The balancing act of Hill 60

By Maddison Woods and Evie Allen

 

Wind lashes the sandstone slopes of Hill 60. With it comes the taste of salt and iron from the sea and steelworks below. The Illawarra seems to stretch beyond its limits from the high point.

The steelworks glimmer, the surf curls, and the seabirds trace the green spine of the escarpment. While the view is awe-inspiring, it is impossible to ignore the pull of history beneath your feet.

This is Illowra, a mixing pot of the Illawarra’s histories.

 

 

Today, it stands at a crossroads of preservation and progress, its custodians charged with the delicate task of protecting both sacred ground and military heritage.

Senior Manager of Heritage Listing Programs at Heritage NSW, Anna London describes it as a balancing act.

“Hill 60’s got dual heritage values – Aboriginal cultural and military,” London says.

“So you’ve got two very different kinds of heritage significance that have to be managed together. It’s about collaboration and communication between communities, government, and heritage specialists,” she says.

 

An Indigenous Place of Continuity

Illowra was a residence long before it was gutted by tunnels. Living along the beaches and slopes, the Wodi Wodi people of the Dharawal Nation fished, traded, and cared for the land. Archaeological surveys have revealed shell middens, artifacts, and burial sites that confirm thousands of years of continuous occupation. It is some of the most significant coastal Aboriginal heritage in New South Wales.

Fast forward to 2001, and a decision was made to add Hill 60 to the State Heritage Register. Ultimately, this placed First Nations cultural values at its core.

“It was actually a really nice story,” London says.

“It came through from consultation that council had been doing with the local community… with Aboriginal cultural heritage values as the core values for this property.”

For generations, Illowra was a place of dispossession. In the early 20th century, Indigenous families built homes near Fisherman’s Beach. Their community was known for its fishing “enterprise”.

 

The Illawarra Mercury’s 1930s court reports mention the camp fleetingly in “Hill 60 Episode” (1934) and “Old Man Assaulted” (1939) – the titles reflecting the social tension of the time: visible and marginalised.

 

 

By 1942, the Australian military had claimed the headland to build the Illowra battery. Residents were forcibly removed. Their huts flattened, their land fenced off.

 

 

Originally built in 1938 in preparation for WWII, the office, which was once the headquarters for the 34th Battalion, is now the workplace of the Secretary of the National Trust’s Illawarra branch and manager of the Old Wollongong Courthouse, Harry Anneveld.

 

Nestled amongst the sandstone, Harry depicts the Aboriginal heritage of Illowra as one with a fractured history.

“They were pushed out to Coomaditchie,” he says.

“There were some ramshackle houses built for them, but it was still dispossession… promises that were made were never kept as to their return.”

 

A Fortress Above the Harbour

Anneveld has spent decades tracing the network of wartime defences that once surrounded Port Kembla, and that were named by the military, Fortress Kembla. He has knowledge up to his chin.

 

 

Hill 60 was one of the several batteries protecting the port, Anneveld explains.

“It had two six-inch guns, they had searchlights, they had radar,” he says.

“Hill 60 was in a fantastic position because of its height.”

 

 

 

 

In 1942-43, the battery was constructed in fear of Japanese invasion. Nearby, the Breakwater Battery trained some ten thousand troops.

Each night, barriers were laid across the mouth of the harbour to block submarines. Yet no shots were ever fired in anger. It was a fortress that never saw battle, but its very presence shaped the wartime psyche of the Illawarra.

After the war, Hill 60’s military role faded. A 1946 Mercury article, “Port Kembla Army Huts”, debated what to do with the leftover buildings. Some deteriorated, while others were dismantled.

The site then slipped into neglect.

“I suppose the whole attitude is too bloody little. All that history is there, but nobody cares about it,” Anneveld said.

“Net result is no formal recognition. The worst aspect of mankind is the vandalism, graffiti, and all the mistreatment of those sites.”

Preserving Dual Histories

When Wollongong City Council began constructing the Hill 60 Master Plan, they faced the same dilemma that continues today: how to conserve a site that is both a sacred Indigenous place and a military ruin.

London calls this the “balancing act” of heritage, and she explains that there are challenges that come with the dual-listing.

“I think the really important thing in heritage practice is that we are collaborating, not only with the owners and the users but the regulators, considering all of the different values and what we need to do to maintain those so we continue to have vibrant heritage places that people can enjoy.”

Under NSW’s integrated development process, both the local council and the state’s Heritage Council must approve any new work.

For Anneveld, that cooperation from governments is long overdue.

“They lose interest, they ignore it and hope it will go away, but are unwilling to spend the money to actually recognise what was a very important part of Australia’s history,” he says.

 

Restoration and Responsibility

The newest works on the site include repairing carparks, installing signage and building new viewing platforms. But both London and Anneveld know that physical maintenance alone is not enough.

“Good management and community involvement are key,” London insists.

“We need to keep places occupied, used, and loved. That’s how we protect them from decay, from vandalism, from being forgotten.”

Anneveld is less diplomatic and believes that we must get the younger generations involved.

“The only way you can achieve that is if you start to bring school children from primary right through into uni, and that they continue to use that as a resource for their history education,” he says.

 

 

He believes that reopening parts of the wartime tunnels could spark interest.

“They will only remember it if we make it so that they have to remember it,” Anneveld says.

“So we need to get off our collective backsides and do something about it, because it is important to our history.”

The Meaning of Balance

As evening settles over Port Kembla, the view from Hill 60 glows with contradictions. The artificial lights from the steelworks shimmer beneath a sky that once guided traditional fishing and wartime lookouts alike.

Below, the surf rolls infinitely, caressing the same coastline that has witnessed thousands of years of occupation and 80 years of defence.

Hill 60’s story is one of survival. Not just of structures, but of meaning. Its preservation depends on a delicate scale between past and present, use and respect, memory and change.

“It’s a balancing exercise often to understand, well …what we do, and what is the long-term outcome?” London says.

For Hill 60, that balance isn’t just about preservation, it’s about continuity. Maintaining the site’s use, care, and establishment within community life will, as London puts it, ensure “that we keep them for future generations.”