Council joins local Historical Societies to celebrate History Week

Wollondilly Shire Council is partnering with The Oaks, Appin and Picton Historical Societies to mark NSW History Week with the introduction of a new street name database and an art exhibition.

The Surveyor General, Narelle Underwood, will officially launch the online Wollondilly Street Name Database and the Memory & Landscape Art Exhibition at 6pm, Friday 30 August at the Picton Library View Room.

Library Services Team Leader Gail Dunn said, “We are excited to be working together with these three local historical societies to celebrate History Week in Wollondilly.”

“For the Memory & Landscape Exhibition, the historical societies have mined their extensive records of maps, photos and local history to uncover early subdivisions in Wollondilly and have presented them, together with photos of people and places of the times, to illustrate the changes to our Shire over the decades,” she said.

The exhibition will include oral and video stories presented by John Churchill with village banners ‘Then & Now’ created by Bob Clayton.

It will be on display from Saturday 31 August until Friday 6 September from 11am-4pm in the Picton Shire Hall Art Gallery.

For those who are interested in the history of the street where they live, ‘Wollondilly Street Names’ is a searchable online database of the streets in the Shire.

Community members can go online to find out the history of their street, read the story behind the street name and see photographs from the past. There is even an opportunity for residents to add to the oral histories through video.

If you’d like more information on these NSW History Week activities, you can contact Wollondilly Library at [email protected] or 4677 8300.