TWO hundred years ago tomorrow, Bathurst was proclaimed as the first European inland settlement – and now the city is poised to celebrate its bicentenary in style.

On May 7, 1815, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie first raised the Union Jack on the banks of the Macquarie River, he set the wheels in motion for a vibrant inland city.

The whole community is invited to mark the occasion at an official celebration at the city’s Bicentennial Park.

Celebrations will centre on the much-vaunted flag staff in the park which marks the exact location where Governor Macquarie raised the Union Jack and proclaimed Bathurst.

The $700,000 flag staff was completed late last month in time for the 200th birthday party.

The reinstatement of the flag staff, a colonial fair and the inaugural Bathurst Macquarie Heri-tage Medal Dinner will mark the official anniversary tomorrow.

Mayor Gary Rush said celebrating 200 years was an ideal opportunity to bring people together and reflect on the city’s achievements.

“The flag staff has been designed to tell the story of our shared history, of the original custodians of the land, the Wiradyuri, the proclamation of the settlement of Bathurst by Governor Lachlan Macquarie on May 7, 1815, and the evolution of Bathurst into the city we have today,” Cr Rush said.

NSW Governor David Hurley and deputy prime minister Warren Truss will be official guests joined by local Wiradyuri elders and various community leaders at this historic event.

Alongside the official ceremony will be the Bathurst bicentenary colonial fair, near the Pillars of Bathurst monument.

On show by the river will be blacksmiths, a whip-maker, blade shearer, other old trades and crafts, and the NSW Corps Marines re-enacting canon firing and pistol duelling. Children will perform a maypole dance and organisers say fair-goers might even see a convict flogged. The Wiradyuri people will also be camping as they did in the 1800s when white settlement came to Bathurst.