The Bounty Museum
The History of Norfolk Island
(H-K)
Headstone, Norfolk Island
Headstone Reserve is located on the west coast of Norfolk Island.
The reserve has an area of approximately 11.372 hectares and is a popular venue for rock fishing and sightseeing.
Headstone Reserve has significant community, landscape, and conservation values, provides opportunities for recreation and contains native flora and fauna.
The coastal views from the reserve are outstanding. The vegetation in the Reserve consists mainly of exotic pasture grasses with scattered Norfolk Island Pines and White Oaks on the cliff top.
The steep cliff face supports some remnant native coastal vegetation and provide breeding habitat for seabirds.
Headstone Creek is one of the few perennial streams on Norfolk Island. This creek flows over a small waterfall downstream from Headstone Road.
Reference: Norfolk Island Public Reserves - Plans of Management
Headstone Reserve
Pitcairn Settlement - Anniversary Day - Norfolk Island
Polynesian Settlement from c1150 to c1450 AD.
First (British) Settlement 1788 and 1814.
Second (British) Settlement 1825 and 1855.
Pitcairn Settlement 1856 to present.
Historic Dates
Fig trees, Hundred Acres - Norfolk Island
The Rocky Point Reserve, south of Headstone, is a beautiful area of forest and clifftops.
The reserve is about 55 acres, called ‘Hundred Acres’. A historic section of the convict-era settlement, One Hundred Acre Farm, is in the same vicinity.
Hundred Acres Reserve (formerly named “Rocky Point” Reserve) is located on the south-west coast of Norfolk Island.
The Reserve encompasses an area of 22.34 hectares and is bounded by cliffs on two sides, with New Farm Road on the third.
Hundred Acres Reserve has significant conservation values, in particular relatively weed-free native coastal forest of an extent and type that is not found in other reserves on Norfolk Island.
This forest supports native, endemic, and endangered species of flora and fauna, and is a primary nesting site for two seabird species.
The south-eastern valley is a niche for a large variety of native and endemic ferns and is the only example of this environment on the Island. Walking tracks provide good access for the public to experience the Reserve’s environment. Please take care and stay on the tracks / boardwalk so as not to harm the burrows of the shearwater birds.
The Hundred Acres Reserve protects a large example of the drier Norfolk forest dominated by oaks. It is a wonderful point from which to see the bosun birds up close and to explore the ghost bird breeding area.
Reference: Norfolk Island Public Reserves - Plans of Management
Hundred Acres Reserve
In 1787, Captain Arthur Phillip received from George III his Commission as Governor-designate of the Colony of New South Wales, including an instruction to send a small establishment to Norfolk Island to prevent it being occupied “by the subjects of any other European power”.
Soon after Captain Phillip arrived in Botany Bay in January, 1788, to found Sydney, he appointed his old friend and fellow officer, Philip Gidley King, formerly second lieutenant of the Sirius, as Superintendant and Commandant of Norfolk and instructed him to form a settlement there.
On February 15, 1788, King sailed from Sydney Cove in the armed tender Supply, commanded by Lieutenant Henry Lidgbird Ball. The party included 15 convicts - nine men and six women - and King took with him six months’ provisions.
After several unsuccessful attempts to land his party on various parts of the Norfolk coast, King found a passage through a reef in what is now called the Kingston area.
On March 4, a brief landing was made, before the full party disembarked on 6 March 1788. This is commemorated as Foundation Day.
Lieutenant King spent two terms on the island; from 1788 to 1790, and from 1791 to 1796.
On his departure there was a thriving community of 887 people; more than 1,500 acres of land had been cleared and many public buildings - mostly of timber - had been erected.
Lieutenant Philip Gidley King
No.9 Quality Row - Norfolk Island
The Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Historic Area (KAVHA) on Norfolk Island, was previously occupied by the seafaring Polynesians, then as a British convict settlement from 1788 until 1814. A subsequent phase of convict settlement occurred between 1825 and 1855.
In 1856 the KAVHA site was settled by the Pitcairn Island descendants of the Bounty mutineers and Tahitians.
The KAVHA site was listed by the National Trust (NSW) and included on the Register of the National Estate in the early 1980s, listed on the Norfolk Island Heritage Register in 2003, Australia’s National Heritage List in 2007 and included as one of the eleven places that comprise the Australian Convict Sites property, which was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2010.
Reference: KAVHA Heritage Management Plan - April 2016
KAVHA
Kingston - aerial view
Queen Elizabeth lookout
Kingston Common Reserve is located within the Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Historic Area on the southern coast of Norfolk Island and has an area of 29.57 hectares. The Reserve contains remnants of First British Settlement structures and significant buildings and ruins from the Second British Settlement. Much of the Reserve is used as grazing common and most of the foreshore of Slaughter Bay, one of the Island’s most popular beaches is in the Reserve.
Kingston Common Reserve was proclaimed a public reserve under the Commons and Public Reserves Act 1936 for pasturage and other purposes on 17 October 1940.
The ruins of the watermill, pentagonal gaol and prisoners compound are important relics of the Second British Settlement. Slaughter Bay foreshore contains evidence of quarrying activity, remnants of road pavements, seawalls and other structures as well as intact sea walls.
After the arrival of the Pitcairners, most of the valley was turned over to stock, with smaller gardens close to occupied cottages. Ten pines were planted along the eastern side of Pier Street to commemorate those Norfolk Island men who lost their lives in active service during World War II.
Reference: Norfolk Island Public Reserves - Plans of Management
Kingston
Kumeras and potatoes on Norfolk Island
‘Kumeras’ or ‘sweet potatoes’ are an important ingredient in Polynesian cooking and remain an important staple food on Pitcairn and Norfolk Island, where the supply of ‘Irish tatie’ (potatoes) is unreliable.
Initially, supplies of kumera on Norfolk Island were limited, but over the years a number of varieties were successfully established and are grown both commercially and in family gardens.
The variety referred to as ‘Jackson’s’ is rated among the best.
‘Jackson was born on the island long before the turn of the century and joined a vessel trading around the New Hebrides and Solomon Islands. He came across the kumera and sent samples back to his friend Fortescue Buffett, and the variety quickly became a favourite.’
(Wiseman, 1977)
Reference: Expert Report on the Distinctiveness of Norfolk Islander Ethnicity, Culture and the Norf’k Language
(Norfolk Island - South Pacific) by Professor Peter Muhlhausler, 2016.
Kumera
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Corner of Queen Elizabeth Avenue and Middlegate Road
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Bounty Museum
P.O Box 69
Norfolk Island
NSW 2899
Phone: 53961