The efforts of the convict road builders in the Blue Mountains will be given a new lease of life after remains of their historic work were uncovered in the upgrade of the Great Western Highway.

Tonnes of stones discovered between Leura and Katoomba will be used in new heritage projects like the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre and reconstructed walking tracks.

Estimated to be more than 150-years-old, the stones will also find a new home at the Road Builders’ Memorial in Katoomba’s Lilianfels Park which features statues honouring the early convicts.

The Rotary Club’s Tom Colless took delivery of the sandstone blocks recently and said they plan to use them to re-form part of the road at the memorial near Echo Point.

Blue Mountains MP Phil Koperberg said the majority of the stones will be preseved in situ but welcomed the preservation of smaller sections.

“The stones will be given to the Blue Mountains Council, the local Rotary Club and the National Parks and Wildlife Service to be used in a number of heritage projects including the new cultural centre in Katoomba, a small retaining wall, steps and reconstruction of a section of a walking track that links to Cox’s Road at Mount York,” he said.

An archaeological investigation is currently being carried out to determine the age of the stones but it is believed they are from the mid-1800s.

“The RTA has employed an archaeological company, AMAC, to carry out archival recording of the heritage road and the sandstone blocks before its removal and to prepare the Statement of Heritage Impact for the Department of Planning,” said Mr Koperberg.

In 2002, two sandstone railway culverts that were built in 1868 were dismantled by the RTA as part of the Great Western Highway realignment at the western approach to Katoomba’s Shell Corner. These stones were given to the National Parks and Wildlife Service to complete a walking track at Wentworth Falls.

The latest stones were found at the front of the G’day Motel and Katoomba Hospital and at the top of the heritage wall between Queens Road and Kings Road.