From Wombat Brush to Canyon Leigh to Canyonleigh
The Surveyor General (Major Thomas Mitchell) first mapped out NSW in 1834. The area now known as Canyonleigh was called “Wombat Brush”. Jane Murray called her forty acre property “Canyan Leigh” when she opened the first post office there in 1893.
The Queen Arms Hotel (a two story sandstone and timber building) at Hoddles Crossroads was first licensed in 1846. Unlike “Black Horse” farm (or Gray’s Inn) it did not survive the passage of time.
The Paddy’s River area was known as Murrimba. There were two Hotels, a Blacksmith's Shop and Jane Murray’s General Store located there. The bushrangers Ben Hall, John Gilbert and John Dunn held up the General Store and “Jeffery’s Inn” in 1865. The Canyan Leigh Post Office was moved to “Glencoe” (now in ruins on Inverary Road) in 1909, then in 1915 a new office was established at Hoddle’s Crossroads, “Keerarbin” post office opposite Quigg’s reserve, which closed in 1949. There was a School on the corner of Inverary and Canyonleigh Roads. Half-time schools were situated at the crossroads (early 1900’s) and at Corby’s house (now Quigg’s).
There were Timber Mills located at: Millview, Golden Valley, Sandy Flat, Hickory Hill, Foxgrove (now Cobbadah) and near the Bangadilly Road area. There were a number of coal mines in Canyonleigh: the main one being on Foxgrove Road. At another mine a tram line was used to haul coal across the Long Swamp. In the 1980’s Government bureaucracy saw fit to change the name from Canyan Leigh to Canyonleigh.
The 1950’s-1960’s saw a mass clearing of Canyonleigh timberstands to convert the land to pastoral use.
The winding track from Tugalong that had taken a full day to ride was widened and Canyonleigh began to attract city dwellers looking for country acres. Tractors and 4WD’s have replaced the bullock wagons and sulkies as the means of transport but the Canyonleigh roads are still often graced by the site of local residents taking their leisure on horseback or sulky.
