A Town is a Tapestry and every person’s story is a stitch. The Central Coast has 25 townships and a current population of around 22 000 people. For tens of thousands of years, the First Peoples have maintained long cultural connections with this Country. James Fenton is credited as the first European to settle in this area. He built a hut in 1844 in Forth and lived there until 1879. In that time, 1200 more settlers arrived, each with their own stories. Waves of migration brought people from all over the planet including from Britain and Ireland, China, Italy, and the Netherlands. Post-war eras were particularly rich times that brought new Tasmanians to the Central Coast.

This unique landscape of people’s stories is explored using objects and photographs from our collection in this exhibition with tales from Leith and Forth in the east, to Heybridge and West Pine in the west, to South Nietta and Loongana in the south, and to the Bass Strait to the north.

Stories will change in the exhibition throughout its run.

Two new stories from the Central Coast region:

• ‘Skies and Sand’ about the derring-do thrill-seeking early pilots; and

• ‘The River King’ about Tom Horsham’s leisure craft on the Leven River and at Lobster Creek.