Author: Liz Gorman, Emily Pickering
Client: Robsea Nominees PTY LTD and Bilgola Beach PTY LTD
Our client wishes to demolish the existing c.1960s dwellings at 1-5 Rainbow Road Mittagong, and construct a basement carpark + 3 storey multi-flat residential development.
A Heritage Impact Statement was required because the study site is located next to the Chalybeate Springs. The presence of a mineral spring at the site was first reported in the 1830s, during the survey and construction of the Great South Road through to Berrima.
The owners of the Fitzroy Iron Works had been granted the land containing the Spring in 1848. After Governor FitzRoy, visited the site in January 1849, the Spring was officially named the Lady Mary FitzRoy Spring. Samples were taken back to Sydney for analysis, and it was found that water was particularly iron and mineral-rich; properties considered by many to have medicinal and therapeutic value.
The healing properties of the Spring became a tourist attraction, with people coming to ‘take the waters’ much as other famous springs such as England’s Tunbridge Wells and Spa in Belgium.