THE ROYAL’S REIGN
HILL END’S HISTORIC PUB
THE Royal Hotel stands proudly in the historic township of Hill End, the last of many such watering holes built at a time when gold fever saw the population of the now modestly sized town swell to around 10,000 people. At the height of the gold rush, and after the massive Holtermann nugget was discovered there weighing in at 286 kg, Hill End was the largest inland settlement in NSW. It could also boast 28 other licensed hotels servicing the needs of thirsty miners, but these have all gradually disappeared over the years. Today, Hill End is a shadow of its former glory days with interpretive signage in front of empty but maintained blocks, indicating the sites where significant buildings once stood. What does remain has been loving preserved and is managed by a variety of National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS) programs that embrace the town’s colonial past.
Hill End is also listed on the State Heritage Register for its cultural, scientific, and social value. While the population now sits around 166, the Royal, built in 1872, remains a favourite for travellers wanting to experience some historic charm and the pub and the town itself are brimming with it. The Royal has undergone some minor restoration and modernisation over the years, in particular the kitchen and bathrooms. The bar, restaurant and accommodation however, still retain a distinctly old world feel. It smells old – in a good way – and you get the sense that if the walls could talk they’d share a few brow-raising yarns. Perched above the signage at the front of the hotel is a lantern that harks back to a time when the town’s hotels were required to hang a lit lamp to identify to visitors that the premises was a public house. It was gold field law and penalties applied for non-compliance. The main bar is filled with memorabilia and framed photos of the township from the last century. Behind the bar, colourful currency from all corners of the globe is pinned to the walls and fittings. There’s plenty to see and learn in a pub this old. The hotel offers 13 rooms from singles to doubles and the French doors in each room open up onto either a front or back balcony, giving panoramic views of the lush countryside. It’s basic accommodation with shared amenities but the simplicity adds to its charm and the creaking upstairs floor boards and (in particular) the staircase, allow visitors no skulking around at night. Owner Stephen Burgess has held the
“A little man called Tommy who took a fancy to me showed me a nugget of gold, or rather a nob of quartz heavily studded with gold—the bar was very full and so were most of the drinkers.” – a 1947 diary entry from famed Australian artist Donald Friend, describing a visit to Hill End’s Royal Hotel.
lease on the Royal Hotel since 2012. He’s the first to admit he’s still getting his head around the business, having had no previous hospitality experience. Prior to taking on the pub, he was a professional Bridge player, dabbled in horse racing, traded in futures and had a stint as a taxi driver. “We poured our first beer after we’d been here six months, it was all a bit of a culture shock,” he laughs. It was “a bit of madness” that drew him to the hotel, he says. “I’d never been to Hill End before but my wife of four years, Wendy, used to come here quite often. She really loved the place.” While Wendy is in Fiji, Stephen is taking care of business and loving every second of it. Because the pub’s residence is currently occupied by manager Avon, Stephen says he’s been staying in room 12, which is allegedly “the ghost room”. “We have a picture of it (the ghost) – it’s a white misty figure hovering in the room. “In fact we had a couple of young women staying here recently and they saw the picture of the ghost and decided it wasn’t real so I told them to go and test the room out. “At about 10pm they went up the creaky stairs to room 12 and turned the lights out but in the meantime our barman had gone out the door and snuck up the back stairs on the side and tapped on their door, they screamed and just about tripped over each other getting down the stairs,” he says, laughing heartily at the memory. Local Bob Fraser has been in the Hill End area for most of his life and recalls that when the pub was first built, the owners couldn’t get a licence to operate it.
“At the time they were bringing in African American men from the US who were trained in using steam powered rock drills; they were very heavy machines and most of the mining had been done up until that point using hand drills and a hammer. “So when these men arrived they turned the Royal Hotel into a boarding house and that’s where they lived. Some of the descendants of their families are still here today. Then when one of the other pubs nearby closed down, they transferred the licence to the Royal Hotel.” Bob says he’s been breasting the bar at the Royal since he was old enough to be allowed through the front door. Now 78, he remembers the blessed day when refrigeration was first put on the beer back in the 1950s. “Prior to that they used to lay a wet bag over it, with wooden handles to pump it out; you could slice it like bread, the top of the jug,” he recalls, laughing. I ask about the ghost in room 12, and Bob says he’s heard the stories. “They reckon there’s one here. I’ve never seen it but it’s probably old Ossie – Oswald Forbes Eyre – his family had the place for donkey’s years.
“If it’d be anyone’s ghost, it’d be old Ossie’s.” Hill End has attracted many wellknown Australian artists since the 1940s – noted names like Brett Whiteley, Jeffery Smart, John Olsen and Margaret Ollie – some of whom loved the area so much they bought dwellings so they could paint away from the noise and bustle of the city. Two artists who were particularly enamoured with the town were Donald Friend and Russell Drysdale. Drysdale painted his famous and much-reproduced, The Cricketers (1948), which shows two boys playing cricket against the wall of a Hill End building. The Art Gallery of NSW later established an artist-in-residence program in Hill End to continue the tradition set by its creative predecessors. Wendy Sharpe, winner of both the Sulman (1986) and Archibald prizes (1996) was one such artist-in-residence. It’s now considered a rite-of-passage for artists to live and work in Hill End at some point in their career. In Donald Friend’s diary he mentions time spent at the Royal Hotel.
“Life here is delightful; the local people are very pleasant, pronounced individuals. At the pub, the food is very good, and the Eyre family who run the place, very nice. (September 12, 1947) “The place is packed with characters. When we returned in the evening the Hill End Saturday Night Drinkfest was in full swing. The bar is an Hogarthian scene of peasant drinking and merriment. “A little man called Tommy who took a fancy to me showed me a nugget of gold, or rather a nob of quartz heavily studded with gold—the bar was very full and so were most of the drinkers.” (September 14, 1947).
“It smells old – in a good way – and you get the sense that if the walls could talk they’d share a few brow-raising yarns.