Hill End

Postcode: 2850

Hill End is a former gold mining town in New South Wales, Australia, in Bathurst Regional Council. It owes its existence to the New South Wales gold rush of the 1850s, and at its peak in the early 1870s it had a population estimated at 8,000 served by two newspapers, five banks, eight churches, and twenty-eight pubs. Its decline when the gold gave out was dramatic: by 1945 the population was 700, and today there are less than than 100 full-time residents.

In the late 1940s it was discovered by artists Russell Drysdale and Donald Friend, and quickly became an artists' colony, the Hill End artist-in-residence program aims to ensure the continuity of this connection. Today, Hill End is a popular tourist destination.

Modern Hill End is classified as a Historical site by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), however it is still home to a handful of residents operating the local pub, general store, cake store & antique store.

NPWS has installed signs around the town to give visitors an idea of what was once in place on the now empty lots of land. Currently only a handful of buildings remain in their original form. However most of those buildings still serve the purpose they did back during the gold rush.

The most popular tourist activity in Hill End is gold panning, with some of the older members of the community running gold panning tours in the very same fossicking areas that yielded the gold which brought on the gold rush.

For more information about this town, click here