The building of embankments to keep floods off farmlands began in earnest on the lower Hunter during the 1870s, though some may have been constructed as early as the 1840s. Farmers banded together, forming 'embankment committees, and in due course there were more than 20 such committees between Oakhampton and Hexham. One was the Bolwarra Embankment Committee which existed under that name in 1888 but was probably founded more than 10 years before - perhaps as early as the 1860s.
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By about 1889 the Bolwarra farmers had built an embankment (a levee, in today's language) along the left bank of the Hunter River from the hill at Bolwarra to the high ground of Largs. All of the Bolwarra Flats, including the site of the future suburb of Lorn, were enclosed. A 'tunnel' (drain) was also built to take water from rain falling within the 'protected' area through the downstream end of the bank and into the river near Largs. It had a trapdoor (a floodgate in today's terms) in it.
Eventually, the section of the embankment that protected the urban centre of Lorn was taken over by the Lorn Vigilance Committee. Lorn was subdivided from former farmland in 1889 and built up over the following decades and the Vigilance Community would have been formed soon after the suburb began to develop.
The Bolwarra Embankment Committee represented a formalisation of community endeavour in seeking flood protection. The committee had an executive elected by members, it held regular meetings in Bolwarra Hall and school and levied members on a per-acre basis to obtain money to build and maintain embankments.
In 1930, the sum charged was five shillings per acre 'protected'. Like similar committees elsewhere in the lower Hunter Valley (including the one in Oakhampton across the river), Bolwarra's was not a statutory body, and the levies could not be enforced. This problem was solved in part by allowing members who were not financial to work off their contributions in what amounted to working bees. Men who had paid worked for wages, too, and were remunerated for horses and drays supplied.
The embankments were progressively strengthened by being raised and thickened. On being raised, the crests of the banks were 'ploughed down' to facilitate the bonding of the old soil with the new, and cracks that emerged on the tops and sides of the banks during dry periods were filled with loam.
Initially construction work was carried out with shovels and wheelbarrows to win and transport soil to the sites of the embankments. In due course, horses and tip drays were used and eventually, after World War II, bulldozers were employed and some of the work was done by contract. But for the majority of the life of the committee, the work was done by the local farmers using shovels, barrows, drays and horses.
Once, when part of the embankment was undermined during a flood and fell into the river, a 'ring levee' was built inland from the line of the original structure. Changes to the river's course, usually during floods, were always problematic.
