Towrang Convict Stockade, Heritage penal site in Towrang, Australia.
Towrang Convict Stockade is a former penal site with stone buildings and various structures scattered across multiple locations. The remaining structures include a powder magazine, a bridge, and seven culverts positioned along the Old Hume Highway.
This penal establishment operated between 1838 and 1843, holding up to seventy convicts in chains who built sections of the Great South Road. The site played a key role in early infrastructure development in colonial Australia.
Before European settlement the Goulburn Plains and Wollondilly River supplied game and fish to many Aboriginal groups, among them the Mulwaree, Tarlo, Burra Burra, Wiradjuri and Gundungurra. The region served as a meeting place rather than the territory of a single group, and evidence survives of stone-tool making sites and of corroborees held until the 19th century.
Self-guided tour information is available from the Goulburn Information Centre to help navigate the different locations across the site. The structures are spread over several points, so allow time to visit multiple areas.
The stockade was one of several spaced about 10–11 miles apart along the Great South Road, including Wingello Stockade just east of Marulan. The spacing and distance from towns are thought to have let the gangs march the roughly 5 miles to the work site and back in about an hour each way.
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