Bexhill, New South Wales

:"Bexhill on Sea is a town in England."Bexhill (coord|28|45|S|153|21|E|region:AU-NSW_type:city(1200)|display=inline,title) is a small village in New South Wales, Australia. It has a population of approximately 1,200 people. It is located about 30 minutes inland from Byron Bay and about 10 minutes from Lismore.

Features

Bexhill is home to the beautiful Open Air Cathedral, [http://www.boac.homeip.net/] a delightful setting for outdoor marriage ceremonies. The local church also boasts an organ quite astounding for such a tiny village. There are occasional organ recitals held here that attract organists from Brisbane and Sydney. In fact, the little Bexhill Church is one of the best-attended in the district - a charming place to celebrate Midnight Mass at Christmas Eve.

History

Bexhill, established in the early 1800s was the centre point of the early NSW North Coast. Bexhill's early production was red cedar logging, its close proximity to Boat Harbour made the floating of logs an easy task during flood waters. Ironically the Bexhill school (established around 1850) was subject to easy flooding as well, and was eventually relocated to higher ground. In the coming of the Australian federation the population of Bexhill began to dwindle. The trades it produced were no longer as vital and people started to migrate to more lively parts of the far north coast. With the population slowly moving out, parts of Bexhill began to close. The post office which brought the surrounding areas its post closed down, relocating to Lismore. The Bexhill Brick works which produced the bricks for the far north coast closed down towards the end of the 1990s, unable to keep up with the production of bricks from Coffs Harbour and Newcastle.