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.