Hanging Rock, New South Wales

Hanging Rock is a gold mining village and also rock face on the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. This former gold mining town is situated about 10 km south east of Nundle. The village is part of the Tamworth Regional Council district and Parry County. Hanging Rock's geographical coordinates are 31° 29′ 0″ South, 151° 12′ 0″ East and the elevation is about 1100 m. Due to the high altitude of the village, Hanging Rock and the surrounding mountains can occasionally receive a snow fall on the coldest of winter days. At the 2006 census, Hanging Rock had a population of 195 people.HistoryThe Hanging Rock Run of about, with a grazing capacity of approximately 500 head of cattle, was taken up by Nathan Burrows in 1848. Hanging Rock took its name from a huge cliff face that overlooked the valley below.In August 1851, while out riding his run, Nathan Burrows spotted a stockman panning for gold along Swamp Creek. The stockman had stumbled across his good fortune while washing his pannikin after a meal and found a few shiny specs. Burrows rode to Tamworth to inform the local storekeeper, William Cohen, who within a few days' rode to Hanging Rock, along with Charles Parsons and William Blackborn, to check out Burrow's claim and they found more gold. Thus a gold rush commenced to this area. By February 1852, 27 cradles were operating with some 200 diggers searching for their fortune.During 1853, American gold miners dug, an approximately 23 km, water race from Callaghans Swamp to underneath the Hanging Rock cliff face. Also that year Californians dug another water race from the swamp at the head of Dangars Gully to Nuggety Gully. In 1882, it took about twelve months to cut a 13 km water race from the Barnard River on the eastern side of the rough mountainous Great Dividing Range to the western side of the Range. Just south of Hanging Rock village are the Sheba Dams (with a surface area of 3.6 ha) which were erected by hand over a three-week period in 1888 to serve the sluicing needs of the miners. This construction was carried out by the Mt Sheba Company which leased the water rights for the area. Other water races were also constructed to feed various other mines around Bowling Alley Point and Hanging Rock.