Great Western Highway is a state highway in New South Wales, Australia. From east to west, the highway links Sydney with Bathurst, on the state's Central Tablelands. The highway also has local road names between the Sydney city centre and Parramatta, being: Broadway from to , Parramatta Road from Chippendale to Parramatta, and Church Street through Parramatta.
Route The eastern terminus of Great Western Highway is at Railway Square, at the intersection of Broadway with Quay Street, in the inner-city suburb of Haymarket and just south of the Sydney CBD. From Railway Square, the highway follows Broadway south and west, to the intersection with City Road (Princes Highway), where the highway changes name to Parramatta Road and heads generally west towards Parramatta. Hume Highway (Liverpool Road) branches south-west at Summer Hill/Ashfield, and a short distance further west the majority of traffic is diverted off the highway onto M4 Western Motorway via the WestConnex tunnel at Ashfield. A short distance further west, on the northern fringes of Ashfield, the City West Link arterial road ends at a major junction with the highway at Frederick Street (which proceeds south to join Hume Highway).
The highway continues west as Parramatta Road, with a major intersection at Homebush West with the A3 arterial road. Although the A3 road is called "Centenary Drive" in this area, the on-/off-ramps are separately named Marlborough Road, carrying on the name of the surface road that was replaced by Centenary Drive. Further west, on the boundary between Lidcombe and Auburn, the highway intersects the A6 arterial road (St Hillier's Road / Silverwater Road).
Just south of Parramatta, the highway meets Woodville Road and continues west onto an on-ramp for M4 Western Motorway, while the highway-designated route turns sharply to the north along Church Street, before turning west again at the southern fringe of the Parramatta central business district, continuing west across western metropolitan Sydney to , north of the central business district, where it crosses the Nepean River via the 1867 Victoria Bridge. At , M4 Western Motorway reconnects with the highway as it begins its ascent into the Blue Mountains. It intersects with Darling Causeway at Mount Victoria which heads north to connect with Bells Line of Road. From Mount Victoria, the highway descends via Victoria Pass into the Hartley Valley and then passes through the western suburbs of Lithgow where it is joined by the Chifley Road, which links eastward back to Bells Line of Road. The highway continues generally west, intersecting with Castlereagh Highway west of Marrangaroo, and crosses Coxs River to ascend the Great Dividing Range to reach its highest point (at just east of Yetholme) and over the western ridge of the Sydney basin before dropping into the Macquarie Valley to reach its western terminus at Bathurst, at the junction of the Mitchell and Mid-Western Highways.
At numerous points along its journey, the highway transverses or is transversed by the Main Western railway line. Major river crossings occur east of Emu Plains (Nepean), near Wallerawang (Coxs), and east of Bathurst (Macquarie).
It consists of two of Australia's most historic roads – Parramatta Road, and the full length of the former Great Western Road, from Parramatta to Bathurst.
History
Colonial establishment
Sydney CBD to Parramatta and Penrith
Initial travel between Sydney and the settlement of Parramatta was by water along the Parramatta River. Sometime between 1789 and 1791 an overland track was made to provide an official land route between the two settlements. Parramatta Road dates to the 1792 formation of a route linking Sydney to the settlement of Parramatta, formalised under the direction of Surveyor-General Augustus Alt in 1797. Parramatta Road became one of the colony's most important early roadways, and for many years remained one of Sydney's premier thoroughfares. By 1810, Parramatta Road had officially open to traffic and was financed during a large portion of the 1800s by a toll, with toll booths located at what now is Sydney University and the Duck River.
From Parramatta to Penrith, a road along the current alignment of the Great Western Highway (except at and Penrith) was constructed soon after completion of the Sydney–Parramatta Road.
Emu Plains to Mount Victoria
In 1813, acting on the instructions of Governor of New South Wales Lachlan Macquarie, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth led an 1813 expedition that travelled west from Emu Plains and, by staying to the ridges, were able to confirm the existence of a passable route directly west from Sydney across the Blue Mountains. The existence of other, less direct routes had been known as far back as 1797, but due to the need to prevent convicts from believing that escape from the hemmed-in Sydney region was possible, knowledge of the expeditions confirming the existence of routes across the Blue Mountains was suppressed. Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth travelled as far west as the point they named Mount Blaxland, southwest of where Lithgow now stands. From this point they were able to see that the worst of the almost impenetrable terrain of the Blue Mountains was behind them, and that there were easy routes available to reach the rolling countryside they could see off to the west.
Mount Victoria to Bathurst
Macquarie then despatched Surveyor George Evans to follow Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth's route and to push further west until he reached arable land. Evans travelled west until he reached the Fish River, and followed it downstream until he reached the site of Bathurst. Within a year, Macquarie commissioned William Cox to construct a road west from Emu Plains, following Evans' route, and this road was finished in 1815. Macquarie himself travelled across it soon after completion, established and named Bathurst, and named the road the Great Western Road.
The section of the Great Western Road as far west as , with a small number of minor deviations, is still in use today as part of the Great Western Highway. West of Mount Victoria, Evans' route has been superseded, chiefly by Mitchell's new route constructed between 1832 and 1836.
Route development Between present-day and Dog Trap Road (now Woodville Road), Parramatta Road travelled in a wide arc up to south of the present route, to avoid marshy areas around Haslams Creek and Duck River. Continuing due west from Flemington, it crossed Duck River near the present Mona Street bridge, turning north near the present Granville Park to finish at George Street in Parramatta, between Pitt and Church Streets. This was deviated circa 1840 to follow the present route. Few traces of the original route remain.
At Mount Victoria, at the western edge of the Blue Mountains, the route of Cox's road turned north to Mount York, from where it descended into the Hartley Valley. This pass was the major piece of engineering on the original route, and when Macquarie travelled the new road in 1815, he named it Cox's Pass in honour of the builder. From the foot of Mount York the road resumed its westerly direction to where now stands. However, from here it ran via the present-day Glenroy, Mount Blaxland, Cut Hill Road, Pitts Corner, Phils Falls, Mount Olive Road, Carlwood Road and Sidmouth Valley to a point south of . From here it continued westward, not crossing the Fish River, but crossing Campbells River north of the present bridge at The Lagoon and ascending to another ridgeline where it turned north to Gormans Hill, to reach the future site of Bathurst from the south, not the east.
For the first one hundred years after this ceased to be the route of the Great Western Road it remained trafficable, but the destruction of the bridge at Phil's Falls on the Fish River in 1930 meant it was no longer a through route, and parts became untrafficable. However, most of this route remains in existence as a series of local roads.
The original route had only been in existence for eight years when, in 1823, Assistant Surveyor James McBrian identified an improved route on the approaches to Bathurst. This route turned north south of O'Connell to run northwest to where is now located, then west across the Macquarie River into Bathurst. The section from south of O'Connell to Kelso is now part of the Bathurst-Oberon Road, and from Kelso into central Bathurst still remains as part of Great Western Highway.
When Major Thomas Mitchell was appointed as Surveyor-General in 1828, one of the first matters to which he turned his attention was the improvement of the Great Western Road. Mitchell's attention was focussed on providing a more direct and easily graded route for the Great Western Road. To this end, he surveyed a route running northwest from Hartley via Mt Walker to Meadow Flat, crossing the Great Dividing Range at Mount Lambie, then running in an almost straight line westward via Browns Hill to Kelso, to meet the pre-existing road. This road remains in existence – from Mount Lambie west it remains as the route of the current highway (with deviations) but the section adjacent to Cox's River was inundated by the construction of Lake Lyell for Wallerawang Power Station in the late 1970s.
Mitchell was also concerned to improve the worst sections of the road, which were the climb from the Cumberland Plain, on which Sydney sits, and the descent of Mount York, down the western side of the Blue Mountains.
In improving the eastern ascent Mitchell adhered largely to Cox's route, which follows the southern side of an east-falling gully to reach the plateau at where is now located. However, he engaged Scottish engineer David Lennox to build a stone arch bridge, now the Lennox Bridge, across the mouth of a particularly deep side gully. This route, known as Mitchell's Pass, was completed in 1833 and superseded what is now called Old Bathurst Road, located to the north of the route. The Mitchell's Pass and Lennox Bridge served as the main route to the Blue Mountains for 93 years until 1926, when the Great Western Highway was re-routed via sections of the former Lapstone Zig Zag including the Knapsack Viaduct.
After protracted arguments first with Governor Ralph Darling and then his successor Richard Bourke, and ignoring orders, Mitchell surveyed, designed and had built what is now known as Victoria Pass, where the highway drops from the Blue Mountains into the Hartley Valley. Midway down the road had to be supported on a causeway formed by massive stone buttressed walls, where a narrow ridge connects two large bluffs. This ridge had to be widened and raised to give the highway a route from the upper to the lower bluff. Mitchell cut terraces into the sides of these bluffs to form a passage for the road. It is a testimony of Mitchell's vision and engineering skill that this route, almost unchanged, and using his 1832 stonework, is still in use. Because this pass brought the road into the Hartley Valley several kilometres south of the Mount York descent, it necessitated a new route as far west as Hartley to meet Cox's Road. This also is still in use as part of the highway.
In 1929 the Main Roads Board deviated the route north from Old Bowenfels to Marrangaroo, using Trunk Road 55 (Mudgee Road, today Castlereagh Highway). From Marrangaroo a new road was built westward, running south of Wallerawang to meet Mitchell's 1830 deviation immediately east of Mount Lambie. This route avoids the long, steep gradients either side of Cox's River, which were the main drawback of Mitchell's route.