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.