A visit to the highlands of New England, NSW should include a visit to Glenn Innes and also Inverell. These town express the Scottish and Celtic heritage of the the first settlers in this area. As one of her first trips, Tin Lizzy spent two nights in Inverell. The visit could only be described as rewarding. One of the things we did was to visit Sinclair Park.

Towards the centre of Inverell, is Sinclair Park. There are two main features in the park: the Memorial Cairn and the Bicentennial Memorial. The cairn celebrates the impact of Scottish migrants on the area. It consists of a tall pillar of rock surmounted by a flagpole topped with a thistle.

A little way away from the main cairn is a smaller cairn also celebrating the Scottish connection with the region. Listed on plaques around the larger cairn, are the names of those of Scottish decent by clan. No doubt a useful resource for genealogists and other historians.

While the Cairn is very focused on Scottish heritage, the Bicentennial Memorial is more general. This striking emplacement of concrete and stone contains many hand carved panels illustrating the changes in various topics over the time from settlement to the 1980s. Themes such as medical care, education, industry, mining and produce each have their own stone carved panel. These panels are in galleries complete with stone benches allowing you to pause and consider. One whole gallery is focused on the stories of Aboriginal people of the area.

Around the edge of the memorial there are bronze plaques that list the members of families that have been in the area for 100 years. Another interesting resource for historians and genealogists.

Apart from these two monuments, the other item of note is a magnificent Presbyterian church, St Andrews, across the road from the park. It’s architectural style is very similar to St Paul’s Presbyterian church across from Central Park in Armidale.