AN entertaining story was published in the newspaper, the Sydney Mail, on April 30 1930 to mark the demolition of Appin’s historic Royal Hotel. A Fellow of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Frank Walker penned the story, which revealed how the old inn was established in the 1840s, when the road between Campbelltown and the Illawarra was the main route from Sydney.

Historic Appin

ANOTHER link with the past has been done away with in the old Royal Hotel, Appin, NSW, which is now in the hands of the demolishers. Although the building had an ancient appearance, it did not go further back than the ’40’s, when the road between Campbelltown and the coast carried much traffic, and trade was brisk at the old hostelry.

It was a fine, substantial building, with very thick walls, having a balcony along the whole front and one of the old-fashioned lamp brackets suspended over the doorway on the outside. The old hotel was an important stopping place for the coaches before the South Coast railway was built, and its old fashioned lounge, mounted on fanciful iron standards, under the verandah, and flanked by the huge horse-trough in the cleared space before the hotel, spoke eloquently of’ other days.

Many of these old inns were sometimes called upon to repel attacks by bushrangers; so no pains were spared to make the buildings strong enough to with stand a siege.

These old-time places speak to us across a gap of years, in which are bound up a sheaf of events, whose nature and far-reaching effects, have had their influence in the past, sixty or seventy years of Australian history.

There is a tradition that this building was designed as a country residence for Governor Bourke, but there is no historical evidence to prove that this is so, as this particular Governor left the colony in 1837 – some years before the hotel was built. The Appin district has had a long and interesting history, dating as far back as 1811, when the first land grant was made to William Broughton.

In 1821 Hamilton Hume left the neighbourhood to carry out a successful expedition across country to Jervis Bay, and four years later, viz., on October 2, 1824, the same explorer commenced his famous journey to Port Phillip, starting from his residence near Appin. It was not until many years later that the village came info being, the road to the coast passing through it.

The Royal was replaced with a new two storey brick hotel to the north in 1930, which continues to trade as the Appin Hotel.

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Categories: NSW hotels

Tags: Appin Hotel, Royal Hotel Appin