Catherine Hill Bay

Postcode: 2281

Catherine Hill Bay is a coastal bay and village on the sea side of the southern peninsula forming Lake Macquarie, south of the sea entrance channel at Swansea, some 15 nautical miles south of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. The village is the oldest continuous settlement in the City of Lake Macquarie. A surf club is sited overlooking the beach that is quite popular for recreation.

The settlement was first made after land was purchased on 1 April 1865. The town of Cowper was created, to serve as a base for coal mining by the New Wallsend Company in 1873 with the first shipment on 17th December of that year. The name Catherine Hill was adopted to commemorate the schooner Catherine Hill that had run aground in 1867.

Later, the Wallarah Coal Company mined and shipped coal from the area including its nearby Crangan Bay mine. This was taken over by the Coal and Allied Group.

A railway originally was used to transport the coal to the wharf; later, trucks and automated loading belt systems were used.

Rutile was mined from the beach sands during the 1960s.

The local residents, most living in older style and small miner's cottages, are currently opposing rezoning and redevelopment for up-market housing. Environmentalists are also concerned as the heathlands around the village contain a large variety of wildflowers, some dwarfed into unusual forms from the exposed coastal conditions.

The village is named after the Catherine Hill, a schooner wrecked here in 1867. Coal was discovered and mined by the New Wallsend Company which bought up the land, built a jetty and opened the mine in 1873. The coastal location facilitated shipment and avoided the bar at the entrance to Lake Macquarie. The enterprise employed 70-100 men, whose cottages, still lining the roadside, formed the basis of the nascent township. Approximately 1000 tons of coal a week was taken by horse-drawn skips from the mine to a loading chute on the jetty.

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