Little remains at Sheet Of Bark, but this colonial-era horse stopover played an important role in the European settlement of central-western New South Wales.

Key points: The Sheet Of Bark Hotel was a horse stopover on the Mid Western Highway near Cowra

The Sheet Of Bark Hotel was a horse stopover on the Mid Western Highway near Cowra The hotel's owner, Andrew Lynch, played a major role in bringing the railway line to the area

The hotel's owner, Andrew Lynch, played a major role in bringing the railway line to the area A gravesite on farmland near the former hotel site remains in the Lynch family name

Maggie Anderson said she found it hard to believe when her grandfather mentioned being born at a place by that name.

"He always had a very wicked, dry sense of humour," Ms Anderson said.

"I never knew if he was referring to Sheet Of Bark as simply a nowhere place or whether it in fact existed."

Ms Anderson asked ABC Curious to find out what had attracted settlers to the area, what remained and why people moved on.

A first-class stone house

The Sheet Of Bark Road dam with the hotel in the background, circa 1890s. ( Supplied: National Library of Australia )

If you travel north out of Cowra on the Mid Western Highway, you'll soon encounter a creek and road both named Sheet Of Bark.

An early mention of the location appears in a 1859 newspaper report headlined, A Visit To The Western Goldfields.

The article mentions a Mr Isaac White had plans to open a hotel in the area.

"… descending all the way you arrive at Ellerslie, or the Old Sheet Of Bark, where a tract of land has been purchased at £5 an acre, and a first-class stone house has been built, shortly to be opened as a hotel."

Origin story

An illustration from 1853 suggests travellers often slept inside a sheet of bark. ( Supplied: National Library of Australia )

Tools discovered on a neighbouring farm property in the late 19th century indicate the Indigenous Wiradjuri people occupied the area well before white settlement.

While the location was known as Sheet Of Bark well before the hotel was built, the name's origins remain ambiguous.

Sunshine Coast resident Graeme White is the great-great-great-grandson of Isaac White.

While researching his ancestors, Mr White came across one possible explanation.

"The mail coach would come through and put the mail under a sheet of bark to protect it from the elements," he said.

Pam Lynch also holds a family connection to Sheet Of Bark.

Her late husband Jack was the grandson of Irish bounty immigrant Andrew Lynch and his wife Jane (nee Grant) who acquired the hotel in 1869.

Sheet Of Bark is located on land originally inhabited by the Indigenous Wiradjuri people. ( Supplied: National Library of Australia )

For more than three decades she lived at a property not far from the site before moving into nearby Cowra.

When asked if she knew how the name came about, Ms Lynch offered up a story about a passing traveller.

"One swaggie stopped at the Sheet Of Bark Creek, and to keep himself warm he used bark from nearby trees."

There's also evidence from the goldmining era that travellers would sleep wrapped in a sheet of bark, including a painting from 1853 depicting the practice.

Whichever the true origin, the names Sheet Of Bark and the variation Sheet O' Bark are not unique to the Lachlan Valley.

It exists in at least two other creek locations in New South Wales, one at Burrapine and the other at Tenterfield.

Prime business location

It's possible miners heading to the Woods Flat goldfields stopped by the Sheet Of Bark Hotel. ( Supplied: Cowra and District Historical Society )

A nearby spring fed a reliable flow of water to the hotel, making the business viable, Ms Lynch explained.

"Cobb and Co horses used to be changed here, then it became a meeting place for people who were passing through and small settlements were taken up," she said.

Amanda Mackevicius, who researched the district's history for her book Waugoola To Woodstock, said horse stopovers were commonly placed around 10 miles (16km) apart along major routes.

"The licensing laws dictated you had to have somewhere for the horses to be rested and watered, you had to feed people, and you had to have somewhere for people to sleep," she said.

Colonial-era road travel was rough compared to modern-day standards. ( Supplied: State Library of Victoria )

Longtime Woodstock resident and amateur historian Kevin Graham said he believed coachmen would have exerted their animals to the limits.

"They'd gallop the living guts out of some of the horses; they were wanting to get people to claims, and those type of people paid big money to get to those destinations as quickly as possible," he said.

The hotel sat at a crossroad between the towns of Canowindra, Cowra, Carcoar and what would become the Woods Flat gold mining district.

But the road conditions were "primitive and barbarous", as described by a writer who visited the area during that period.

Arrival of the railway

A night's catch of 173 crates of rabbits await rail transport from Woodstock in 1906. ( Supplied: State Library of NSW )

By the 1880s, Andrew Lynch was a member of Parliament for the electorate of Carcoar and pushed to secure the railway line from Blayney to Harden.

While there may have been efforts to bring the line through Sheet Of Bark, a station was established three kilometres away at Woodstock by the end of the decade.

Andrew Lynch pushed for the railway line to be built in the area. ( Supplied: Pam Lynch )

This signalled the gradual demise of horse stopovers, as travellers opted for the speed, convenience and comfort of rail transport, Ms Mackevicius said.

The rush to the nearby goldfields was also short-lived as miners moved on to other sites.

"I think progress improved quickly in some areas and gradually Sheet Of Bark disintegrated," Ms Lynch said.

Carrying on family history

Jane Lynch and her son Edwin were laid to rest next to Sheet Of Bark Creek. ( ABC Central West: Luke Wong )

Today, there is little to indicate the site's lively past except for a small plot of farmland, running along the creek, which remains in the Lynch family name.

Records list the names of at least 15 people buried along the banks, the majority in unmarked graves.

Two headstones remain: one of Jane Lynch along with her son Edwin; the other belongs to her paternal uncle, grazier James Flanagan.

"Just to stand here, I just know and I feel that this was a very busy little area, with many people, with big hearts and some wonderful characters," Pam Lynch said.

"I only wish that I could have met some of them."