Charity Creek

Charity Creek is a creek located in western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The creek flows generally south to the Parramatta River where it joins at Meadowbank Park, Meadowbank.

The Charity Creek catchment area is 237 ha. It is bounded by Victoria Road, Devlin Street, Blaxland Road, Marlow Avenue and the Main Northern Railway Line. The catchment boundary crosses the railway line just south of West Ryde Station. The catchment is predominantly residential with some commercial development in the vicinity of Rhodes Street and Herbert Street. Most of the drainage system in the Charity Creek catchment consists of concrete pipes or boxed culverts. The creek is culverted down to Meadowbank Boys High School. Below this is a short reach of natural open channel to the railway line. Downstream of the railway line the creek is a concrete lined channel. All the tributaries of Charity Creek are piped.^[1]

History

Charity Point, near Charity Creek, is attributed to early Settler William Bennet, who was both a farmer and south sea trader. When his ships need repairing, a large number of south-sea islander crew camped on the shore. His kind treatment to them earned the names Charity Creek and Charity Headland. ^[2]

Dinner Point, now called Charity Point, at the Meadowbank Memorial Park, is said to have acquired its name on February 15, 1788. First Lieutenant William Bradley wrote: "At 1pm returned to the Boats and after dinner went in the smallest boat over the flats past a mangrove island'. Bradley then followed a creek so narrow that boat oars stuck their struck the sides until they were stopped by fallen trees. Charity Point, once backed by a creek which has been filled in, was originally named Mur-ray-mah, perhaps meaning 'black bream', heard by the linguist Lieutenant William Dawes as karóoma (garuma).^[3]

Charity Point was also a popular fishing spot. Kent, a nephew of Governor John Hunter, was first granted 170 acres on 12 May 1796. He received a further grant in 1803, when his nephew William Kent Jnr obtained 570 acres in the District of Eastern Farms. It was after the 1840's that the former orchards and farms of the Ryde area began to be subdivided and Charity Creek was filled in.^[4]

See Also

• Archers Creek, Meadowbank
• Smalls Creek, Meadowbank

References

1. ^ Parramatta River Estuary Data Compilation and Review Study on behalf of the Parramatta River Estuary Management Committee, July 2008
2. ^ Ryde River Walk Masterplan at Ryde City Council
3. ^ Wallumedegal - Aboriginal History of Ryde, 2005 by Keith Vincent Smith
4. ^ Wallumedegal - Aboriginal History of Ryde, 2005 by Keith Vincent Smith