Merton

Item details


Name of item:	Merton
Type of item:	Complex / Group
Group/Collection:	Farming and Grazing
Category:	Homestead Complex
Location:	Lat: -32.3940980010 Long: 150.7190963120
Primary address:	4883 Jerrys Plains Road, Denman, NSW 2328
Parish:	Althorpe
County:	Durham
Local govt. area:	Muswellbrook
Local Aboriginal Land Council:	Wanaruah

Property description

Lot/Volume Code	Lot/Volume Number	Section Number	Plan/Folio Code	Plan/Folio Number
LOT	10		DP	618867

All addresses

Street Address	Suburb/town	LGA	Parish	County	Type
4883 Jerrys Plains Road	Denman	Muswellbrook	Althorpe	Durham	Primary Address

Owner/s

Organisation Name	Owner Category	Date Ownership Updated
	Private

Statement of significance:


	Historically the property is of regional significance as it was settled by one of the region's founding families, bought by the region's best known successful pastoralist, and contains evidence of the original homestead buildings. It has remained continuously in use for its original purpose. Socially the homestead site has regional significance for the descendants of the Ogilvie, Reginald White and Porter families. Scientifically it has regional significance for its potential to reveal information which could contribute to an understanding of the lifestyle of successful pastoralists in the 19th and 20th centuries and about the changes in farming in the Upper Hunter over the past century. Because of the surviving evidence of settlement by its founders, the homestead has regional rarity (REP). The complex (of very early settler's cottage, late 19th century homestead complete with gardens and terrace and early 20th century ballroom) is surviving evidence of progress made by two very important Hunter Valley settlers. The early cottage is the oldest surviving in the area. The complex occupies a prominent site overlooking the town of Denman, in a remarkable setting (National Trust classification). Its strong association with an important figure in the person of Commander William Ogilvie. First Crown grantee to take up residence in the upper Hunter in 1825 (RNE).
	Date significance updated: 06 Jul 10
	Note: The State Heritage Inventory provides information about heritage items listed by local and State government agencies. The State Heritage Inventory is continually being updated by local and State agencies as new information becomes available. Read the Department of Premier and Cabinet copyright and disclaimer.

Description


Construction years:	1825-1910
Physical description:	Merton Cottage c.1825 (disused) A small four-roomed, whitewashed sandstone with an earthen floor. Later, wooden floors were laid. Room partitions were made of wood. Roof timber shingles at first, was eventually thatched. White's late nineteenth homestead: 1859 - c1880 Architectural Style: Victorian Filigree Reginald White built the second brick house, which was extended at various times, particularly in 1910. Recent timber/ metal deck skillion-roofed extensions to side.
Modifications and dates:	1826 original cottage small four-roomed, whitewashed sandstone with an earthen floor. Later, wooden floors were laid. Room partitions were made of wood Roof timber shingles at first, was eventually thatched. 1859 - c1880 bought by Reginald White. He built the second brick house which was extended at various times, particularly in 1910 for the visit of the Prince of Wales. Recent timber/metal deck skillion-roofed extensions to side. Verandah frieze modifications. Some painted brickwork (REP 1989). Extensive demolition and restoration works in the past 10 years (LEP, 2009).


Current use:	residence
Former use:	farm, horse stud, residence, centre of early village settlement

History

Historical notes:

Merton was a grant to Commander William Ogilvie who had served as a Midshipsman under Lord Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen and who retired from the Navy to Australia. He arrived with his wife and four children in 1825 and almost immediately applied for a grant of land in the Hunter Valley (LEP, 2009).

He was allotted 4,000 acres near the present town of Denman, and named it Merton after the house of Lord Nelson in Surrey. The original Merton cottage built in 1826 was a small four-roomed cottage, whitewashed with an earthen floor. Later, wooden floors were laid. Room partitions were made of wooden at first, was eventually thatched. Sandstone for the cottage was quarried on the hillside behind (LEP, 2009).

Botanist Allan Cunningham made a further exploration through the site of 'Merton' in 1825 but by then the first settlers had begun to arrive. By 1822 a substantial number of cattle and sheep were pastured on Patrick's Plains and as other settlers began to arrive the pastoral industry expanded to other parts of the (Hunter) Valley. With the arrival of William Ogilvie and Peter Cunningham in 1825 to establish 'Merton' and 'Dalswinton' close to the junction of the Goulburn and Hunter Rivers, the explotation of the region's pastures began (Turner, 1995, 15, 17).

In 1825-26 large parties of Aboriginals attacked settlers and shepherds and plundered farms in the Upper Hunter Valley and the government employed mounted police to restore peace. Antagonised by the tactics of the police who were trying to capture Aboriginals involved in attacks on settlers, about 200 tribesmen assembled for an attack on 'Merton', the farm of William nd Mary Ogilvie. However they had been on good terms with the local Aboriginals and Mary was able to calm the attackers (Turner, 1995, 9).

The early settlers began to exploit local hardwood forests and sandstone to built slab huts and outhouses and stone houses (Turner, 1995, 4).

As a general principle, convicts were allocated to settlers in the ratio of one to 100 acres so that relatively large numbers of convicts were put to work to clear the land, cultivate it and tend sheep and cattle. As many of the settlers were granted 2000 acres and had the right to add to that total by purchase, the larger farms had as many as 44 bonded workers. In 1828, 44 convicts were working at 'Merton' and in 1837 there were 41 at 'Pickering' (Turner, 1995, 11).

Ogilvie planted vineyards in 1829. Cuttings of grapes were made at Merton in 1830. By 1832 it occupied three acres and many types of wine were made there by a German winemaker called Luther. (Turner, 1995, 21-22, 48).

This homestead became the centre of the first village (Merton) in the Upper Hunter Valley, possessing courthouse, church, school, cemetery, etc (LEP, 2009). Muswellbrook was strategically situated in relation to the Hunter River and it replaced Merton which had shown early signs of developing from an estate into a town. Muswellbrook was on that highway to pastoral wealth, the road to the Liverpool Plains (Turner, 1995, 5).

The term 'villa' was first used in England in the 17th century, partly from the Latin and Italian 'country house, farm', perhaps derived from the stem of vicus (village). The villa was a country mansion or residence, together with a farm, farm-buildings, or other house attached, built or occupied by a person of some position and wealth. It was taken to include a country seat or estate and later a residence in the country or in the neighbourhood of a town, usually standing in its own grounds. From this is was appropriated by the middleof the 18th century to mean a residence of a superior type, in the suburbs of a town or in a residential district, such as that occupied by a person of the middle class, and also a small, better-class dwelling house, usually detached or semi-detached. The term 'villa garden' was used in the context of Hobart and Sydney residences in the 1830s, and if near the coast or harbour, the appellation 'marine villa' was often applied. Australian origins probably date from the grant conditions applied to Sydney's Woolloomooloo Hill (1827, under Governor Darling), which obligated the construction of villas fulfilling certain conditions... 'with garden like domain, and external offices for stables and domestic economy' (John Buonarotti Papworth, 1825, quoted in James Broadbent's 1997 book, 'The Australian Colonial House'). Many gardens of 19th century villas followed Gardenesque conventions, with garden ornaments often complementing the architecture of the house. The term had acquired such widespread usage by the 1850s that when Jane Loudon issued a new editiion of her husband (John Claudius Loudon)'s 'Suburban Gardener and Villa Companion' (1838) she merely entitled the revised work 'The Villa Gardener' (1850). This coincided with a growing period of suburbanisation in Australia with consequent fostering of the nursery trade... By the 1880s, descriptions of Australian villas implied sufficient room for a lawn on two or three fronts of the residence...(Aitken, 2002, 619-20).

Artist Conrad Martens visited the Muswellbrook area in 1839, painting the homesteads at 'Merton' and 'Bengalla' (Turner, 1995, 37).

In 1843 the British government introduced the first system of local government into New South Wales, district councils, each one meeting under a warden: initially the members were appointed by the Governor. These were largely ineffective because they lacked the funds to carry out their charter.William Ogilvie was the warden f the local district council, which was given the name 'Merton'. Simultaneously with formation of district councils, the NSW Legislative Council became partly elective and the first representative for the Upper Hunter seat, which consisted of the Counties of Brisbane, Phillip and Bligh, was William Ogilvie of 'Merton' (Turner, 1995, 35, 36).

By 1847 the principal agricultural products of the Merton district were reported to be wheat and wine but for reasons not well understood, winemaking did not persist in the study area at this time. The large estates of the rea changed hands in the 1850s and the new owners were mainly graziers who did not continue with the vineyards of the first generation. Instead free selectors began to plant grapes on their small holdings. The developing industry was destroyed by an outbreak of Phylloxera, minute insects (vine lice) which reached Australia from Europe about 1910. Winemaking was not re-developed until the 1960s (Turner, 1995, 22).

A great Hunter River flood in 1857 caused the 'death' of Merton village, and hastened the removal of settlers and residents to the new town of Denman (Turner, 1995, 50).

Ogilvie died in 1859 and the family leased the property until it passed into the White family (1859 - c1880) an outstanding pioneering dynasty) by 1875 and was owned by Reginald White in 1896 when described by H. Mackenzie in "Pastoralists and Producers". Reginald White, the region's best known successful pastoralist, built the second brick house which was extended at various times, particularly in 1910 for the visit of the Prince of Wales. Under the Whites racehorses and cattle were bred here (LEP, 2009).

The Denman Race Club opened a (race-)course on 'Merton' in 1908 and operated there until about 1984. It was a thriving club but lost its course because the site was owned by Denman Shire Council and the club could ot obtain development funds for that reason (Turner, 1995, 39).

In the last thirty years it has been owned by L. Porter (about 1950), then P. Feeney and since 1986 by the Carter family. Of the many buildings to survive are Merton Cottage c.1825 (disused) and White's late nineteenth homestead - a complex of the highest significance. The Carters have since been restoring the property from a previously abandoned and vandalised condition (ibid, 2009).

Historic themes

Australian theme (abbrev)	New South Wales theme	Local theme
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Agriculture-Activities relating to the cultivation and rearing of plant and animal species, usually for commercial purposes, can include aquaculture	Clearing land for farming-
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Agriculture-Activities relating to the cultivation and rearing of plant and animal species, usually for commercial purposes, can include aquaculture	Ancillary structures - wells, cisterns-
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Agriculture-Activities relating to the cultivation and rearing of plant and animal species, usually for commercial purposes, can include aquaculture	Ancillary structures - windmills-
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Pastoralism-Activities associated with the breeding, raising, processing and distribution of livestock for human use	Agisting and fattening stock for slaughter-
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Pastoralism-Activities associated with the breeding, raising, processing and distribution of livestock for human use	Working for pastoralists-
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Pastoralism-Activities associated with the breeding, raising, processing and distribution of livestock for human use	Horse breeding and raising-
3. Economy-Developing local, regional and national economies	Pastoralism-Activities associated with the breeding, raising, processing and distribution of livestock for human use	Beef cattle breeding and raising-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Accommodation-Activities associated with the provision of accommodation, and particular types of accommodation – does not include architectural styles – use the theme of Creative Endeavour for such activities.	Housing farming families-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Accommodation-Activities associated with the provision of accommodation, and particular types of accommodation – does not include architectural styles – use the theme of Creative Endeavour for such activities.	Gentlemens Mansions-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Accommodation-Activities associated with the provision of accommodation, and particular types of accommodation – does not include architectural styles – use the theme of Creative Endeavour for such activities.	Housing famous families-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Land tenure-Activities and processes for identifying forms of ownership and occupancy of land and water, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal	Granting Crown lands for private farming-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Land tenure-Activities and processes for identifying forms of ownership and occupancy of land and water, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal	Illustrates early ownership and occupancy of land within the Hunter Region-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Land tenure-Activities and processes for identifying forms of ownership and occupancy of land and water, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal	Changing land uses - from rural to tourist-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Land tenure-Activities and processes for identifying forms of ownership and occupancy of land and water, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal	Selecting land for pastoral or agricultural purposes-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Country Estate-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Rural orchards-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Creating landmark structures and places in regional settings-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Vernacular hamlets and settlements-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Planning relationships between key structures and town plans-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Developing private towns-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Vernacular towns serving a specific industry-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Towns, suburbs and villages-Activities associated with creating, planning and managing urban functions, landscapes and lifestyles in towns, suburbs and villages	Developing towns in response to topography-
7. Governing-Governing	Law and order-Activities associated with maintaining, promoting and implementing criminal and civil law and legal processes	Establishing law and order in the Hunter Valley-
8. Culture-Developing cultural institutions and ways of life	Creative endeavour-Activities associated with the production and performance of literary, artistic, architectural and other imaginative, interpretive or inventive works; and/or associated with the production and expression of cultural phenomena; and/or environments that have inspired such creative activities.	Architectural styles and periods - Victorian Filigree-
8. Culture-Developing cultural institutions and ways of life	Creative endeavour-Activities associated with the production and performance of literary, artistic, architectural and other imaginative, interpretive or inventive works; and/or associated with the production and expression of cultural phenomena; and/or environments that have inspired such creative activities.	Architectural styles and periods - colonial homestead-
8. Culture-Developing cultural institutions and ways of life	Leisure-Activities associated with recreation and relaxation	Gardening-
8. Culture-Developing cultural institutions and ways of life	Sport-Activities associated with organised recreational and health promotional activities	Racing horses-
9. Phases of Life-Marking the phases of life	Birth and Death-Activities associated with the initial stages of human life and the bearing of children, and with the final stages of human life and disposal of the dead.	Operating and maintaining private family burial grounds-
9. Phases of Life-Marking the phases of life	Persons-Activities of, and associations with, identifiable individuals, families and communal groups	Associations with Commander William Ogilvie, ex-navy officer and early Hunter Valley grazier-
9. Phases of Life-Marking the phases of life	Persons-Activities of, and associations with, identifiable individuals, families and communal groups	Associations with Reginald White, Hunter Valley grazier and horse breeder-

Recommended management:

Recommendations

Management Category	Description	Date Updated
Recommended Management	Produce a Conservation Management Plan (CMP)
Recommended Management	Prepare a maintenance schedule or guidelines
Recommended Management	Carry out interpretation, promotion and/or education

Procedures /Exemptions

Section of act	Description	Title	Comments	Action date
57(2)	Exemption to allow work	Standard Exemptions	HERITAGE ACT 1977 ORDER UNDER SECTION 57(2) TO GRANT STANDARD EXEMPTIONS FROM APPROVAL I, Penny Sharpe, the Minister for Heritage, on the recommendation of the Heritage Council of New South Wales and under section 57(2) of the Heritage Act 1977: revoke the order made on 2 June 2022 and published in the Government Gazette Number 262 of 17 June 2022; and grant an exemption from section 57(1) of the Act in respect of the engaging in or carrying out the class of activities described in clause 2 Schedule A in such circumstances specified by the relevant standards in clause 2 Schedule A and General Conditions in clause 3 Schedule A. This Order takes effect on the date it is published in the NSW Government Gazette. Dated this 29th day of October 2025 The Hon Penny Sharpe MLC Minister for Heritage For more information on standard exemptions click on the link below.	Nov 7 2025

Standard exemptions for engaging in or carrying out activities / works otherwise prohibited by section 57(1) of the Heritage Act 1977

Listings

Heritage Listing	Listing Title	Listing Number	Gazette Date	Gazette Number	Gazette Page
Heritage Act - State Heritage Register		00159	02 Apr 99	27	1546
Heritage Act - Permanent Conservation Order - former		00159	26 Mar 82	46	1335
State Environmental Planning Policy	Hunter REP 1989		03 Nov 89	107	9358
Local Environmental Plan	EJE-1996	I17	17 Apr 09
National Trust of Australia register		2139	24 Aug 91

Study details

Title	Year	Number	Author	Inspected by	Guidelines used
Muswellbrook Heritage Study	1996		EJE	EJE	No
Muswellbrook Heritage Study	1996		EJE		No

References, internet links & images

Type	Author	Year	Title	Internet Links
Written	A. Wood		Dawn in the Valley
Written	Aitken, Richard	2002	Villa Garden (entry)	View detail
Written	G. Farwell		Squatters in Grass Castles
Written	Kerr, Ellsmore, Swan, Clarke		National Trust of Australia (NSW) classification sheet
Written	Turner, J. W.	1995	'Historical Themes of the Shire of Muswellbrook'	View detail

Note: internet links may be to web pages, documents or images.

(Click on thumbnail for full size image and image details)

Data source


The information for this entry comes from the following source:
Name:	Heritage NSW
Database number:	5045618
File number:	S90/06231 & HC 32033

Every effort has been made to ensure that information contained in the State Heritage Inventory is correct. If you find any errors or omissions please send your comments to the Database Manager.

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