The History of Mona Vale Road

From Aboriginal pathway to modern thoroughfare: this is the St Ives story of Mona Vale Road.

By ALEC SMART

Mona Vale Road is the 20 km east-west arterial connecting Sydney's Northern Beaches to the Pacific Highway (A1), from Mona Vale in the east, to Pymble to the south-west. Passing through the suburbs of Ingleside, Terrey Hills and St Ives, it most likely followed an earlier path utilised by the Indigenous Garigal peoples.

In the early 19^th century, timber workers adopted that route to transport lumber from the heights of what is now Ku-Ring-Gai, around Gordon, Pymble and St Ives, to water craft moored in Pittwater and Middle Harbour Creek.

European settlers began felling timber in the present-day St Ives and Gordon region in the early 1820s, several relocating from the lower North Shore, after extracting most of the best timber from the harbour foreshores.  Daniel Mathew, a key figure in the region's logging industry, received an 800-acre land grant in 1823 in the St Ives area – which he called Rosedale. 

Mathew oversaw the initial construction of a dirt track down to the coast (on what is now Mona Vale Rd) to transport timber to his sawmill in central Sydney.  Originally, the eastern stretch of Mona Vale Rd from the coast to Telegraph Rd in central St Ives was called Pittwater Rd, and the western section to Lane Cove Rd (now the Pacific Highway in Pymble) was called Stoney Creek Road.

The seaward, heavily forested route that was chosen and widened by the timber merchants would have adapted an ancient Aboriginal track, as was the habit of the European settlers. 

Many of Sydney's major thoroughfares and arterial roads, such as George and Oxford streets in the city, Botany Rd in the south, Parramatta Rd to the west, and Pennant Hills Rd and Pacific Highway to the north, were built over ancient Aboriginal walking tracks and trading routes. 

These established paths were essential for navigating the local terrain, as they traced the easiest ridges and linked vital fresh-water sources.

The Stoney Creek Rd/Pittwater Rd conduit between forested and marine environments was situated on the traditional lands of the Garigal clan (also spelled Carigal). It would undoubtedly have been traversed by the Garigal and their neighbouring clans, the Darramuragal to the west (who inhabited the Turramurra, upper Lane Cove River and St Ives region) and the Gayamaygal to the south-east (Manly and the Lower Northern Beaches) as they traded, intermarried, trekked to communal social gatherings and otherwise moved between food and water sources.

In 1824, Daniel Mathew imported steam-driven milling machinery from Britain and set up a sawmill near the intersection of Cowan and Mona Vale Roads, Rosedale (now St Ives). A water trough for horses was also installed at this junction.

The sawmill made it easier to transport wood to the burgeoning settlement in Sydney Cove and other settlements, including the Windsor and Richmond farming district on the upper Hawkesbury River, which was occupied by Europeans from 1794 onwards. 

In the early 1800s, the European population expanded outwards from Sydney Cove to Parramatta, Toongabbie, and the Hawkesbury River. Timber was essential for housing and the construction of wharves and warehouses to facilitate the shipping of foodstuffs and provisions. 

Ship construction was minimised, however, to limit the possibility of escaping convicts to flee to sea.

Another early settler in the St Ives district was John Ayres, who, in 1836, was granted a 320-acre (129.5-hectare) grant of land, which he named Rosedale Farm. Ayres Rd, which crosses Mona Vale Rd in north St Ives where his property was based, was named after him.

In the 1850s-60s, when most of the timber in the district was felled for furniture, houses, wharves, bridges, fence posts and rail and tram sleepers, Ayres and Mathew sub-divided and sold off their vast holdings in very profitable land plots. 

A small forest called Dalrymple Hay on the Mona Vale Rd between St Ives and Pymble was preserved, which is dominated by several species of the endangered ‘blue’ gum eucalyptus trees, one of which, Eucalyptus saligna, can live for over 200 years and was highly prized.

It yields a dense, durable hardwood that is visually striking (dark honey to reddish-brown in colouring) and naturally resistant to decay, making it a premium choice for high-end furniture, cabinetry, and flooring.

Historically covering large areas of the shale-capped ridge-tops of Sydney’s northern districts, less than 5 per cent of the estimated 3700 hectares of blue gum high forest that was prevalent throughout the Sydney basin, prior to Europeans’ arrival in 1788, is still standing. 

The area then became synonymous with orchards and market gardeners. The St Ives Showground to the north of the suburb on Mona Vale Rd was founded in 1926 as an arena for the Northern Suburbs Agricultural and Horticultural Association. (They were formerly known as St Ives Fruit Growers, a coalition of orchard and market gardeners who previously exhibited at Hassall Park, to the south of the Showground.) 

The district was not officially named St Ives until around 1900 – likely after councillor Isaac Ellis Ives, and not the Cornish fishing village as is commonly claimed. 

Ives was instrumental in providing two key facilities for new arrivals. He successfully petitioned the Postmaster General to approve construction of the post office (1885), followed by the St Ives Central Public School (1889), so settler families could educate their children.

The original school headmaster’s cottage still stands at the corner of Rosedale Rd and Porter’s Lane, now a restaurant.

In 1921, there were serious proposals to construct a railway line through St Ives, which would have followed the Mona Vale Rd east to the coast.

A Sydney Morning Herald article titled ‘Proposed New Railway’ (13 June 1921), reported that the NSW Minister for Works, John Estell, visited St Ives two days earlier to inspect the proposed route of a Gordon to Narrabeen rail line. 

It never eventuated. 

However, in 1954, when Brigidine Convent (girls) and Sydney Grammar (boys) schools began teaching from their newly-opened premises on the Mona Vale Rd, it was still widely accepted that a railway spur from Gordon Station would eventuate. This line would have facilitated the access of pupils from outside the immediate area to travel to those respective schools. 

It wasn’t until the mid 1950s that St Ives rapidly transitioned from orchards and market gardens into a residential suburb, when it was officially rezoned from ‘rural’ to ‘residential’ and new roads and houses constructed. 

Along a short stretch of Mona Vale Road, between Ayres Rd and the St Ives General Medical Practice (opposite Sydney Grammar School), sits a row of 18 nashi pear trees that are the last remnants of the orchard age (1890s – 1930s).

These pear trees may be between 70 to 120 years old.

Mona Vale Road is now part of the 51km long A3 road, transitioning in succession into Ryde Road, Lane Cove Rd, Concord Rd, etc, as it bears south. The A3 eventually rejoins the A1, albeit the Princes Highway, not the Pacific, north of Tom Ugly’s Bridge by the George’s River in Blakehurst.

Read more about St Ives HERE.