| Site Name: | Bulli Miners Cottage |
| Address: | 200 Princes Highway Bulli |
| GPS Coordinates: | H 308266 E 6199256 HSL 21.0 Metres |
| Site Access: | Restricted Public Access |
(Courtesy of the Wollongong City Library and the
Illawarra Historical Society collections)
Life in the 1870s
The Bulli Miners Cottage is located next to the historic Denmark Hotel and represents an example of a house built and occupied by a coal miner and his family in the early 1870s, and has been described as being “a very rare and substantially intact survivor of a building style common in Bulli in the mid to late 19th century.’’
The site on which the cottage has been erected was part of a 300acre (121ha) land grant made to Cornelius O’Brien in 1821, and in 1836 O’Brien sold his land grant to Robert Marsh Westmacott. This parcel of land was later subdivided, with the Cottage site first purchased by a Mr. Fry, followed in 1874 by a coal miner. The cottage was continuously occupied until March 1990, when it was purchased by the Wollongong City Council and became the subject of a Permanent Conservation Order under the Heritage Act of NSW.
(Courtesy of the Wollongong City Library
and the Illawarra Historical Society collections)
A Modest Dwelling
The Cottage is of roughhewn hardwood timber slab construction and corrugated iron roof (the original roof is considered to have been ironbark timber shingles). The cottage overall comprises an open front veranda, a living room with fireplace and chimney, one bedroom an enclosed back veranda and a detached laundry.
” The property as a whole, emphasises the simplistic lifestyle of miners and has survived through changes in technology, social pressures and values.”
(Courtesy of the Wollongong City Library
and the Illawarra Historical Society collections)
The back yard area of the house includes the remains of the outside toilet of that era and some remnants of early mining plant. A memorial wall lists the names of some of the + 600 hundred miners who lost their live in the mines from the late 1800’s to this point in time.
‘’The property as a whole, emphasises the simplistic lifestyle of miners and has survived through changes in technology, social pressures and values.’’