Kendall's Rock

This letter was mailed by Ken, a retired school teacher from Erina.
The images were added by the editor.

“Every year before we retired to Erina, we would holiday on the Central Coast. What sticks in my mind about those trips, was passing Kendall’s Rock on the way into Gosford, and then again when we were leaving. Now you only see it as you leave, and it is difficult to stop and read the verse. You could also hear Bell Birds there in the trees, so it reminded me of the poem we learnt, and later taught at school.
For me that modest monument is always associated with Gosford.
It is one of our few remaining cultural icons.


There was a rock-pool in a glen
Beyond Narara’s sands:
The mountains shut it in from men
In flowery fairy lands:

But once we found its dwelling place –
The lovely and the lone –
And, in a dream, I stooped to trace
Our names upon a stone.

(Initials of Henry Kendall, the Fagen brothers and Henry Pile)
During the period of his life that poet Henry Kendall lived and worked in the area, he stayed with the Fagan brothers and often visited Henry Pile at Penang Mountain (Somersby). Kendall’s Rock was unveiled in August, 1931.