Access to toilet/change facilities Actively maintained Disabled Access

Men Women Children

Current Use: Not in use.
Condition: No longer visible,

Late 1800s
Novocastrians, especially 'the youthful element', bathed in a cavity cut into the rock platform as a footing for an 1870s bathing house. One young bather was nearly washed out to sea in 1876.

1950
Traces of wooden posts became visible after heavy weather removed some sand.

2004
No longer visible.

The Newcastle area was home to the Awabakal people.

Early 1800s
A convict settlement was established to serve as a place of secondary punishment for convicts who re-offended in the colony of New South Wales and to create a harbour to ship the district's evident and abundant supplies of coal. Completion of Newcastle's breakwater eliminated the need for convict labour and soldiers. Newcastle was made a free port in 1846.

From 1850 to 1879
Male and female bathers were obliged to use separate areas of Newcastle's beaches or bathe at separate times. Agitation for public sea baths grew, despite the existence of the Bogey Hole.

1880
Public baths were again discussed and Newcastle Borough Council permitted bathing in the ocean behind the Newcastle Hospital at any hour, provided bathers wore 'suitable bathing dress'.

1890s
Newcastle was 'the great emporium of the coal trade in the southern hemisphere and the port of shipment for nearly all the wool grown in the northern and north-western districts' of the colony of New South Wales.

To be added.

Enthusiastic use of this bathing hole  indicated the demand for ocean baths in nineteenth-century Newcastle.

Assessed significance: Worthy of nomination for State heritage listing as a part of a clump of ocean baths (encompassing the site of the Square Hole, Newcastle Ocean Baths, Canoe Pool) sharing the one rock platform.

Current heritage status: Not currently listed as having heritage significance.

Related Topics 'Lost' & abandoned ocean baths

Studies & References To be added.