The Lightning Ridge Hotel
The Lightning Ridge Hotel was a hotel and coach stop on the traveling stock route between 1880 and 1890. In modern terms, it was located to the north of Lightning Ridge, just south of Lightning Ridge Tank (also known as Beckett’s Tank, Tyson’s Tank, etc).
Lightning Ridge Hotel (identified as “Hammond’s Hotel”) on a 1912 survey map. Note the New Town township (still identified as Wallangulla) to the right of the map, along with the Lightning Ridge Cemetery. Source: National Library of Australia.
Curiously, the Lightning Ridge Hotel existed before the town of Lightning Ridge, originally Wallangulla, which did not form and begin to gather a population until the beginnings of the opal mining industry, around 1903. The Lightning Ridge Hotel is also not located near the current town of Lightning Ridge, but is some 10 kilometres away by modern roads.
The hotel was built by John T. Merry, a police constable, shopkeeper and previous innkeeper of ‘The Old Bark Hut Pub’ at Angledool, which was owned by H. G. Hatfield. John Merry is recognised as one of the founders of the towns of Angledool and New Angledool.
Joseph Hammond, second licensee of the Lightning Ridge Hotel. Photograph: ancestry.com.au.
The Lightning Ridge Hotel was built around 1880. It was difficult to get local timber to build the hotel, so wood was brought in from Narrabri by bullock teams. Unfortunately, the nearby Narran River was in flood at the time, making land passage via the established crossing at Yeranbah impossible. Undeterred, Merry traveled to Yeranbah, lashed the hotel timbers into a raft and floated the wood seven miles down the torrential floodwaters to Angledool where they were de-rafted and loaded onto bullock teams for the remainder of the journey.
The first licensee of the hotel under John Merry was John Hammond, the license was later transferred to Joseph “Joe” Hammond. The latter license was granted on 29 July 1882. Later again, the license was transferred to Henry Woodham.
Merry eventually sold the hotel on to Mr. Vaughan of Walgett who sold it to George Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick had previous experience operating hotels, having run the Queensland Hotel at Gulgong and a hotel and billiard room in Walgett. Kirkpatrick ordered the Lightning Ridge Hotel dismantled and removed to Angledool where it was rebuilt as an annex of The Exchange Hotel.
“As regards accommodation on the road, the hostelry kept by Mr. Joseph Hammond, at the Lightning Ridge, is well worth the good reputation given it.”
The Exchange Hotel, Angledool. The former Lightning Ridge Hotel was an out-building to the mail Exchange building. Photograph: Australian National University, 1885/109889.
The Exchange Hotel at Angledool burned down in 1958, taking the former Lightning Ridge Hotel with it.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: ‘License Granted’, New South Wales Government Gazette, 13 September 1882, iss. 362 (supplement), p. 4755; ‘Licensing Court’, Australian Town and Country Journal, 29 July 1882, p. 3; ‘From Angledool, Narran River’, Australian Town and Country Journal, 9 June 1883, p. 21; ‘Obituary: Mr. Joseph Hammond’, Warwick Daily News, 8 April 1933, p. 2; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, pp. 153; Lightning Flash Newspaper, 12 April 1979; Memories of Angledool, Pat Cross & Jim Harper, 1996, p. 30-31.