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A FAMILY HOME

HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST

In 1788, when the young soldier John Macarthur married Elizabeth Veale in Bridgerule, Devon, she was over 4 months pregnant - a timid 23 year old villager from Devon, south western England. Elizabeth’s father had died when she was 7. Her mother remarried shortly afterwards and then once again in later life. Elizabeth was raised almost entirely on charity.

John Macarthur, son of a Plymouth draper, was, at the time of his wedding, on unauthorised leave from his regiment in Gibraltar, approaching mid twenties, his army future in doubt. Having borrowed money to enlist, John had no intention of fighting abroad. Wars with Spain and America were over by the time he’d drawn his first salary. The more lucrative postings to India were unavailable to those lacking influence or social connections. Seven years in the army had left him restless and dispirited. And unless he returned to Gibraltar immediately, he faced losing his commission.

In the anxious months following his marriage, Macarthur settled on an alternate posting with the New South Wales Corps and the hope of saving his military career and reputation. The company’s mission was to protect the remote prison settlement, although its officers soon found opportunities in trading, farming and land ownership hard to resist.

The Macarthurs arrived in Sydney, two years after their wedding, in 1790. It was another three years before a house was built at Parramatta, 23 kilometres upstream from Port Jackson. By the late 1820s, this small, solid 3-roomed brick cottage was transformed into a smart country house, surrounded by ‘pleasure grounds’, orchards and almost 1000 acres of semi-cleared lands. From nine births, seven children survived infancy.

During these early years, the Macarthurs’ trading and farming interests, along with John’s political conflicts, ambitions and affairs, came to dominate colonial society. Elizabeth Macarthur, not always content, remained in Australia for the rest of her life, while John returned twice to England forging contacts and directing his sons’ education.

Towards the end of his life, John Macarthur’s work focused entirely on developing and promoting trade in colonial wool – the backbone of Australia’s economy for the next century. As a result, Elizabeth Farm is stamped on the national consciousness.

By the 1830s, having enlarged and refined his Regency Bungalow, Macarthur’s health was in serious decline, along with his grasp on politics, business and family affairs. His death in 1834 brought renovations to a halt, leaving the homestead unfinished. His handsome library, drawing and dining rooms, though newly formed and plastered, were still unpainted. Cedar joinery was yet to be fitted. A much needed wing of bedrooms was never built.

ESTATE

HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST

John Macarthur’s Elizabeth Farm estate once stretched from present day Good Street, to the start of Duck Creek; from the Parramatta River to Granville. His farmhouse sat on a small hillside, facing north across grassy fields and tidal flats flanking Parramatta River. From this position, his house was visible from the north, east and west for miles beyond. No doubt aided by army surveyors, the best in the business, this slightly elevated knoll gave Macarthur an unbroken line of sight all the way to Pennant Hills.

Increased to nearly 1000 acres by the 1820s, much of the estate remained uncleared and unsuitable for European farming, particularly the swampy mangroves along Duck Creek. The industrial plants and refineries, built from the early 1900s, were first to make use of land in the east. The western areas close to town, between the river and Parramatta Road, were cleared and fenced for grazing, orchards and feed crops although the Macarthurs quickly realized that tilling the soil was tough and unprofitable.

Elizabeth Farm was sold in 1881, over burdened with debt, its owners overseas. A few years later, sections of the estate were back on the market divided into housing blocks. Bounded by railway, town and river, interlaced with new roads and a racecourse opened in 1885, the subdivisions of Rosehill were soon a sea of building sites. The land around the house, auctioned in 1906, was slow to attract buyers with only 2 blocks sold by 1914. However, ten years later, most blocks were built on, with town water, gas and sewerage.

The ‘frontage’ of Elizabeth Farm was reversed with the creation of Alice Street in 1923.The survival of 1920s street trees reflect the area's inter-war character while about half the houses built on these early subdivisions remain intact. After 1940, the concrete channelling of Clay Cliff Creek encouraged further concentration of housing, particularly to the north of Elizabeth Farm. Post-war migrants moved favoured heavier brick and tile constructions, while the 1970s saw large flats, often poorly designed and poorly built, begin to dominate the area.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CURTILAGE

PRIVATE COLLECTION

The term ‘heritage curtilage’ is generally defined as: the area of land surrounding an item or area of heritage significance which is essential for retaining and interpreting its heritage significance. It can apply to land immediately surrounding an item or, more broadly, to a precinct which includes associated buildings, works, relics, trees or places and their setting. This might seem comprehensive but its also obscure and far too overwhelming, leading to a claim to include everything or nothing.

In a recent ‘Curtilage Study’ of Elizabeth Farm, consultant town planner Robyn Conroy reminds us that ‘the heritage significance of Elizabeth Farm does not stop at its boundary fences’. [Robyn Conroy Curtilage Study Elizabeth Farm for Historic Houses Trust, June 2006]

At Elizabeth Farm, the historic curtilage spreads outwards covering several hundred acres, owned both privately and publicly, under domestic, commercial, recreational and industrial use. The portion of land occupied by the homestead represents less than 1% of the former estate. The conservation of Elizabeth Farm might be said to include, or even depend upon, the protection of land owned and controlled by others.

So lets approach this from a different perspective … Conroy goes on: if the significance of Elizabeth Farm is dependent upon the maintenance of the existing, or surviving landscape (the oldest and perhaps most important colonial landscape in Australia) and where change can only be accepted as inevitable, then we need to combine consciousness raising and community awareness with planning controls and creative urban solutions.

PROPERTY

HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST

From June 1793, John Macarthur’s grant of 100 acres, Elizabeth Farm, was cleared for pasture and planting. A second grant in 1794, named after his first son Edward, doubled the estate in size. Within a few years, having purchased a number of neighbouring farms along the Parramatta River, Macarthur’s estate was cropped with corn, wheat, potatoes and vegetables. By 1798, three acres of fruit trees and vines surrounded the cottage along with European trees and a rambling ornamental garden. The Macarthurs stocked 130 goats and 100 hogs along with a horse, 2 mares, 2 cows and a wide variety of poultry.

Despite some land under cultivation, large areas of bush remained uncleared. The Darug landscape was thriving with wildlife, from river banks and wooded gullies to the open grassy ridges. People of the Burramuttagal, Wangal and Wategora groups continued to maintain long and complex connections with this place. Nonetheless, to supplement foods grown and grazed, the Macarthurs hunted native fauna – ducks, wallaby, fish and eels – aided by dogs, rifles and traps.

Periodically repaired and mended, though increasing ramshackle, Elizabeth Farm remained in Macarthur family ownership for another 5 decades. The homestead garden grew wild while paddocks, fields and fences were neglected. Tenants, forever complaining, occupied cottages on the estate. Finally, debts and complications in winding up the 40 year lease of a woollen mill forced the sale of Elizabeth Farm in 1881.

From 1904 to 1968, Elizabeth Farm, on less than 5 acres, was owned by the Swanns - a large family of Quakers, whose appreciation of the old farmhouse led to its preservation. The property was acquired by the State Government in 1979 and, after several years of restoration, was transferred to the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales in 1983. The current museum was launched in 1984.

PURCHASE NURSERY 1870s

STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

From the earliest years of colonial settlement, land adjacent to the river upstream from the Queens wharf was set aside for small scale agriculture. From as early as 1790, Governor Phillip’s instructions were to set aside this area as ‘grounds for cultivation’ of maize or corn. Later maps describe lands east of Harris street as ‘Marines’ gardens’.

In the 1870s, an area bounded by George, Hassall, Harris and Purchase Street contained a vast commercial garden, The Somerset Nursery, selling exotic plants, trees and shrubs, organized into pots, beds and glass houses, with water tanks, winding avenues, trellised walkways and scenic vistas across the Harris estate and up to Elizabeth Farm.

The nursery business was run by Samuel Purchase and his family and continued to operate until 1902. Its believed the death of Purchase led to its closure, although actual details remain unclear.

Traces of the grand 19th century Somerset Nursery survive in the form of mature trees scattered across Robin Thomas Reserve. The recreational grounds in this area are currently managed by Parramatta City Council.

GARDEN GATE COTTAGE 1823

HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST


PRIVATE COLLECTION

Looking closely at Joseph Lycett’s painting of 1823, a small rustic cottage can be seen huddled within scrub to the left of the homestead. This is probably the building mentioned in the Elizabeth Farm Day Book when payment of 1 pound is recorded in 1823, for ‘repairing the shingling on the back of the kitchen and at the cottage by the garden gate’. Probably a servant’s or gardener’s cottage, connected to the vast kitchen garden that stretched from Arthur Street across present day James Ruse Drive, a small yard, unusually positioned, tucked in behind Oak Street, appears in water board plans of the late 19th century.

In 1865 the Macarthur sons James and William considered if the small dwelling known as ‘White’s Cottage’, should be demolished or repaired. In the same year, a series of watercolour views of Elizabeth Farm, each viewed from the eastern verandah, show this building through trees to the north east. The series was painted by John Macarthur’s grand-daughter, shortly before her marriage, probably to record the old house and fond memories of her grandmother.

Ten years later, a coachman named Joseph Jenkins occupied this cottage under a lease from the Macarthur family. Jenkins worked as a coach driver for William Billyard, a tenant living in the main homestead in the 1870s.

This cottage (or possibly its replacement) appeared on water board maps dating from 1893 to 1915. Oral history recordings provided by the Jenkins daughters in the 1970s give details of their old house along with fascinating memories of the 19th century estate, including the old driveway running up to the farmhouse, this gatehouse, bridges and surrounding paddocks.

NEALES COTTAGE 1854

HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST


STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

In 1831 George and Bridget Neale and their young daughter Elizabeth Mary, moved into a small timber cottage, built between Hambledon Cottage and the creek. Over the next 23 years twelve more children were born and raised there. George Neale, a wheelwright, worked for the Macarthurs for most of his adult life.

When Elizabeth Farm was finally vacated by the Macarthurs in 1854, the eldest son Edward and his agents the Allports distributed or sold off the family’s old furniture and fittings. Around this time, a foundation stone was laid for a new brick cottage for Neales family – along with a generous lift time lease, on minimal rent, in recognition of their long and loyal service to the estate.

Following Edward's furniture clearances, a dining room table from Elizabeth Farm was purchased or given to the Neales. This campaign style mahogany table remained in Neale family ownership until recent years when its existence, along with a substantial amount of Neale Family documents and records, finally surfaced.

Several new photographs found amongst these records, confirm the location and form of the new cottage, built by Edward Macarthur in the mid 1850s.

These show a single fronted cottage facing east, enclosed by a semi-circular picket fence, with stables and outbuildings to the south. The well established garden and coach house of Hambledon is seen to the north across a three railed hardwood fence.

In 1882, the widower George Neale surrendered his lifetime leasehold and the cottage passed through various owners. The last glimpse of Neales’ Cottage appears in an aerial photo of the 1950s showing a small derelict feature at the rear of a mostly vacant site a few years before the construction of the Wyeth Pharmaceutical factory.

GATE LODGE COTTAGE 1860

STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

The main entrance to Elizabeth Farm was at the southern end of George Street, sweeping past the Military Barracks. The present alignment of George Street, swerving off slightly to the south past a stand of eucalypts, records the original course of the Macarthur’s driveway, as it led to the homestead past a vast kitchen garden and orchard, taking in panoramic views of the property and river. An early gatekeepers house probably existed somewhere in this vicinity, although no trace or reference to such a building exists.

From the late 1850s, a small house, referred to as the Gate Lodge, stood in an enclosed yard, overlooking the estate entrance and driveway. Its location is roughly in the old bowling greens, now car parks of the Parramatta Workers Club, at the corner of Purchase and George Streets. In 1858, Edward Macarthur specified that ‘the cottage should have a verandah at least on one side, if not two, and the pillars might be framed out of trees on the farm’.

Between 1859 and 1899 its occupants were Robert and Mrs Farrance and their daughter Sarah, who worked for Emmerline Macarthur and her husband Henry Parker, Edward Macarthur and with later tenants of the estate. The Farrances purchased the cottage outright from developers carving up the estate in the early 1880s. The gate lodge survived intact until the 1970s when it was demolished for construction of the club and bowling greens.

The cottage appears on an1895 drawing prepared by the Water Board, now Sydney Water, showing a short verandah on either side of a T shaped dwelling. The north facing verandah provides surveillance for the entrance gates into the estate, presumedly across George Street to the old Barracks wall.

HAMBLEDON COTTAGE 1824

STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES


HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST

Hambledon Cottage was commenced in November 1821 on the western boundary of the Macarthur estate, close to town and river. A fashionable bungalow, built of brick, with smart Doric columns, trellised verandah screens and French doors, Hambledon was clearly intended to promote the tastes and sensibilities of a well established and worldy family.

The first occupants were visiting Macarthur family members and later the Archdeacon Thomas Hobbes Scott, the newly arriving head of church in the colony and former secretary to Commissioner Thomas Bigge. Scott was responsible for building the coach house and planting the earliest garden.

It wasn’t until late 1826 or early 1827 that ‘Mrs’ or ‘Aunt’ Lucas moved in, eventually renaming the cottage ‘Hambledon’, after the township of Hambledon in Hampshire, England. With John Macarthur’s descent into madness in 1832, the cottage was occupied by his daughters Elizabeth and Mary. Penelope lived on at Hambledon until her death in 1836. John Macarthur had left her a small annuity in his will and the use of Hambledon during her lifetime. A memorial in the chancel of St John's, Parramatta records her involvement in the congregation and her charitable interests in the community.

The cottage and a small acreage was sold as part of the Elizabeth Farm estate in 1883, renamed Firholme, and used as a family home until 1947, when it was purchased by the Wyeth Pharmaceutical Company for factory land. The cottage was resold a few years later to the Parramatta Council and placed under the management of the Parramatta and District Historical Society.

Built of rendered sandstock brick, the design resembles the Macarthur’s cottage at Camden, both of which are attributed to the architect Henry Kitchen, who died before either building was completed. The main eastern wing was later connected to a detached kitchen wing, forming an unusual L shaped footprint. The shallow pitched shingled roof was covered by vertically seamed iron sheets in the 1850s, about the same time changes were made to Elizabeth Farm’s eastern verandah. The broad ‘bungalow’ roof covers the building and verandah in one swoop. The verandah, with French doors opening onto it, has a stylishly vaulted ceiling. The narrow glazed doors have internal cedar screen shutters which fit into the reveals as panelling when not in use.

BYRNES CLOTH MILL 1847

STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

In 1841, on Macarthur land, a flour mill was built on the riverbank, just to the east of the Queens wharf. In 1844 construction began on an ambitious 5 storey, steam driven cloth factory, alongside the flour mill, opening in 1847.

It was named the ‘Australian Steam Mills and Cloth Factory’ and run by the well known Byrnes brothers until 1881 when the lease expired. Complications arising from the end of this lease eventually left the Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm in serious debt, ultimately leading to the forced sale and subdivision of the estate. In 1889, the old mill was purchased by the government for additional wards and offices of the Benevolent Asylum.

In addition to the main factory structure, there were several smaller buildings to the east, providing rooms for weavers, a warehouse and workers accommodation. The warehousing and distribution of goods worked well with the company’s existing interest in wharf and ferry activities on Sydney harbour and an exemption from wharfing fees at Parramatta.

With the convict system in its final years, and the Female Factory (on the other side of Parramatta) soon to close, the Byrnes saw an opportunity to capture a ready market for woollen goods – mainly tweeds and tartans. One of their fabrics, a blend of black wool and cotton named the ‘Parramatta Cloth’, gained unexpected fame when Queen Victoria adopted it as part of her mourning dress in the 1850s. Remnants of ‘Parramatta Cloth’ have been identified on clothing found under floorboards at the Hyde Park Barracks, linked to its period as an immigrant depot and destitute asylum.

The site was initially leased in 1840, for a term of 40 years at an annual rent of 200 pounds. An agreement was reached whereby the Macarthurs, as lessors, at the end of the lease term, would recompense the Byrne’s business for the value of the Mill. This ended in court in 1881 with the Macarthurs disputing the amount claimed by the Byrnes, which included a dam and loom machinery fixed to the premises. The court’s decision to favour the Byrnes represented a substantial, and for the Macarthurs an almost crippling, amount of money – approximately 7000 pounds.The sale of Elizabeth Farm was considered the only means of recovering losses.

COMMISSARIAT STORE 1825

STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

The 4-storey Commissariat was built in 1825. This was the second ‘Government Store’ on the Queens Wharf. Until the construction of the neighbouring textile mill in the late 1840s, slightly closer to the river, this was the most dominating structure on the Parramatta skyline.

A roadway clearly shown in Augustus Earle’s drawing of 1827, led behind the Commissariat, running directly into the Macarthur estate. Its possible a small gatehouse was situated here, at the eastern end of a long timber paling fence. During the 1820s several other buildings were located around the commissariat, including a storekeeper’s cottage, boatsheds and a small tavern, later known as the Emu Inn, only demolished in the early 20th century.

Recommissioned and fitted with dormitories, mess halls and parade areas, the building served as a Military Barracks from 1828 to 1848 and briefly operating into the early 1850s as a dormitory, depot and clearing house for immigrants. In 1862, the old commissariat building was again ‘re-purposed’ for use as an asylum for old and destitute men - mirroring, exactly, uses made of the Hyde Park Barracks.

During its operation as a military barracks, a long triangular compound was created running back towards Parramatta, enclosed in a brick wall. At the extreme western point was an entry gate, guarded by a gatehouse.

In later years, around the early 1880s, an overhead passageway connected the building to the Byrnes Brothers Mill on the riverbank, after it was absorbed into the asylum complex.

After 1883, a tramway ran between the two buildings, parallel with the river.

Both buildings were demolished in 1937, when the inmates were moved to Lidcombe.

In 1946, the newly established Housing Commission resumed the land for flats and ‘commission’ housing, making this one of the first government housing scheme projects in New South Wales.

WHARVES 1790-1880s

HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST

The half submerged retaining wall is all that survives of a busy wharf built in 1834. Stretching back from this wall was 5 metres of hard stone surfacing, for loading and unloading heavy cargoes. To the east of this platform was a boundary fence delineating government land from the private wharfing facilities of Byrnes Mill.

The first wharf facility was situated upstream from here, constructed around 1790 from timber logs. It was from here the Parramatta High Street (later Macquarie’s George Street) commenced, to run for roughly one mile due west, lined on either side with regulation sized convict huts, past the town markets and the site pegged out for Town Hall, past the stocks and log bridge crossing over to the government farm buildings in the vicinity of present day Parramatta Stadium, to terminate at the gatehouse to Government House, on the low rise known as Rose Hill.

Back behind us somewhere, on original Macarthur land, an early 4 storey stone Granary, or grain store, was built in 1809. The land was offered to the government in exchange for land given to him elsewhere. This original Granary was served by a landing then known as Kings Wharf. It was demolished in the 1840s after a devastating fire.

The wharves along this section of the river provided landing facilities for goods and people traveling between Sydney and the headwaters of the Parramatta River. In addition to the manufactured textiles from the Byrne’s Mill, there was timber and farm produce heading into Sydney.

Travel between Sydney and Parramatta was provided by a succession of steam powered vessels including the first to operate in Australia – a paddle steamer named ‘the Surprise’ – launched in 1831. By the 1880s, modern screw-powered vessels dominated the ferry trade. As one newspaper described the 15 mile ferry commute between Circular Quay and Parramatta in the 1890s, ‘A boat excursion from one town to the other is one of ever changing scenes of beauty’.