Dredging up the history of the largest island in Narrabeen Lagoon
It’s the largest island in Narrabeen Lagoon but Sanctuary Island has its fair share of ups and downs over the past 100 years.
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It’s the largest island in Narrabeen Lagoon but Sanctuary Island has its fair share of ups and downs over the past 100 years.
At one point it was little more than a barren sandbank but now it is covered in lush vegetation providing the sanctuary to fauna and flora that its name implies.
And along the way it’s also had a variety of names, including Wimbledon Island, Wimbledon Reserve, Glynmar Island and Dredge Island.
Like all of the peninsula’s lagoons, Narrabeen Lagoon is only about 6000 years ago and was formed after the end of the last Ice Age.
As the sea level rose towards its present level, vast quantities of sand and sediment were transported from the continental shelf, distributed by wind, waves and local currents, and deposited to form beaches, dunes and sand barriers that separate the lagoons from the ocean.
Over a relatively short time – at least in geological terms – the extent of the sand barriers increased and the lagoons have become shallower due to sedimentation by sand and mud.
But coastal lagoons are transient features – at least on a geological timescale – and it is only the activity of humans that has slowed the process by dredging.
Without human interference, over time the lagoons would naturally fill with sediment and the streams that feed them would be confined to narrow channels meandering across floodplains to the sea.
Before then, sandbanks would form in the lagoons, as is constantly happening at Narrabeen Lagoon, where the largest – at least since the 1800s – was off the southern end of the Wimbledon Ave peninsula at North Narrabeen.
By the early 1900s, the island was cloaked in long grass, rushes and small bushes but by the 1920s it was almost barren.
In 1919, Warringah Council had given Narrabeen Cricket Club permission to use the island as an occasional cricket ground, although hitting a ball for a six would have seen it disappear into the lagoon.
In 1925 the Narrabeen Progress Association wanted to convert the island to a recreation reserve and link it by a causeway to the eastern shore of the lagoon at the foot of Narrabeen St.
Warringah Council supported the proposal but the Lands Department did not.
Developers and local landowners were always keen to see the lagoon dredged, both to increase its amenity for recreation and to use the sand to raise the level of their land to make it less flood-prone.
In 1930 a local dredging contractor offered to dredge the lagoon to improve its amenity and to use the sand to level the island off Wimbledon Ave but the Depression meant the council lacked the funds to go ahead with the plan.
In 1960 Warringah Council refused a request from two local men who wanted to lease what by now was known as Wimbledon Island for at least 40 years and develop it as a caravan and motel area linked to the eastern shore of the lagoon at the foot of Narrabeen St but that idea never got off the ground.
In 1961 it was even considered that a hangar large enough to accommodate the famous Catalina seaplane Frigate Bird II might be built on Wimbledon Island but thankfully nothing came of that suggestion and today the seaplane is one of the main displays in the Powerhouse Museum.
In 1965 dredging contractor Glynmar Sands Pty Ltd sought permissive occupancy from the Lands Department for part of Narrabeen Lagoon to dredge sand and the permissive occupancy was taken up in 1968, although Warringah Council was miffed that it’s consent had not been sought.
The company then appears to have sought an amendment to its permissive occupancy, which was to expire in 1983, to allow it to use what had become known to some as Glynmar Island – and later Dredge Island – for the shore-based part of its dredging operations and to formalise the causeway that the company had built between the island and what is now Wimbledon Reserve at the southern end of the Wimbledon Ave peninsula.
The residents of Wimbledon Ave were not opposed to the lagoon being dredged to improve its recreational amenity but were none too pleased by the number of truck movements along their street.
By 1982 the dredging operation was being run by Warringah Sand & Gravel Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Glynmar Pty Ltd, which sought that year to extend its permissive occupancy of the lagoon and the island beyond the expiration date of June 30, 1983.
Warringah Council agreed to a two-year extension of the permissive occupancy, which was granted by the Lands Department.
Once the two-year extension had expired in 1985, Warringah Council began pressuring Warringah Sand and Gravel Pty Ltd to remove the causeway linking the island to Wimbledon Island, although it was not removed until late 1986, by which time the island had been revegetated with more than 400 plants of various species supplied by the council and planted by members of the Narrabeen Lagoon Committee.
In 1988, the Narrabeen Lagoon Committee, with the support of Warringah Council, lobbied the Geographical Names Board to have the island named Sanctuary Island.
Curiously, though, the Geographical Names Board’s website indicates the name Sanctuary Island was assigned on November 28, 1986.
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