Bowenfels
Town
Bowenfels railway station
Bowenfels
Coordinates:33°31′S150°07′E / 33.517°S 150.117°E /-33.517; 150.117
Country	Australia
State	New South Wales
LGA	City of Lithgow
Location	145 km (90 mi) WNW ofSydney 2 km (1.2 mi) W ofLithgow 59 km (37 mi) E ofBathurst 37 km (23 mi) NW ofKatoomba
Government
• State electorate	Bathurst
• Federal division	Calare
Elevation	910 m (2,990 ft)
Population
• Total	2,048 (2006 census)[2]
Postcode	2790
Localities around Bowenfels Marrangaroo Marrangaroo Lithgow Bowenfels Lithgow South Bowenfels South Bowenfels Lithgow

Bowenfels is a small town on the western outskirts ofLithgow, New South Wales,Australia.

Today there are effectively two Bowenfels. NearLithgow, on the Great Western Highway, is Bowenfels (with the homestead of the valley's first settler,Andrew Brown). About akilometre south isSouth Bowenfels. Although both are now essentially suburbs of Lithgow, Bowenfels was, in fact, the first settlement in the valley, pre-dating the existence of Lithgow by nearly 40 years.^[3]

Mount Blaxland, a short distance from South Bowenfels, was the furthest point reached byBlaxland,Lawson, andWentworth on their historic expedition across theBlue Mountains in 1813. Later in that yearGeorge Evans followed in the footsteps of the explorers to Mount Blaxland and then headed west^[4] to discover the O'Connell plains and the Bathurst plains.^[5] At South Bowenfels, Magpie Hollow Road heads west^[6] to Lake Lyell and then on toTarana andO'Connell.

Bowenfels was founded in the 1830s to service travellers along the new road toBathurst, which opened in 1832,^[3] following the opening of the Victoria Pass,^[7] which sealed the fate of the old Bathurst road in its descent of Mt. York.^[8] It was named bySurveyor-GeneralThomas Mitchell afterGeorge Mears Bowen, a former member of his department.^[3] The town was the first settlement in the valley and pre-dated Lithgow by 40 years. Therailway opened in 1869,^[9] and was electrified in the 1950s, although passenger services no longer serviceBowenfels station.

Bowenfels has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:

• Great Western Highway:Fernhill, Bowenfels^[10]
• via Kirkley Street:Lithgow Heavy Anti Aircraft Gun Stations and Dummy Station^[11]
• Main Western railway:Bowenfels railway station^[12]
• Main Western railway:Bowenfels rail viaducts^[13]

According to the2016 census of population, there were 2,048 people in Bowenfels.

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 9.5% of the population.
• 78.9% of people were born in Australia and 84.8% of people spoke only English at home.
• The most common responses for religion were Catholic 25.5%, No Religion 24.2% and Anglican 21.8%.^[2]

• Towns in New South Wales
• Bowenfels, New South Wales

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Australian Statistical Geography Standard 2016 ID same as Wikidata
• Use Australian English from August 2019
• All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English
• Use dmy dates from August 2019
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Coordinates on Wikidata