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Around Willow View
Sofala Public School was established in 1878. There was an Anglican church and a Catholic convent. The Convent opened in 1872 and closed in 1909, although it was a church until 1970.
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The Gas Hotel was one of the first two hotels licensed, in 1851. The Royal Hotel was established in 1862. There were also two other hotels in 1866, Sofala Inn and Barley Mow. The Barley Mow having a Cobb and Co booking office. Now a private residence, the Post Office and telegraph office, built in 1879 operated until 1989.
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HORSEBACK RIDING
MOUNTAIN BIKING
Attractions today include the gold-rush-era Sofala Royal Hotel and the old gaol. Small-scale gold workings are still active in the town. Sofala has been reported to be the oldest surviving gold-rush town in Australia. There are still gold prospectors who pass the time using metal detectors, gold pans, and sluice boxes to recover small quantities of gold dust.
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Russell Drysdale's painting Sofala, a depiction of the main street of the town, won the Wynne Prize for 1947.
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The 1974 Peter Weir film The Cars That Ate Paris was filmed in the town. Village scenes in the 1994 John Duigan film Sirens were also filmed in Sofala.
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A noted business is Finglinna Studios, which supplies stained glass to churches and other public buildings.
Fascinating and well preserved historic gold mining town
Of all the old gold mining towns in New South Wales Sofala is one of the most interesting and unusual. While hardly comparable with Hill End, which is 35 km further on and much more carefully preserved, Sofala is a village with an authentic old world charm. In essence its nothing more than two streets which have no formal construction and no curbing and guttering and yet which can legitimately claim to be 'Australia's oldest surviving gold town'.
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Sofala is located 245 km north west of Sydney and 45 km north of Bathurst in the Turon River valley. It came into existence as a direct result of the goldrush which had been precipitated when Edward Hargraves discovered gold at Summerhill Creek on 12 February, 1851. By June that year a tent city spread across the valley and both the Royal Hotel and a General Store were built in 1851. By 25 June more than 200 ounces of gold taken from the Turon Valley had been sold in Bathurst.
The rush was extraordinary. When the local landowner realised he would never move the miners off his land he became a butcher and started selling mutton.
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In November, 1851 a travelling journalist could report: 'For the most part, Sofala presents to the spectator a strange jumble of tents of every possible shape: canvas, calico, slab and bark huts, bough gunyahs and nondescripts. Among the medley, two circuses are conspicuous. Stores of every possible description and containing varieties of merchandise are everywhere, embellished with placards announcing the best gold prices available. Shoe makers and blacksmith establishments boasting a large number of visitors.'
The goldfield was short-lived with the population peaking at 10,000 in September and dropping to 5,000 by Christmas. It was a ramshackle temporary town with dozens of pubs and, at its height, an estimated 500 illegal sly grog shops.
THE TURON REBELLION
In 1852 there was a brief altercation between miners and police over mining licenses but it did not amount to outright rebellion. The miners caved in and the license fees (30 shillings per month) were retained.
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By 1853 visitors were describing the town as little more than 'wood huts or as they term them shingle, weatherboard, houses and tents. There were many tents scattered along the river.'
The fortune of the town was all too brief. By May 1854 there were less than 500 diggers on the field and by 1855, with new gold discoveries occurring at Wattle Flat, Sofala was in decline.
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By 1856 there were only 325 males and 203 females living in bark huts and working the goldfields in Sofala. Even though the town was beginning to reduce in importance the goldrush had established a substantial infrastructure.
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In 1866 a traveller described the town as 'There was a post and money order office, a telegraph office, a hospital, court of petty sessions, district court, police camp, gold commissioner's camp, three churches (Anglican, Roman Catholic, Wesleyan), two denominational and five private schools, two hotels (the Sofala Inn and the Barley Mow), a number of public houses and several extensive stores. There was a booking office at the Barley Mow for Cobb & Co., where coaches could be caught for Bathurst, Orange, Lambing Flat and Forbes. There are branches of the Savings Bank and Australia Mutual Provident Society in the township.'
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By the 1871 census the total population of the town was 644 of whom 81 were Chinese. While mining was still central to the success of the town it is true that the miners were covering a greater area and finding smaller deposits.
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Between 1899 and 1914 dredges were brought to the valley. Their success was limited. At one point (it only lasted for two years) the Sofala Gold Dredging Co. treated 18,000 cubic yards of wash which yielded 84 ounces of gold.
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The history of the town in the twentieth century is one of constant decline as the gold either runs out or becomes increasingly hard to extract. In 1948 all gold mining in the district finished. It had lasted for 92 years.
