FAQs

A written request was submitted to Council by a member of the community to rename the reserve and was presented at a Council meeting on 6 April 2023.

Council has an application requesting to rename the existing Old Barney's Point Bridge Park (on road reserve), located in Chinderah (adjacent to the Barney's Point bridge) after Mr Gordon Wart William Hinton, who lived 1901-1965.

The request reads as follows:

Dear Sir,

I would like to propose the naming of a small park on the southern side of the Tweed River on the site of the Old Barney’s Point Bridge on Chinderah Bay Drive, ‘Hinton’s Corner Park', after the original post war development of the adjacent land.

It would celebrate the post war prosperity and progress that came with the development of our grandfather’s (Gordon Ewart William Hinton, 1901-1965) land, situated on the Old Pacific Highway as it turned a gentle corner approaching Barney’s Point Bridge and directly opposite the original turn to Fingal Road. The business that was established in 1950 became a very popular service centre, shop and cafe named ‘Hinton’s Corner’.

The Hinton family has a strong connection to Fingal, Chinderah and surrounds which continues to the present day. It began with my grandfather, Pop Hinton, who bought and developed the land adjacent to the unnamed parkland that stretches under the M1 and features the remnants of the old bridge. In 1946 my grandfather was demobbed from the army, having returned from the war, fighting in the 9th Division 2nd AIF of the Australian Army in the Middle East, a so-called ‘Rat of Tobruk’. His wife had died in 1944 and he wanted to make a fresh start for his family on the Tweed Coast. He bought the land about 1950 and he built a store and service station to serve the local community. My mother, Joan Campbell (nee Hinton), having finished boarding school at St Catherine’s in Warwick, opened a café, Nibble Nook, to complement the shop. My grandfather developed the site, adding a residence, cabins and facilities for caravans and camping over the course of the following decade and beyond. He also provided boats and fishing equipment and bait to promote the beautiful Tweed River.

Local residents, as well as other islander and indigenous residents of the Fingal Head community were employed to provide shop assistance or local produce, such as vegetables, bait and oysters. Hinton’s Corner also provided a popular rest and meal stop for coaches and travellers on their way to Brisbane. The Hinton family businesses contributed to the post war boom in tourism and economic development of Fingal and surrounds.

As people recovered from the physical and economic constraints of war, northern New South Wales became popular with tourists who were starting to travel from the big southern cities to the fabulous golden beaches of northern New South Wales and Queensland. Members of our extended family came annually from Sydney for a holiday. My Great Uncle Donald McManus Angel (1911-1989), a war correspondent in New Guinea with the Department of Information, Editor-in-chief for 2UE, President of the Sydney Journalists’ Club and recipient of an MBE for services to journalism (1970) was one of these southern tourists. In 1960 he won an allotment at 21 Fingal Road in a land ballot where he built a holiday home.

My grandfather retired about 1960 and bought land then built a house with my uncle, Kevin Ewart Hinton (1926-2016). Kevin, my uncle, had been a radio operative on the HMAS Cerberus during the Pacific War and he became an active member of the local community, managing TABs across northern New South Wales, as well as being involved in the Kingscliff Bowls’ Club and the Tweed Heads’ Golf Club over the course of his lifetime.

At the same time as my grandfather was developing Hinton’s Corner from 1950 and into the fifties, his eldest son my uncle, Alan Gordon Hinton (1924-2011) who had served as sergeant in the RAAF on lone reconnaissance missions in the jungles of Papua New Guinea during World War II, lived in the cottage on the other side of the Barney’s Point Bridge. It was his task to operate the bridge span which had to be lifted when vessels sailed up the Tweed River. Alan Hinton later worked as a fisherman on the Tweed Coast and lived at Chinderah for many years before retiring to a house at Fingal. My cousin was born while the family was living and working there. She remembers him turning off the water main in the middle of the bridge before the bridge could be opened. She also recounts the story that during the 1954 floods her father Alan, delivered milk and vegetables to stranded tourist and locals.

My first holiday at Fingal was when my parents brought me to Hinton’s Corner as three week old baby in 1954. We continued to holiday there until I was about six years old, after which we stayed for our annual Christmas holiday at Fingal right through my childhood, adolescence and adulthood. In fact, we now celebrate Christmas there or at my brother’s house at Fingal. My brother and his wife are enthusiastic and active members of the Fingal Head Community Association and Judy writes for and assists in the publication of the Fingal Flyer. I recently noticed that Ted and Shirley Jenner who owned and operated Jenner’s Corner Fish and Chip Shop at Chinderah have been honoured with their name (‘Jenner’s Corner Park’) given to the park opposite their original premises. As a result of this find, Glenn and Judy sought approval from the Fingal Head Community Association to name the park at the original end of the Barney Point Bridge, Hintons’ Corner Park.

This now has the strong support of the local community. My son is currently an engineer with the Tweed Shire Council and continues a family tradition of involvement with and a love of this beautiful area of northern New South Wales. I have tasked him with the presentation of my proposal. It would mean a great deal to our family and my mother, who is 92 years old and living in Kingscliff, if this idea came to fruition. She is the last of her generation of Hinton's and she would be overjoyed if this small park were to be named for her father’s development, and to acknowledge the role the family have played in the post war development of Fingal and surrounds.

 Yours faithfully.

You can participate by making a submission on this page. You can also:

Email: tsc@tweed.nsw.gov.au

Phone: 02 66702109

Mail: Addressed to the General Manager, Tweed Shire Council, PO Box 816, Murwillumbah, 2484.