Paddy The Dog Memorial at Springwood – 26 January 2023

In an old issue of Hut News (page 10), Blue Mountains local historian, John Low, tells the interesting story of a former Springwood resident, Robert Scott. He lived in cave in the bush between De Chair Avenue and Scott Street at Springwood around 1920. In 1917, Robert Scott’s dog, Paddy, died. He was so saddened by the dog’s passing that he engraved three memorial tributes to the dog on rock faces at Springwood.

I had earlier seen the one of these tributes on the Sassafras Gully Track – the branch that leaves from the end of Sassafras Gully Road. This had been carved on a rock face a few hundred metres down the track. This had led me to John Low’s article.

I later searched and found a second one in Birdwood Gully – not far down the track from Boland Avenue.

I had been wanting to find the third of these for a while, and had been on two walks with Bob, looking in the bush near Blue Gum Lodge at Springwood. We had no luck. I then contacted John Low, who sent me copies of two articles and a letter to the editor written by Mary Sandilands. They all contain essentially the same information about the location of Robert Scott’s memorial to Paddy the Dog near De Chair Avenue. One of the articles can be found in the Springwood Historical Society’s Bulletin, No.66 July 1989. These were very helpful, and with the new information, Bob and myself set off from David St East (which leaves De Chair Avenue at Springwood). We soon found an overhang, and inside found some engraved inscriptions.

The first is very difficult to discern. I can only make out a few letters.

The second is a lot easier to decipher.

The inscriptions are the same as recorded by Mary Sandilands –

• J D Stillman (or Tillman?)
• J North
• T Flew
• A Taylor
• T Coyle  – 20/4/1917

Mary Sandilands notes that Coyle was “a council worker who’s job it was to keep the trails usable”

About 50 metres further along, Bob spotted the Paddy the Dog memorial. Unfortunately, we could not get very close to it, as it was on enclosed private land.

I did not have a telephoto lens, so could only take a photo and crop it. To get close, part of the memorial is obscured by a bush. But you can make out a carved image of dog and then the engraved memorial.

Here – we are looking back up to Scott’s cave –

John Low mentions a newspaper article that describes a court case involving Robert Scott. It describes the court case in October 1919 and can be read online – The Nepean Times, 18 October 1919. According to John Low, Robert Scott worked as a gardener and casual labourer. So it is possible that he worked on the local tracks.

In Sassafras Gully, in the cave with the natural spring with the engraving  “Ye Olde Fountaine” as well as a Joe Stratton engraving, there is also a T Coyle engraving. I think it is likely that many of these engravings found near the tracks were made by track workers, who would have had chisels with their tools, and carving their names into rock walls was like a artists signing their work.

The two roads the cave is situated between are Scott Street and De Chair Avenue. De Chair Avenue I had assumed it was named after Dudley De Chair a former Governor of NSW (1924 – 30). But several old parish maps (1969) have the road marked as “Gloria De Chair Avenue”.  John Low speculates that Scott Street may have been named after Robert Scott.  The cave itself seems to be on public land – the unformed road reserve – David Road.

Many thanks to John Low for helping us locate the cave and engraving.