on the groundwater storage and recharge
in periods such as summer when rainfall is least and
demand for water and evapotranspiration [combined
water loss to the atmosphere by evaporation from the
soil and transpiration from plants] are highest, or in
lengthy dry periods (droughts) when no recharge is
Fig. 3.2 Centennial Park today with a Gymea lily in the centreforeground.
(Photo: Jason Doran 2003.)
Fig. 3.3 Paperbark trees in Centennial Park.
(Photo: Jason Doran 2003.)
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