This week, Roy decided it was time to visit somewhere new, somewhere he had never been before, but which promised to be very interesting. Roy has visited the Hunter Valley and Newcastle quite regularly, but he has never ventured beyond them into the Upper Hunter area. When he visited, he fell in love with the beauty of the region, and the historic places he visited. One which fascinated him was Silo Hill in Stroud.
If you would like to visit Silo Hill, it is located in Stroud (NSW). Stroud is not far from Newcastle, and located along the Bucketts Way. It is a small town, but very beautiful and full of history. The Silos are located at Silo Hill, which has a picnic area, toilets and plenty of room to kick a ball. The Hill, which is along Broadway Street also has a fabulous view over the town. Although the main 'attraction' for the hill is the silos, there are also two huge cannon to see. They had been built in the 1850s for use in the Crimean War, served some time protecting Sydney Harbour (from 1866), then in Newcastle at Fort Scratchley (from 1882) before being moved to Silo Hill in 1909, purely as decorations! You used to be able to climb into one of the silos for a closer look, but when Roy visited, the lid was padlocked shut (we assume for safety reasons).
If you visit Silo Hill, at first glance you might wonder why it is named this way. After all, there are no silos standing proud on top of the hill, as you might expect. If you look a little closer though, you will find that there are indeed silos at Silo Hill, but instead of being on top of the hill, they are actually inside it! The Silos were build in 1841 by convicts, for the Australian Agricultural Company. According to some, the hill was also built by the convicts, specially to conceal the silos, though whether this is true or not, Roy isn't sure.The Agricultural Company certainly went to a lot of trouble to construct the silos though. There are eight of them in total, each about 6 metres deep and 5 metres across at the widest point. They aren't straight cylinders either, but instead they are bell shaped, with a wider bottom. All together, the eight silos can store 10,000 bushels of grain.
So, why were the silos built, and why underground? The Australian Agricultural Company had been given a huge land grant in the area of nearly 1 million acres in 1826. Ten years later, most of the company's convicts were based in Stroud, and Stroud had also become the main storage centre for the company. One of the big problems with storing grain though is that pests like weevils can get into the silos, and they can destroy the whole crop. The Australian Agricultural Company decided that by building the silos underground they might be able to limit the damage done by pests, and they were actually very successful! The Australian Agricultural Company were very important in this area, and Roy will do a more detailed post on them at a later date.
