| Historical notes: | INDIGENOUS OCCUPATION
The lower Hawkesbury was home to the Dharug people. The proximity to the Nepean River and South Creek qualifies it as a key area for food resources for indigenous groups (Proudfoot, 1987).
The Dharug and Darkinjung people called the river Deerubbin and it was a vital source of food and transport (Nichols, 2010).
NON-INDIGENOUS OCCUPATION
Governor Arthur Phillip explored the local area in search of suitable agricultural land in 1789 and discovered and named the Hawkesbury River after Baron Hawkesbury. This region played a significant role in the early development of the colony with European settlers established here by 1794. Situated on fertile floodplains and well known for its abundant agriculture, Green Hills (as it was originally called) supported the colony through desperate times. However, frequent flooding meant that the farmers along the riverbanks were often ruined.
Governor Lachlan Macquarie replaced Governor Bligh, taking up duty on 1/1/1810. Under his influence the colony propsered. His vision was for a free community, working in conjunction with the penal colony. He implemented an unrivalled public works program, completing 265 public buildings, establishing new public amenities and improving existing services such as roads. Under his leadership Hawkesbury district thrived. He visited the district on his first tour and recorded in his journal on 6/12/1810: 'After dinner I chrestened the new townships...I gave the name of Windsor to the town intended to be erected in the district of the Green Hills...the township in the Richmond district I have named Richmond...' the district reminded Macquarie of those towns in England, whilst Castlereagh, Pitt Town and Wilberforce were named after English statesmen. These are often referred to as Macquarie's Five Towns. Their localities, chiefly Windsor and Richmond, became more permanent with streets, town square and public buildings.
Macquarie also appointed local men in positions of authority. In 1810 a group of settlers sent a letter to him congratulating him on his leadership and improvements. It was published in the Sydney Gazette with his reply. He was 'much pleased with the sentiments' of the letter and assured them that the Haweksbury would 'always be an object of the greatest interest' to him (Nichols, 2010).
In marking out the towns of Windsor and Richmond in 1810, Governor Macquarie was acting on instructions from London. All of the Governors who held office between 1789 and 1822, from Phillip to Brisbane, recieved the same Letter of Instruction regarding the disposal of the 'waste lands of the Crown' that Britain claimed as her own. This included directives for the formation of towns and thus the extension of British civilisation to its Antipodean outpost (Proudfoot 1987, 7-9).
Wilberforce:
The land on which Australiana Pioneer Village is situated was farmland recognised as essential to the survival of colonial New South Wales being one of the earliest grants made in Australia. Located in the District of Mulgrave Place, the third mainland settlement of the colony, the 30 acre grant was registered to William MacKay on 1.5.1797 (1), but by 1809 at least part of it was in the possession of Joshua Rose (2). John Rose, the final Rose descendant to live on the rich farmland after continuous occupation by the family for over 150 years, died only in 1961 (3).
Dugald Andrew (Bill) McLachlan, an industrial chemist bought the property on his friend's death. A man who relished challenges, whether competing in gruelling Australian car trials or being part of the 1940s group who pioneered water-skiing, Bill McLachlan fashioned a vision: to save part of the Hawkesbury's historical legacy, and to demonstrate its pioneering accomplishments (4).
In an era before New South Wales heritage legislation such an enterprise had to be carried out privately, and resiting endangered buildings was one of few options open. It was a very natural option in the Hawkesbury district where there was, and still is, a long tradition of adaptation of buildings, both public and private, often involving reuse of materials or transfer complete to another site (5). By 1967 McLachlan had begun to plan a 'Pioneer Village' of two streets, a water based leisure centre on his 250 metre water frontage to the Hawkesbury River and picnic facilities (6). Ready response from the owners of many buildings endangered in the district, meant that from the end of 1969 and throughout 1970 he engaged Silvio Biancotti of Kurrajong to bring by low loader to his 'Village' twelve of the resited buildings together with the glasshouse (7). Many local families helped with the removals, which were all undertaken keeping the buildings structurally intact, and with their relocation on their planned sites. Brian Bushell of Wilberforce brought the small Bee House shop from McGraths Hill (6) and others transported the Riverstone General Store and Jack Greentree's garage which became the 'Bank of Australasia'. On 29 November 1970 the Village was officially declared open by the Hon. Mr Eric Willis, Minister for Education (8).
Bill McLachlan's early death at the age of 54 years in 1971 (9), and the interment of his ashes near the church (6) on the Village site, rallied continued support.
Arthur and Jean Mawson who ran a hotel on site, had joined Bill McLachlan to help finance the original village (10) and continued to do so, bringing the Riverstone Police Station to the Village through Silvio Biancotti around 1972 (7). The Village changed hands three times in quick succession, the first buyer a syndicate headed by Sydney Solicitor Mr. Anthony Gye (11).
Hawkesbury City Council decided to buy Rose Cottage and the Australiana Pioneer Village (excluding the hotel/motel) in December 1984, paying $450,000 the following year, and subsequently the Council did conservation work on the buildings (12). During council's ownership towards the end of the 1980s Mangold Cottage and Aiken Hut were added to the Village (13).
On 30 March 1989 a 'Friends' Society was formed, the inaugural meeting attracting 24 members, increasing to almost 100 friends and workers by 1991 (14). The Village was widely used by schools, local and overseas visitors, film crews, the community and businesses during the 1980s and 1990s. In April 1985 Grace Bros. Retailers hired the Village for their firm's 100 year celebrations. Nearly 10,000 employees and their families attended, hundreds of them being bussed from country centres as far flung as Tamworth and Dubbo (15). Australia Day celebrations, and Annual Bush Fire Brigade Field Days were held there (16). An award winning heritage video made by Hawkesbury City Council was partly shot at the Village in 1994 and it was featured on Telstra's telephone book cover in 1998 (17). In 1987 visitor numbers for that year reached 27, 572 with 164 school visits included (18). Articles praising Australiana Pioneer Village are regularly published, including those in Woman's Day (16.6.1969), The Sun-Herald (30.8.1970) and 19.10.1986), The Open Road (August 1988) and the Daily Telegraph (12.2.1997). Documentaries, films and advertisements have used Australiana Pioneer village, and the community have conducted market days there (19).
A name modification took place in 1993, the Village becoming the Australian Pioneer Village Recreation and Animal park, with a management committee formed from a public meeting undertaking control of the Village. Additional initiatives included the planting of over 10,000 trees on the land by community groups (6).
From 4 January 1997 Council leased the property to Mr Chris Wells, resulting in another name change to Heritage Farm (20). When the lease expired in 2002, Hawkesbury City Council agreed at its 11 February 2002 meeting to sell Australiana Pioneer Village to Mr James Kelly, making no mention of its listing on the Hawkesbury Local Environment Plan or the heritage constraints necessary to the property (21). This decision was invalidated because the land on which the Australian Pioneer Village stands is zoned 'community' and cannot be sold without being reclassified. The decision to begin the process by which the land is classified 'operational' was taken at the June 2002 meeting of Hawkesbury City Council. Subsequently, a third community group has been formed to ensure the Australian Pioneer Village remains a community asset and that its heritage and environmental integrity is retained (22).
(1) Land & Property Information Grants of Land Book 2, p. 192; Portion 49 Parish Map of Wilberforce, County of Cook.
(2) State Records, New South Wales, GRR563, K260780/PA15431.
(3) M. Clarke, The Australiana Pioneer Village Story, Australian Pioneer Village, Wilberforce, 1992.
(4) 'Village Times' n.d. in 'Australiana Pioneer Village' file, Local Studies Collection Hawkesbury City Library.
Land & Property Information, New South Wales, GRR563/K265742/PA 38967.
(5) Examples of buildings relocated in Hawkesbury:
Barn, Earl Street Wilberforce relocated pre-1867 (D. Kingston)
'Puddledock', Castlereagh Road, Castlereagh (D. Kingston)
Church, corner of Comleroy and Single Ridge Roads, Kurrajong (V. Webb)
Windsor Railway Station now a dwelling in Mileham Street (D.Bowd)
Barn, Clear Oaks, Francis Street, Richmond (M. Livingston)
Barn, Inalls Lane, Richmond (R. Sharpe)
Barn, 26 Cox Street, South Windsor (M. Cobcroft)
House, Gorricks Lane to Mulgrave (H. Fotheringham)
Vaughans House, Freemans Reach Road, Freemans Reach (H. Fotheringham)
Fotheringham's house from Parramatta 1961 (H. Fotheringham)
Church, Upper end of St Alban's Common to St Alban's (as present Church hall) (L. Bailey)
Simpson's General Store Wilberforce now a private home in King Road, Wilberforce (C. McHardy).
(6) Marj. Clarke 21.6.2002.
(7) Silvio Biancotti 20.6.2002.
(8) Plaque, Australian Pioneer Village.
(9) Grave Marker, Australiana Pioneer Village.
(10) M. Clarke 'Information given to Hawkesbury Gazette 4.12.1990 Clarke personal file.
(11) Hawkesbury Gazette 10.12.1980.
(12) Daily Mirror 7.12.1984; Hawkesbury City Council submission to 1989 Tidy Towns Competition.
(13) Bill Mangold 18.6.2002; unidentified newspaper clipping 18.2.1986 in 'Australiana Pioneer Village' Pamphlet File, Local Studies Collection Hawkesbury City Library.
(14) Friends of Australiana Village, Minutes of Inaugural meeting, 30.3.1989, M. Clarke, 21st birthday video.
(15) Grace Bros News, Vol. 26, No. 4, April 1985.
(16) Hawkesbury Gazette 19.1.1994, and other publicity cuttings in APV File, Local Studies Collection, Hawkesbury City Library, Windsor;
(17) Jan Barkley Jack 27.6.2002.
(18) P. Krix, The Australian Pioneer Village, Wilberforce Future Directions document, Hawkesbury City Council, 1987, 1.5.
(19) Publicity Cuttings in Pamphlet files, Local Studies Collection, Hawkesbury City Library, Windsor.
(20) Friends of APV Newsletter; Hawkesbury Gazette 16.4.1997, p. 17.
(21) Hawkesbury Gazette 22.5.2002, p.3.
(22) Village Coalition Minutes 17.6.2002.
Rose Cottage (see existing State Listing)
This cottage and its curtilage were originally part or the land parcel Bill McLachlan purchased from John Rose and on which he constructed the Australiana Pioneer Village. It is an integral part of the Australiana Pioneer Village concept and curtilage but is not specifically part of this listing because Rose Cottage is already on the State Heritage Register and Hawkesbury City Council has given a permanent lease of the Cottage to the Rose Family.
A1. 'Salter' Barn (formerly part of 498 Wilberforce Road, Wilberforce)
This barn is one of the three buildings still on their original site. It is known as the 'Salter' barn after its early twentieth-century owners, but is of nineteenth-century style and was almost certainly built in the mid-Victorian period by the then owner, Richard William Cobcroft prior to his death in 1866, or by his widow and family in the period 1866 to c. 1890 (1).
The Cobcrofts owned 6a 2r 19p, part of the 30 acres granted to William MacKay in 1797 (2), until 1905 when Thomas J. Salter, a local man, bought the allotment (3). A Cobcroft building of the nineteenth century was close to the existing barn and its archaeological remains can be seen at 496 Wilberforce Road (on an empty paddock that today is part of the Australian Pioneer Village). Salter in 1905 bought a developed property which included Cobcroft's barn, and locals believe he almost at once built his own house, now 486 Wilberforce Road (4); while in 1909 Salter's son William built a second new house at 498 Wilberforce Road when he married a local Buttsworth girl, Minnie Christabel (5).
As a result the Cobcroft barn became part of 498 Wilberforce Road and was closely associated with the Salter family from 1905 onwards. When 498 Wilberforce Road, like the Australiana Pioneer Village site was purchased by Bill McLachlan, founder of the Village, the barn became part of the Australiana Pioneer Village and remained so when 498 Wilberforce Road was sold independently (6).
(1) Land & Property Information, Book 792, number 259; Dennis Mahboub 18.6.2002.
(2) Land & Property Information, Grants of Land Book 2, p. 192; Portion 49 Parish map of Wilberforce, County of Cook.
(3) G. M. Pitt Survey Map of 11.3.1908, Department of Lands Plan Room map 3161.3000, MS 3161 Sy.; Statutory Declaration of Frederick Michael Humphries 15.9.1947 contained in Primary Application 38967, SRNSW.
(4) Garney Salter (grandson of Thomas J. Salter) told to Kerry Gannell, present owner of 498 Wilberforce Road, Wilberforce.
(5) Births, Deaths and Marriage Index; Garney Salter to Kerry Gannell.
(6) Kerry Gannell, 2.6.2002.
A2. Quilty Stables
The Quilty Stables were built sometime before the early 1980s (1) for the 100 mile endurance horse race which started at the Village and went out through Colo and ended at the Village. The race attracted entrants from all over Australia was held in the district for some 10 years until tar roads became too hard for horses and its location was moved interstate. People like R. M. Williams were regular riders (2). Local State Emergency Services personnel were actively involved in operating the far flung check points and co-ordinating the incoming radio reports from each one (1).
(1) Jan Earle 20.6.2002.
(2) M. Clarke 2.6.2002.
B. BUILDINGS RESITED:
(I) FROM HAWKESBURY REGION
B1. The Stable from the Black Horse Inn
Paul Randall became licensee of the Black Horse Inn on the SE corner of Windsor and Bosworth Streets, Richmond in 1819. Part of the Inn still stands on its original location, one of a select group of buildings erected in the Macquarie period that remain in the Hawkesbury. The date of construction for the stables is not known, but is certainly no later than the 1860s, since prior to the 1870s the Black Horse Inn was popular with honeymooners as a pre-Blue Mountains resort destination, reached by horse and carriage or train and sulky ride. During this period the Inn was also the finishing point of an early horse race track down the main street of Richmond (1). Indeed it is said that the room on the end of the stables was supposed to have been used to lock up the jockeys before other such races to prevent bribing or interference (2).
The building and its stabling remained in situ after the Inn closed in 1927 when the licence was transferred to Kurrajong Heights; the stabling was resited to the Village in early 1970. It was moved in one piece, held together by ropes (3).
The sign of the Black Horse Inn painted by T. Masters and some china used there is now part of the collection at Hawkesbury Museum, Windsor (4).
(1) D. Bowd, Macquarie Country, author, 1973, p. 50; K. Moon, Hawkesbury's Black Horse Inn, Research Publications Pty Ltd, 1988, pp. 12, 29; A. Smith, Some Ups and Downs of an Old Richmondite, Nepean Family History Society Inc, Penrith, 1991, p. 52.
(2) P. Caine, 'Rose Cottage and Australiana Pioneer Village', n.d. in Hawkesbury City Library Local Studies File, Windsor.
(3) Silvio Biancotti, who transported the stables to Australian Pioneer Village.
(4) Jan Barkley Jack, Curator, 27.6.2002.
B2. Perry House
This building was originally Samuel Paul's house and shop at Richmond. Samuel Paul, a skilled bootmaker and saddler, purchased the land in 1841 and had the building erected for his dwelling and shop by 1856, for when he moved to Bathurst that year his mother, sisters Elizabeth and Priscilla and her son Samuel Charles as well as the two little children of his older sister Martha continued living in the building, following the death of his father. In 1867 Samuel Paul sold the property to Alfred Perry who made it his residence and the premises for his tailoring business (1). Mr Perry later became an alderman on Richmond Council and the family continued to conduct the tailoring business until 1914. Mr Cahoon, a saddler, took over until 1927 when the premises are said to have become a brothel (2). Edward Sydney Paull [no connection to Samuel Paul] bought the property in the 1930s together with the adjoining premises to the West (now the Gazette office) where he conducted a grocery business, expanding that he ran in March Street in one of the cottages recently conserved as part of the Richmond Town Centre (3).
The building now at Australiana Pioneer Village was moved in one piece when Paulls sold the land for the building of the Magnolia Mall. The magnolia tree still growing at the front of the Mall, from which its name is taken, was planted by earlier resident Mr Perry (3). 'Perry' House was moved to Australiana Pioneer Village in 1969 by Silvio Biancotti, the first building to be relocated there (4). The Paull family [no connection to Samuel Paul] bought the property years later and leased it out.
(1) Yvonne Browning letter to Marj. Clarke, 31.3.1995 in file, Local Studies Collection, Hawkesbury City Library, Windsor.
(2) Early signage at Australiana Pioneer Village by Bill McLachlan.
(3) Graham Paull 19.6.2002.
(4) Silvio Biancotti 20.6.2002.
B3. Atkin's Blacksmith's Shop (M.C. file)
Originally sited in Wilberforce on the SW corner of the Singleton (Putty) Road and King Street, only a couple of hundred metres from its present relocation site, this blacksmith's shop was operated by George Atkins from 1862 when he rented it as a new shop from David Wenban, son of Wilberforce schoolmaster John Wenban. George Atkins, a blacksmith of exceptional ability, in 1874 invented the single furrow steel plough, which revolutionised Hawkesbury cropping. At the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879 he received a 'commended' Award for his entries of a plough and scuffler. Atkins' single furrow plough was highly regarded and late in the nineteenth century there was scarcely a farm in the district that did not have an Atkins plough. George's son William and grandson William were blacksmiths in the same premises spanning over 80 years. When the business closed down in 1943 (1). Of particular interest is the original stone quenching trough used by the Atkins family, located at the rear of the Blacksmiths shop (2). An Atkins plough is on display in the Blacksmith's shop at the Australiana Pioneer Village today. This whole section of the original shop was moved intact to the Village in May 1970 by Silvio Biancotti (3).
(1) D. Bowd, Hawkesbury Journey, Library of Australian History, Sydney, 1986, p. 104; Early signage by Bill McLachlan APV.
(2) M. Clarke 21.6.2002.
(3) Silvio Biancotti 20.6.2002.
B4. Cartwright Cottage (927 East Kurrajong Road (Section 1) East Kurrajong)
This cottage was built in the 1870s at East Kurrajong by Alfred Francis Case (b.1847) a pioneer of Bull Ridge now East Kurrajong, for John Edward Cartwright (Mycock) and his wife, Julia Anne (nee Riley), who is now referred to as 'Old Granny Cartwright' by some members of the family. Her daughter Laura b.1899 later conducted a mail service from a room on the end of her verandah, walking to Comleroy to pick it up. If no mail arrived the sign on the door read 'Sorry no male today' (2). She is credited with being the owner of an early pistol licence which is still in the family today. Three Cartwrights who have Aboriginal ancestry born in Cartwright Cottage are alive today; Lorna, Gweneth and Fay (3). Cartwright Cottage was moved in one piece to the Village in 1970 by Silvio Biancotti (4).
(1) Births Deaths and Marriage Register; Max and Barry Wade 22.6.2002.
(2) Early signage Australiana Pioneer Village by Bill McLachlan.
(3) Max and Barry Wade 22.6.2002 (descendants).
(4) Silvio Biancotti 20.6.2002.
B5. Bowd's Sulky Shed
This outbuilding was originally located only one hundred metres away from its resited location, on the property of the Bowd family adjacent to the Village in Rose Street Wilberforce. It stood in the paddock immediately behind the Village's present wagon shed (1) having been built in 1874 by Edward Bowd, a descendant of William Bowd who arrived in the colony in 1816 (2). Originally this was a two storey barn with a skillion on one side. Also on the Bowd property originally but now demolished were a weatherboard house and another barn (3).
(1) P. Caine, n.d.
(2) Kerry Gannell from D.Bowd, 1980s.
(3) Kerry Gannell, 2.6.2002.
B6. The Bee House
Built at McGraths Hill c.1879 as part of a tearoom and shop complex, this building was used as a retail outlet for honey made from Box-Gum and from Patterson's Curse, now branded a weed but marketed as 'Salvation Jane' (1). This building was brought to the Australian Pioneer Village complete, around 1970 by Brian Buttsworth, Marj. Clarke's brother (2).
(1) M.Clarke, The Australian Pioneer Village Story, Australiana Pioneer Village, Wilberforce, 1992, p. 20;
(2) Marj. Clarke 21.6.2002.
B7: Mangold Cottage
This was built by Gottlieb Mangold (II) as a temporary home on the corner of Garfield Road West and Penprase Street, Riverstone for his family around 1886. It remained owned by the Mangold family until 1986 when it was resited at the Village (1) Gottlieb Mangold (I), his father, was a vine dresser in Germany who had emigrated to Australia with his wife Eva by the ship "Peru' arriving in May 1855 (2). Gottlieb (II) was born in 1861 (3). The family was living at South Creek, like another German vine dresser emigrant William Emert (4). Previously, the Mangold family, like that of William Emert had lived in Mulgoa possibly working for the Cox family. German families were in New South Wales by the 1850s for large landowners in the colony sought German expertise in their vineyards. Seventeen ships in that period had brought the Germans to the colony, most coming from Hamburg with up to 40 or 50 German vine dressers and their families aboard. Mr Bill Mangold who offered the house to Hawkesbury City Council for the Australiana Pioneer Village building remembers living there as a child with his grandmother, Phoebe the wife of Gottlieb II, after his grandfather's death. He, his brother and sister remained at the house for two or three years, and the family at that time had associations with the Schofield's vineyard nearby. Later when he was married, Bill and his own family lived there whilst building their own home elsewhere in Riverstone. In 1983 a mini-cyclone tore off the roof and verandah, in which state it was sketched, as a vernacular building in danger of being lost by well known recorder of Sydney's slab building heritage, Mrs Daphne Kingston. Bill Mangold repaired the roof reusing the old iron where possible, so that only the front section had to be replaced with new iron (1).
(1) Bill Mangold 18.6.2002; D. Kingston, Early Slab Buildings of the Sydney Region, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst 1985, p. 22.
(2) Immigration Department, Assisted Immigrants Inwards to Sydney, State Records New South Wales, 4/4953, microfilm reel 2471.
(3) Birth Certificate, Gottlieb Mangold.
(4) J. Barkley in Emerton is Ours, Emerton Public School, 1995, pp. 61-63.
B8: Riverstone Police Station
Built by 1888, this small station originally was in Garfield Road Riverstone (Windsor and Richmond Gazette 21.7.1888). It was a small wooden building measuring 10 feet by 8.5 feet by 10 feet, and would have been used for interviews and to allow the police officer to complete paperwork. It had no cells or holding facilities.
The district policeman was based at Rouse Hill and he used this building when in Riverstone. When a larger police station was built on the Riverstone site in 1891/92, the small original room continued as an office. The new station consisted of a house with cells at the back (1).
The location of the original Riverstone Police Station can be seen on a 1947 extension plan of the 1890s building and on a Department of Public Works plan of 1959, located at the front of the block facing Railway Terrace on the North-West side (R. Phillis 3.6.2002). It was relocated to Australiana Pioneer Village around 1972 or 1973 for Mawsons, the then owners, by Silvio Biancotti (2).
(1) Rosemary Phillis, Riverstone and District Historical Society Inc. letter to M. Clarke 3.6.2002; M. Nichols, 21.6.2002.
(2) Silvio Biancotti, 20.6.2002.
B9: Case Cottage
Like Cartwright Cottage this dwelling at East Kurrajong Road (Section 2) formerly known as Bull Ridge, East Kurrajong was built by a member of the Case family. Herbert James Case who built it, in 1896 at the time of his marriage to Catherine Hornery, was the son of Alfred Case (see Cartwrights Cottage) (1). Herbert had been born at East Kurrajong, just down from the school and always lived in the district. He became a farmer, self-taught in building skills amongst a family who over two generations did most of the early building in East Kurrajong (2). This was not the only talent of Herbert, or indeed the Case family generally, for once a month Herbert and the family formed a band to enliven the district families' get-togethers. Herbert himself played the fiddle (which instrument is still in the Case family), and grandson Kelvin recalls the latter years in which dances were held there when he, as a small boy, saw Herbert's brother Jack play the concertina and his son Matthew play the accordion. The Case family's involvement in these entertainments was even more integral than providing the music for the dances, for they also provided the venue (3). Case Cottage, like some of the other cottages built by the family, was special in the district, purpose built with a view to this community use, for the centre wall is completely removable so dances could be held in the small cottage (4). The signage used to advertise some dances was: 'Dance. All welcome Saturday 8pm till 2am. In Case Cottage at Bull Ridge. Dancing Free - Bring your own food basket and drinks, Good Dance Time Orchestra Herb Case Violin, Art Overton accordion. Best Square Dance and Buffet. Ladies without transport contact Mrs Jim Packer with her 4 wheel coach (5). Case Cottage was the third or fourth dwelling relocated to Australiana Pioneer Village being moved in March 1970 by Silvio Biancotti intact (6).
(1) Births, Deaths and Marriages Index; Dawn and Kelvin Case 16.6.2002, 20.6.2002.
(2) Cathy McHardy 21.6.2002 personal research from SRNSW School Files 5/15155.1; Max and Barry Wade, 22.6.2002.
(3) Dawn and Kelvin Case, 16.6.2002, 20.6.2002.
(4) Max and Barry Wade, 22.6.2002.
(5) Early Signage at Australiana Pioneer Village by Bill McLachlan.
(6) Silvio Biancotti, 20.6.2002.
B10: Riverstone General Store
Originally this building was a general store located on the southern side of Garfield Road, Riverstone approximately today where the Liquor Barn is now. It was built about 1890 and is probably the shop in which Norm Conway set up a hair-dressing business between 1914 and 1925. A Mr Edwards took over the lease followed a couple of years later by Tommy Freeman. The Blair family who took over the shop in 1929, conducted their fruit and vegetable business there for over 30 years. It closed in 1960. It was transferred to the Village as one of the original group of buildings acquired by Bill McLachlan in around 1969 having been empty for almost ten years.
(1) R. Phillis, Riverstone and District Historical Society Inc. letter to M. Clarke, 2.6.2002.
B11: St. Matthews Church, Upper Macdonald
St. Matthews Church, Upper Macdonald Road, Upper Macdonald was newly built on land donated by Edward Archer Bailey by May 1900 when the Bishop of Newcastle toured the St Albans parish and conducted on 'afternoon services at the new church, Upper McDonald'. The Bishop also conducted services at that time in St Philip's Church about twelve kilometres further north along Upper Macdonald Road (1). St Philip's Church is still extant and in use in the Upper Macdonald Valley but St Mathews ceased to operate sometime between 1952 and 1956, and was taken to Australiana Pioneer Village in 1970. Confusion seems to have existed in the labelling of this church at the APV with current signage still incorrectly proclaiming it to be St Philip's (2). Mrs Laurel Bailey, grand-daughter of Edward A. Bailey, has Christening certificates for two of her children in 1948 and 1951 that confirm the resited church was indeed St Matthew's and believes the confusion arose because there was never any formal identification sign on the church during its use at Upper Macdonald between 1900 and 1951.
Edward A. Bailey died in 1921, leaving his property including the land on which the church was sited to his son Oscar Archer Bailey, Mrs Laurel Bailey's father (2).
The church had belonged at times to the Sydney Diocese and at others to the Newcastle Diocese. The last minister at the church, J. B. Neville lived in the Rectory at St. Albans and travelled between the four churches in the Macdonald Valley. On the 1st and 3rd Sundays he conducted services at the central St Albans Church on the 2nd and 4th Sundays he alternated morning and afternoon between St Mathew's Church and St Philip's churches, Upper Macdonald. On the fifth Sunday (when occurring) a service was held at the church on the Wollombi side of the St Albans Common (2).
(1) Hawkesbury Gazette 12.5.1900.
(2) Laurel Bailey 16.6.2002.
B12: The Marsden Park Schoolhouse
This building was under construction in March 1889, having originally been suggested 1886, but not receiving recommendation until October 1888. The school opened in July 1889 with five boys and five girls as pupils but within four weeks the enrolment had risen to 18 boys and 9 girls, and by the end of 1889 it had an enrolment of 48 of whom 28 regularly attended (1).
The schoolroom plan is by W. E. Kemp, Architect and was designed as an 8th Class (small) school able to give accommodation for 40 pupils under the space formula of the revolutionary Public Instruction Act of 1880, at a cost of (Pounds)228.5.3 (2).
The design of the Marsden Park Schoolhouse was so quintessentially official school design for the period that a sketch of this Marsden Park Schoolhouse was published in the annual report of the Minister of Education to Parliament in 1890, romanticised by curling smoke from the chimney and a sylvan landscape (1).
James Mackay an unmarried teacher in his thirties who had come from another small school as a half-time teacher there on the lower Hawkesbury River was the first teacher (1).
The building was resited at the Australiana Pioneer Village in 1969 by Silvio Biancotti the second building to be set up in the Village. It was transported in one piece except for the hat room, which was reattached at the Village (3).
(1) Marsden Park School Centenary Book 1889-1981, Marsden Park School, 1989, pp, 9, 12, 13.
(2) Figure 1, Marsden Park School Centenary Book 1889-1989, pp. 14.
(3) Silvio Biancotti, 20.6.2002.
B13: Mitchell Cottage (originally called 'East Lynne')
Mr Ern Mitchell built this dwelling in Crooked Lane, North Richmond (1) around the mid to late 1890s (2). Like the previous generation of his family. Ern was a skilled bullock team driver, employed as a road builder and is credited with constructing the main streets of Richmond using his team and a single furrow plough (2). Ern was also involved in the 1908 resiting of a church to the corner of Comleroy and Single Ridge Roads, using a specially constructed dray drawn by 35 bullocks (3). This building was one of the early resitings carried out by Bill McLachlan for the opening of 'the Village' in 1970 (4).
(1) M. Clarke, The Australiana Pioneer Village Story, APV, Wilberforce, 1992; Ken Shepherd 21.6.2002.
(2) M. Clarke 21.6.2002.
(3) V. Webb Kurrajong: an early History, author, 1980, p. 62.
(4) Silvio Biancotti 20.6.2002.
B14: 'Kenso' Cottage
Originally built between 1890(?) and 1920s in Ocean Street, Kogarah NSW, this cottage was bought by Mr Jack Griffiths, a Kensington dentist, and removed for him to Freemans Reach in 1950 or 1951 by Mr Harvey Fotheringham who ran a fleet of trucks transporting market produce to Sydney. He brought the cottage back in sections: each wall, flooring, roof iron, rafters separately. Jack inherited the land at Freemans Reach from his brother Jerry Griffiths who had operated an orchard there. The loquat tree still growing at the front of the property was planted by Jack in the 1950s in front of his resited cottage (1). Jack became the local dentist which he visited his brother or resided in the cottage at Freemans Reach. Marj. Clarke recalls that Jack Griffiths came to her house, at Earle Street Wilberforce in 1943 to attend to her father's teeth in the dining room, while the Bushell children including Marj. watched (2).
The resiting of houses and other buildings into the district or within the district has a long tradition in the Hawkesbury area both before and after the formation of Australiana Pioneer village. 'Kenso' cottage was moved intact to the Village by Silvio Biancotti in 1970 (3).
(1) Harvey Fotheringham, 20.6.2002, 22.6.2002, M.Clarke, The Australiana Pioneer Village Story, 1992, p.15.
(2) M. Clarke, 17.6.2002.
(3) Silvio Biancotti 20.6.2002.
B15. George Hastwell's House and Sackville North Post Office
The house now on the Australiana Pioneer Village site was originally located on the south side of Sackville Ferry Road, immediately south-west of the still extant Sackville North School of Arts, built in 1914. For many years, until his death in 1943, George Hastwell a well-known resident of the area, lived there, certainly in the 1930s and probably much earlier in the century (1). The cottage, is believed by local people to date from the 1890s, a date consistent with its fabric. In the 1930s it was already 'old and weather-beaten' (2).
Hastwell was the contractor who boated children from their homes or across the Hawkesbury River to and from Sackville Reach (later Sackville North) School from 1905 until at least 1914 (3). His handwriting and ability to compose letters show him a well-education man, while his character was vouched for by the Sackville Reach Schoolmaster, Mr Britten, who described him as 'a thoroughly reliable and trustworthy person' (4). Later Hastwell was the non-official postmaster for Sackville North, for an unknown number of years from at latest the 1930s up to his death in 1943 (1).
The post office at Sackville North had been conducted from 1906 until 1914 by the schoolmaster's wife, Mrs Britten. She initially operated from the school residence, now part of Brewongle Field Studies Centre, but between 1911 and 1914 her husband built a separate galvanised iron post office adjacent to the residence (5). Amy Munro, the wife of the next schoolmaster then became postmistress until her husband did in 1919 (Inspector, 6.6.1919, School Files). At some date after 1919 the small galvanised post office building was moved to behind the cottage on Sackville Ferry Road (2).
Hastwell became postmaster and is likely to have used this iron building initially, but in 1934 a new weatherboard post office room was added to the north-east side of his cottage by other Sackville residents, who had formed a Sackville North Post Office League, with R. T. Madden as secretary. This new post office 2.5 x 3.2 metres (8 by 10 feet), was described in 1955 as 'alike to an old shed. It is of wooden structure, and lined with jute bagging .. it is a lock up building' (6). This is the post office run by George Hastwell until 1943 and then by Miss Doris Alcorn, appointed postmistress in July 1943. Miss Alcorn, whose later married name was Mrs Noble, used the weatherboard building for postal business and for the sale of confectionary, tobacco and soft drinks. Later by 1955 she used the cottage as a tearoom (7).
The post office moved from Hastwell's former premises in 1956 to a new general store built in fibro-cement, also on Sackville Ferry Road, some 1650 metres to the north. The store-keeper cum postmaster was initially Ernest Buttfield from 1956 until 1957 and from 1963 until 1975 Mrs June Bonser ran the store and post office (8).
The Hastwell cottage and its adjoining 1934 weatherboard post office became derelict after 1956 and in 1970 both were moved to the Australian Pioneer Village (7). The post office still contained its pigeon holes and other postal equipment used in the time of George Hastwell and Doris Noble from 1934 to 1956.
(1) J. J. Olsen, Sackville North, Australian Post Office, Historical Office, Public Relations Section, 1974, p. 5; Russell Turnbull 14.6.2002.
(2) Russell Turnbull 14.6.2002.
(3) Rick Fleming, Sackville North Public School, Sackville North 1992;
(4) Britten, 11.7.1905, State Records, New South Wales, School Files, Sackville Reach School, 5/1756OA.
(5) Olsen, p. 3-5; Arndell, 16.5.1911 State Records, New South Wales, School Files, Sackville Reach School 5/1756OA; Russell Turnbull 14.6.2002.
(6) Olsen, p. 8.
(7) June Bonser, 14.6.2002.
(8) Bonser, 14.6.2002; Olsen p.10.
B16: Kurrajong Railway Goods Shed
This building stood cheek by jowl with the passenger station building on the Kurrajong platform. The 1929 timetable shows a goods train ran separate to the passenger service each weekday, in addition to one mixed goods - passenger train, but these services operated for the entire 26 years of the line from 1926 to July 1952. Arthur Poole remembers the goods truck on the combined train was drawn from Kurrajong to Richmond by the steam engine 'Pansy' where it was added to the goods train departing Richmond for Sydney, until after the second World War when road transportation became preferred (1).
In 1882 after almost twenty years of operation of the Blacktown-Richmond line, the residents of Kurrajong were agitating for the railway to be extended from Richmond to Kurrajong (2), thus, when the present North Richmond bridge was built in 1904 (3) provision was made on it for a line to be added on the downstream side. Construction of the railway to Kurrajong commenced in 1923 (4). Like the original line to Richmond, It was seen as primarily a way for farmers and orchardists to get their goods quickly to the Sydney markets (5).
Kurrajong Railway Station was located below Woodhill's Store, and was one of seven in the bush, on the track to Richmond (Kurrajong, Duffy's, Nurri, Thompson's Ridge, Kemsley's, Red Cutting, Phillip). The half hour trip to Richmond cost 1/- and the train would stop anywhere along the line boarding by a ladder lowered by the guard (6). Prospect County Council purchased Kurrajong Station the site and built a sub-station on it. The concrete passenger station building stands at the Lithgow Zig-Zag Railway (8) whilst the wooden goods shed was taken to Australiana Pioneer Village by Silvio Biancotti in 1970 in one piece (9).
(1) Pansy: The Richmond to Kurrajong Railway, tourist Railway Association, Kurrajong, 2000, photo J. L. Buckland p. 18, photo R. Boyd 21, photo H. J. Wright p. 24, pp. 4, 16, 20, 23.
(2) V. Webb, Kurrajong: an Early History, author, 1980, p. 21.
(3) R. Ian Jack, Exploring The Hawkesbury, Kangaroo Press, 1986, p. 163.
(4) V. Webb, pp. 23, 24, 27.
(5) J. Barkley and M. Nichols, Hawkesbury 1794-1994: The First 200 Years of the Second Colonisation, Hawkesbury City Council, 1994, pp. 143-146.
(6) V. Webb, pp. 28, 29.
(7) Pansy: The Richmond to Kurrajong Railway, pp. 20, 22, 23.
(8) Silvio Biancotti, 20.6.2002.
B17: The Bank of Australasia (Rose Street, Wilberforce)
Originally this building stood on the NE corner of Rose Street and Wilberforce Street, Its contents were donated by the ANZ Bank. It was Mr Jack Greentree's garage and was located straight across from the motel in Rose Street. Next door neighbour Aub Voller remembers it from the 1930s, but believes it could be older (1).
(1) Aub Voller, 2.6.2002.
B18: Aikin Hut[portrait Of Wm Jnr. Phot in situ]
This was the last slab hut remaining in West Pennant Hills when it was moved to the Village. It had originally been built by William Aikin to the north of present-day Aiken Road in 1875. The Aiken family descended from West-Indian John Aiken who had arrived in NSW in 1796, a free man who was a carpenter by trade. He rented a farm near Parramatta and applied for a grant in 1820, which resulted the following year in 30a in the Field of Mars being given to him, registered in 1831. He, his wife and children settled in West Pennant Hills as we now know the area, where John built a slab hut. His son William was killed in an accident in 1869, and 'William junior and brother Charles stayed on the farm with their mother and, when William married Elizabeth Bowerman, a local girl, in 1875, he built a slab hut on an acre of his mother's land and mainly worked on orchards in the district'. He died in 1933.
The area on which John's house was built was known as 'Dixieland' a local reference to the Aikens (both John and probably his wife Francis) being coloured, probably from the West Indies and 'Dixie Lane' is now Aiken Road.
(1) G. Millhouse, The Settlers of West Pennant Hills Valley 1799 Onwards, Hills District Historical Society, 1987, pp. 33-40. |