Parish: Calderwood
County: Camden
Haywards Bay is 18 kilometres south west of Wollongong.
For information about Haywards Bay's early residents and land grants, industry, transport and historic buildings, please see the Yallah page.
Local communities of Aboriginal people were the original inhabitants and Traditional Custodians of Illawarra Land. Their dialect is a variant of the Dharawal language.
Before European settlement, the Aboriginal people of the region lived in small family groups with complicated social structures and close associations with specific areas.
Suburb boundaries do not reflect the cultural boundaries of the local Aboriginal community.
Traditional Custodians today are descendants of the original inhabitants and have ongoing spiritual and cultural ties to the Land and waterways where their ancestors lived.
In 1999 a submission was made to the Geographical Names Board to change the boundaries of Yallah and create the new suburb 'Haywards Bay'. The suburb was to encompass the Haywards Bay Estate.
The site of the new Haywards Bay Estate was once a homestead called 'Riverside' which included stables and ancillary sheds. These have been removed for the development of the area (Forbes Rigby, 1999).
The submission to the Geographical Names Board was for Soredo Pty Ltd, the developer of Haywards Bay Estate. It appears Soredo went into liquidation in 1996. The subdivision development has been continued by the Winten Property Group. The change of developers resulted in plans for a golf course being cancelled and a larger area of land being dedicated to conservation and recreation.
About 1902, a Mr. Hayward was secretary of the smelting works. He went to South Africa to take charge of one of the Rand mines (Illawarra Historical Society, 1968 p.12). It is most likely that the suburb of Haywards Bay is named after this Mr Hayward. Mr Hayward appears on the 1901 electoral roll as an accountant who gives his address as 'Lakelands'. Lakelands was formerly owned by the Illawarra Harbour and Land Corporation.
Haywards Bay is surrounded by 85 hectares of reserve and offers nearly five kilometres of waterfront to Macquarie Rivulet and Lake Illawarra. It is located 15 minutes from the heart of Wollongong and 90 minutes from Sydney’s CBD (Daily Telegraph 28 January 2006).
The land is liable to flooding and has significant conservation and recreational value. There is also an Aboriginal midden and portions of the Macquarie Rivulet delta which contain large areas of saltmarsh (Lake Illawarra Authority Annual Report 2006-2007).
Haywards Bay has large areas of samphire (a small saltmarsh herb) with mud flats. When the water levels are suitable the area becomes a haven for the Pacific Golden Plover, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Black-winged Stilt as well as other visiting waders, herons and ducks (Lake Illawarra Authority Community Newsletter, July 2005).
Other birds that have been recorded in the Yallah Local Environment Study (Wollongong City Council) as being in the area are:
- Great egret
- Cattle egret
- Lesser golden plover
- Grey plover
- Crested tern
- Caspian tern
- Eastern curlew
- Greenshank
- Common sandpiper
- Culew sandpiper
- Japanese snipe
- Bar-tailed godwit.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1992 | Rezoning of land at the southern end of Yallah to allow medium density housing |
| 1994 | Rezoning of land from 5a Power Station to 6c Tourism to enable further residential development |
| 1994 | Submission made to the Geographical Names Board to change the boundaries of Yallah to create the new suburb ‘Haywards Bay’ |
| 2004 | Lake Illawarra Authority (LIA) agreed to accept an offer from the Winten Property group to dedicate 81 hectares of Haywards Bay foreshore land to the LIA |
| 2005 | Haywards Bay recognised as a suburb by the Geographical Names Board of NSW |
| 2005 | First families move into the new suburb |
| 2008 | Construction of a service station commenced in Haywards Bay commercial precinct |
Daily Telegraph
Lake Illawarra Authority Annual report [Wollongong]: The Authority, 2007 & 2008.
Lake Illawarra Authority community newsletter, Wollongong, NSW: The Authority, 2003-
Forbes Rigby Pty Ltd, Submission to Geographical Names Board of NSW on proposed suburb of Haywards Bay, Wollongong, NSW, Wollongong: Forbes Rigby Pty Ltd, 1999.
Wollongong City Council, Planning and Development Division, City of Wollongong Local Environmental Plan, Wollongong: [Wollongong City Council], 1984- ].
Yallah local environmental study: Wollongong City Council, [Sydney]: Dames & Moore, 1991
Top image: Haywards Bay, 2008. See image details on our catalogue