“The Town that built Sydney” 

Situated in the Central Tablelands, just 2.5 hours west of Sydney, 20 minutes West of Lithgow and 40 minutes East of Bathurst, Portland is within easy travelling distance of major centres and industries such as Mt Piper power station and numerous coal mines.

Prior to white settlement, the Portland region was occupied by the Wiradjuri people. The first European in the area was James Blackman who surveyed roads in the area in 1820 and today Blackman’s Flat and Blackman’s Crown bear the family name. In 1863 Thomas Murray selected 61 hectares of land and constructed his first lime kiln on what is now the corner of Lime and Villiers Streets.

The railway came through Portland in 1882 and the first station opened in 1887. During the early 1890s, the first cement-making kilns west of the Blue Mountains were built in Portland. In 1894, the village was gazetted as Portland, the name derived from the cement-making process which was already well underway in the area.

An historic mining town, Portland was the home of the first cement works in Australia which opened in 1902 and is credited as supplying cement that helped build the city of Sydney. Cement was shipped around the country up until the plant’s closure in 1991.

Today, Portland’s main industry is the Mt Piper Power Station and related coal mines, along with surrounding farming areas.  

Portland is an ideal place to escape the city, its charming streets feature a variety of shops, galleries and even the Glen Museum, which contains a large collection of Australian memorabilia. Explore the remarkable Signs of Yesteryear on the shop walls along Wolgan Street, an initiative that brings artists from all over the world come to the town and reproduce the old advertising signs which were commonplace from 1895 to 1945. In addition the town features artworks on silos on the Old cement works site. The silos were painted in April and May 2018 by artist Guido Van Helten.

Portland is surrounded by beautiful countryside and has many areas for bushwalking including the Town Common with 650 acres of natural bushland and Williewa Creek. With just a short drive to Wollemi and Gardens of Stone National Parks,  Portland is an ideal place to start a holiday adventure.