John Fletcher Hargrave later owned and holidayed in the area, his inheritance coming to Lawrence Hargrave, one of the world's most important aviation pioneers of the 1890s in the lead-up to powered man flight. He performed his most important experiments at Stanwell Park. Lawrence Hargrave moved to Hillcrest House, having inherited it from his brother Ralph Hargrave, in 1893. It is on the road up to the Stanwell Park railway station. The land developer, Henry Halloran, bought 240 acres of land at Stanwell Park, some of which was resumed by the government for public recreation purposes. He sub-divided the remaining land into building allotments, which he sold to the public from around 1907 to around 1930. The public school was established in 1917. One of the village's most famous attractions is the curved railway viaduct over Stanwell Creek Gorge. It was built in the 1910s when problems with the old railway route forced the construction of a new track higher up the mountainside. At 65 m above the creek bed, surrounded by profuse rainforest vegetation and containing an estimated five million bricks, it is the largest railway viaduct in Australia. In the 1980s a fatal accident occurred on the railway due to cliff erosion. Now Stanwell, or The Park, is home to about 1400 people, a dormitory suburb for commuters to the nearby cities of Sydney and Wollongong, and a popular tourist destination. Heritage listings Stanwell Park has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: Illawarra railway, 56.727 km: Stanwell Creek railway viaduct Population In the 2016 Census, there were 1,410 people in Stanwell Park. 80.9% of people were born in Australia and 89.3% of people spoke only English at home. The most common responses for religion were No Religion 38.5%, Catholic 22.5% and Anglican 15.4%. Activities The village has a small area of shops and an art gallery on Lawrence Hargrave Drive. Bushwalking is possible on several tracks, most notably the Wodi Wodi Track that climbs Mount Mitchell from the station, and a rather degraded track to Stanwell Tops Lookout, also from the station. Stanwell Park is famous for paragliding and hang gliding activities from Bald Hill down to its beach, which lies nested between high sea cliffs. Rock climbing can be done at Stanwell Tops which offers a view over the village. A feature is the beach with its two lagoons. The Helensburgh-Stanwell Park Surf Life Saving Club (SLSC)