Coalcliff, New South Wales

Coalcliff is a town on the coast of New South Wales, Australia, between Sydney and Wollongong. Together with Stanwell Park it belongs to the Little Bulli indentation of the northern Illawarra coast strip.HistoryIn 1796 William Clark and others trekking north to Port Jackson from the wrecked ship Sydney Cove noticed coal exposed at the cliffs there and made a fire from it, attracting rescuers, giving the area its name. George Bass was despatched to report on it and traced the deposit along the shore and inland. There was nowhere for ships to safely land though, so it was not until 1850 that it began to be excavated.In 1888 the Coalcliff General Store opened at 19 Paterson Road (once referred to as the 'main street') by Mr John Earle Gibbons and his wife, son and daughter-in-law of Matthew John Gibbons who arrived in Australia in 1790 as a convict on the Second Fleet, and was one of Coalcliff's earliest residents. Architecturally the store was of plain colonial style, constructed of local wood with a sandstone foundation. It sold, amongst other household items, Milk, Bread, Butter, Drinks, Meat, Stationary goods, Cigarettes and other tobacco paraphernalia, jams, preserves, poultry and bakery products. The shop was the major lifeforce behind the township until closure in 1907. The same year the shops was burned to the ground via unknown causes and remained a vacant lot until 1910 when another store was erected and opened by a Mr. L. Jameson. This is the building that still stands today at the corner on Paterson Road, which has been a private residential property since 1961.