Gumbramorra Swamp and the Hidden Waterways
Join Historian Sue Castrique as she talks about recovering Gumbramorra Swamp and the hidden landscape of Marrickville Valley.
Once an extensive wetland in Marrickville Valley, Gumbramorra Swamp was subdivided, sold off and built over.
Engineers have tried to drain it, but the water that fed the swamp continues to exert a powerful presence that floods and ebbs through urban Marrickville.
The swamp drained south to the Cooks River, and in the early 1800s was a wild and dangerous place where escaped convicts and bushrangers hid.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Sue Castrique is a writer, researcher and editor. She has written Under the Colony’s Eye: Gentlemen and Convicts on Cockatoo Island (2014), which was awarded the Kay Daniels prize by the Australian Historical Association and One Small World: The History of the Addison Road Community Centre (2017).
Illustration credit: Tribute to Gumbramorra Swamp (2017) by Daniel Wenn.
We may take photographs of the speakers and the audience at this event. Read here for more details.
Meeting place: St Peters Library 39 Unwins Bridge Rd