Corduroy Road Ruin Historic Site is a heritage-listed former stagecoach route and now disused road at East Coonamble Road, Curban, Gilgandra Shire, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by n/a and built from 1850 to 1923. It is also known as Cobb & Co route. The property is owned by Gilgandra Shire Council. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 5 October 2018.
History
Settlement of the Curban area
The 1820s and 1830s in New South Wales were characterised by a push for new grazing lands beyond the Limit of Location established by Governor Darling. This was largely driven by growth in the colonial economy and increasing trade with Britain. The discovery of easy passes over the Liverpool Ranges opened paths for squatters to move mobs of cattle and sheep into the rich Liverpool Plains. As these groups were moving out of the Hunter Valley others were moving livestock northwest from the Lithgow and Bathurst regions to establish runs along the Castlereagh River.
Andrew Brown of Cooerwull, Bowenfels (at the western end of the Lithgow valley) is credited to be the first European to squat on the Castlereagh River which flows past Curban. Brown spent the years around 1830 scouting runs for himself and his employer, James Walker of Wallerawong. Around the same time squatters such as the Cox and Rouse brothers and representatives of William Lawson's extended family were moving into the region from the east and south. Brown and Walker's sheep were driven to their properties at Bowenfels and Wallerawang for shearing each year. It was easier in those times to move living animals than dead loads of wool. When Charles Darwin visited Walker's Wallerawong in 1836 he noted that: The sheep were some 15,000 in number, of which the greater part was feeding under the care of different shepherds, on unoccupied ground, at the distance of more than a hundred miles, and beyond the limits of the colony.
The general pattern of these early incursions into the region appears to have involved the identification of suitable pastures and the movement of cattle or sheep into the areas identified. Convict labourers, indentured servants or employees were left in small groups in isolated situations to tend the herds and flocks. By all accounts they generally lived in miserable circumstances deprived of decent food and in constant fear of attacks by Gamilaraay or Wiradjuri groups, or bushrangers who had moved beyond the reach of the law. During the 1830s cattle driven out from Mendooran were being departures along the Castlereagh River.
Governor Brisbane's mounted police kept some order, although often squatters and their servants often took the law into their own hands. A few punitive military expeditions had been mounted on the fringes of the region to establish the rule of British law. These had included Morisset's expedition against the Wiradjuri around Mudgee and the upper Macquarie in 1824 and Nunn's 1836 military expedition to the Gwydir and Namoi.
Policing of the frontier was taken over in the 1830s by the feared and hated Border Police. In 1836 Governor Bourke established regulations, which legalised squatting beyond the limits of the Nineteen Counties. The ensuing period, which coincided with the height of the economic boom of the 1830s, saw the consolidation of many landholdings around the Castlereagh. By 1836/37 licences were issued for stations along the river in the vicinity of the present-day Gilgandra, Curban, Armatree and Gulargambone. Richard Rouse at Mundooran, Thomas Perrie at Breelong, James Bennett at Bearbong and Curban, Lowes at Carlganda and Yalcogreen, John Hall at Calingoingong were all early settlers.
Another early pioneer to the area was Andrew Brown of Cooerwull, Bowenfels (at the western end of the Lithgow valley) who is thought to be the first European to squat on the Castlereagh River. In the 1830s Andrew Brown was in this area looking for land for both himself and his employer, James Walker of Wallerawong eventually establishing stations known as Yarragrin, Gundy, Bidden, Mogie Melon, Wallumburawang, Tooraweenah and Nullen. Records indicate that John Jude and John Hall were the first people to hold licences to departure stock on the Castlereagh River downstream from Mendooran. They lodged their application for a licence on 31 December 1836 with the description "Carlingangong North Western beyond Wellington Valley". By 30 September 1839 John Jude acquired a licence for the adjoining area called Armatree.