Category: Cowpastures Gentry

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Cultural and heritage tourism adds $6.4 million a year to the local economy  

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Camden Museum and Alan Baker Art Gallery add over $1.7 million annually

New research shows that cultural and heritage tourism is worth around $6.4 million per year to the Camden LGA.

The story of the Camden-Campbelltown train, the locomotive affectionately known as Pansy, generates a considerable amount of nostalgia amongst day-trippers and other visitors to the Camden LGA. The railway engineering heritage still visible across the former train route includes this bridge, railway cuttings and other engineering works. This image shows the train approaching crossing the Nepean River railway bridge in 1910. (SLNSW)

This figure is drawn from data sourced from Destination NSW (2018), which states that the average daily spend of a day tripper was $140 per day. The proportion of day-trippers that constitute cultural and heritage visitors is 9% of all day-tripper visitors.

According to .idCommunity (2023) demographic resources, in 2020-2021, there were 509,000 day-trippers to the Camden LGA per year. Cultural and heritage visitors comprise around 45,000 day-trippers of the total number of day-tripper visitors annually. These day-trippers are worth $6.4 million to the Camden economy.

Within these figures, the volunteer-run Camden Museum is one of the most prominent destinations with around 6000 day-tripper visitors per year, worth around $840,000 to the local economy each year. The Alan Baker Art Gallery has about 6500 day-tripper visitors annually, worth around $910,000 to the local economy annually.

The Alan Baker Art Gallery is located in the former gentleman’s townhouse of Macaria, which is a valuable part of the built heritage of the Camden Heritage Conservation Area. This gallery and the building form part of the John Street heritage precinct, which includes the former police barracks, courthouse and Sarah Tiffan’s cottage and the former CBC Bank. (ABAG, 2023)

What is cultural and heritage tourism?

 Destination NSW (2019) defines cultural and heritage tourism as:

Ted Silberberg explains cultural and heritage tourism as ‘a tool of economic development that achieves economic growth through attracting visitors from outside a host community, who are motivated wholly or in part by interest in the historical, artistic, scientific or lifestyle/heritage offerings of a community, region, group or institution’

Source: Cultural Tourism and Business Opportunities for Museums and Heritage sites, Tourism Management, Ted Silberberg, 1995.
St John’s Church and Cemetery is one of the most important cultural and heritage sites in the Camden LGA. Dating from the 1840s and funded by the Macarthur family of Camden Park, the church dominates the town and the Nepean River floodplain from its ridge-top location. The church is visible from many points around the area. The vistas from Camden Park House and Garden are an integral part of the Cowpastures story and the gentry estates that dominated the area until the town was settled in the 1840s. The church is critical in the area’s sense of place and community identity. (I Willis, 2021)

How important is cultural and heritage tourism?

Destination NSW (2019) quotes research from Tourism Australia that

 ‘rich history and heritage’ was the 4th most important factor for the Domestic market when choosing a holiday destination, and 6th most important for the International market.  

Source: Consumer Demand Project, Tourism Australia, 2018

According to the National Trust of Australia (2018):

Globally, heritage tourism has become one of the largest and fastest growing tourism sectors, with the United Nations World Tourism Organisation estimating that more than 50%[1] of tourists worldwide are now motivated by a desire to experience a country’s culture and heritage[2]

Of all international visitors to Australia in 2017, 43% participated in a cultural activity and 33.9% in a heritage activity. Cultural and heritage segments have grown at 7.5% and 11.2% respectively over the past four years.

Source: 1. Tourism Research Australia, IVS YE September 2017. 2. United Nations World Trade Organisation, 2016 Annual Report

Cultural and Heritage Tourism in Camden

The Camden township is a site rich in heritage and history and a visitor destination with huge potential.

The Camden LGA is an active participant in cultural and heritage tourism with a host of visitor attractions in the and is outlined in the Macarthur Visitors Guide (MVG 2020). The guide is complemented by the Camden Heritage Walking Tour guide (CHWT 2023), the Camden Scenic Drive (CSD 2020) and the Visit Camden Official Visitor Guide (CVIC 2022).

Camden Council is responsible for the most critical cultural and heritage tourism planning instrument. The Camden Heritage Conservation Area, Argyle Street, and John Street precincts are within it. (DCP 2019) The DCP (2019) outlines the conservation area’s character elements, objectives and controls.

Camden Council (2023) provides valuable information on its Heritage Planning webpage and lists all the local heritage items on the local and state heritage inventory (CC 2020).

Storytelling

Within cultural and heritage tourism, storytelling is an essential feature of the visitor experience.

Oliver Serrat (2008) defines storytelling as

The vivid description of ideas, beliefs, personal experiences, and life-lessons through stories or narratives that evoke powerful emotions and insights.

https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/27637/storytelling.pdf

The National Trust of Australia (2018) maintains that storytelling is a new global trend and

found that what encourages a visitor to a certain destination is its ability to engage in unforgettable and truly inspiring experiences that touch visitors in an emotional way and connects them with special places, people and cultures.

Source:  Tropical Tablelands Tourism, Hero Experiences Guidebook (2015)

Camden storyteller Ian Willis (2023a) has written extensively about the local history of the Camden area, with an outstanding example being the Camden History Notes blog. He has published many other articles and stories in newspapers, newsletters, journals and books (2023b).

The outstanding storytelling organisation in the Camden LGA is the Camden Historical Society (CHS 2023a). The society’s activities include the biannual journal Camden History (CHS 2023b), monthly public lectures, and numerous book publications. (CHS 2023c). The Camden Museum archives provide much raw material for local storytelling. (CHS 2023d)

The Camden Museum Library building is one of the many cultural and heritage tourism sites in the Camden LGA. The archives of the Camden Museum provide much of the raw material for Camden storytelling. The museum holds many artefacts that add to local stories and provide a rich experience for museum visitors. The Camden Library occupies the building in John Street Camden and has a rich collection of local interviews and stories on its website. The building is home to the Camden Area Family History Society and its archives. The Camden Museum Library building is part of the rich built heritage of the John Street precinct and is an example of adaptive reuse. (I Willis, 2008)

The Camden Area Family History Society (CAFHS 2023) is a crucial storytelling organisation which draws on raw material from extensive archives and keen volunteer members.

The Back Then feature of The District Reporter provides the most popular storytelling platforms. Here local storytellers include Ian Willis (2023c), John Wrigley, Julie Wrigley and others who tell interesting and exciting local stories about the past in each issue.

The Back Then section of The District Reporter 18 November 2022.

References

CAFHS 2023, Camden Area Family History Society. CAFHS. https://www.cafhs.org.au/

CC 2019, Camden Development Control Plan 2019. Camden Council. https://dcp.camden.nsw.gov.au/

CC 2020, Local and State Heritage Items listed under: State Environment Planning Policy (Sydney Regions Growth Centres)2006, & Camden Local Environment Plan 2010. Camden Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/assets/pdfs/Planning/Heritage-Conservation/Heritage-Items-List-September-2020-v1.pdf

CC 2023, Heritage Planning. Camden Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/strategic-planning/heritage-planning/

CHS 2023a, Camden History. Camden Historical Society. http://www.camdenhistory.org.au/index.html

CHS 2023b, Camden History, the journal of the Camden Historical Society. Camden Historical Society. http://www.camdenhistory.org.au/chsjournal.html

CHS 2023c, Publications For Sale At The Camden Museum. Camden Historical Society. http://www.camdenhistory.org.au/Publications%20for%20Sale%20%2022.5.2018.pdf

CHS 2023d, Camden Museum Archive Catalogue by Category. Camden Historical Society. http://www.camdenhistory.org.au/LibraryJune2008.pdf

CHWT 2023, Camden Heritage Walking Tour. Pamphlet. Camden Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/assets/Uploads/Camden-Heritage-Walking-Tour-2023.pdf

CSD 2020, Camden Scenic Drive. Pamphlet. Camden Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/assets/Tourism/Camden-Scenic-Drive.pdf

DCP 2019, 2.16.4 Camden Heritage Conservation Area. Camden Council. https://dcp.camden.nsw.gov.au/general-land-use-controls/environmental-heritage/camden-heritage-conservation-area/

Destination NSW 2019, Cultural and Heritage Tourism in NSW, Year Ended December 2018. NSW Government, Sydney. https://www.destinationnsw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/cultural-and-heritage-tourism-to-nsw-snapshot-ye-de-2018.pdf

Ian Willis 2023a, Camden History Notes, Some Stories of Place. Camden History Notes. https://camdenhistorynotes.com/

Ian Willis 2023b, Ian Willis Historian. Author. https://ianwillis.wordpress.com/

Ian Willis 2023c, Newspaper Articles. Academia.com.  https://independent.academia.edu/IanWillis/Newspaper-Articles

idCommunity 2023, Camden Council area, Tourism visitor summary. Camden Council. https://economy.id.com.au/camden/tourism-visitor-summary

MVG 2020, Macarthur Visitors Guide, Camden & Campbelltown. Camden Council & Campbelltown City Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/assets/Tourism/Macarthur-Visitors-Guide-2020.pdf

NTA 2018, Next Steps: Australian Heritage Tourism Directions Paper. National Trust, June. https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Australian-Heritage-Tourism-Directions-paper-.pdf

Olivier Serrat 2008, Storytelling. Knowledge Solutions. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/27637/storytelling.pdf

The District Reporter. https://www.tdr.com.au/

Tourism Research Australia 2020, Regional NSW Visitor Profile, Year Ending June 2019. Destination NSW. https://www.destinationnsw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/travel-to-regional-nsw-snapshot-jun-2019.pdf

CVIC 2022, Visit Camden Official Visitor Guide. Camden Visitor Information Centre, Elderslie.

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The Cowpastures’ English-styled-gentry and their private villages

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A certain type of Englishman

These Englishmen were also known as the Cowpastures gentry, a pseudo-self-styled-English gentry.

All men, they lived on their estates when they were not involved with their business and political interests in Sydney and elsewhere in the British Empire.

By the late 1820s, this English-style gentry had created a landscape that reminded some of the English countryside. This was particularly noted by another Englishman, John Hawdon.

There were other types of English folk in the Cowpastures, and they included convicts, women, and some freemen.

EstateExtent (acres)Gentry  (principal)
Abbotsford (at Stonequarry, later Picton)400 (by 1840 7,000)George Harper (1821 by grant)
Birling Robert Lowe
Brownlow Hill (Glendaruel)2000 (by 1827 3500)400 (by 1840, 7,000)
Camden Park2000 (by 1820s, 28,000)John Macarthur (1805 by grant, additions by grant and purchase)
Cubbady500Gregory Blaxland (1816 by grant)
Denbigh1100Charles Hook (1812 by grant), then Rev Thomas Hassall (1828 by purchase)
Elderslie (Ellerslie)850John Oxley (1816 by grant), then Francis Irvine (1827 by purchase), then John Hawdon (1828 by lease)
Gledswood (Buckingham)400John Oxley (1816 by grant), then Francis Irvine (1827 by purchase), then John Hawdon (1828 by lease)
Glenlee (Eskdale)3000William Howe (1818 by grant)
Harrington Park2000Gabriel Louis Marie Huon de Kerilliam (1810 by grant), then James Chisholm (1816 by purchase)
Jarvisfield (at Stonequarry, later Picton)2000Henry Antill (by grant 1821)
Kenmore600John Purcell (1812 by grant)
Kirkham1000William Campbell (1816 by grant), then Murdock Campbell, nephew (1827 by inheritance)
Macquarie Grove400Rowland Hassall (1812 by grant)
Matavai Farm200Jonathon Hassall (1815 by grant)
Maryland Thomas Barker
Narallaring Grange700John Oxley (1815 by grant), then Elizabeth Dumaresq (1858 by purchase)
Nonorrah John Dickson
Orielton1500William Hovell (1816 by grant), then Frances Mowatt (1830 by purchase)
Parkhall (at St Marys Towers)3810Thomas Mitchell (1834 by purchase)
Pomari Grove (Pomare)150Thomas Hassall (1815 by grant)
Raby3000Alexander Riley (1816 by grant)
Smeeton (Smeaton)550Charles Throsby (1811 by grant)
Stoke Farm500Rowland Hassall (1816 by grant)
Vanderville (at The Oaks)2000John Wild (1823 by grant)
Wivenhoe (Macquarie Gift)600Edward Lord (1815 by grant), then John Dickson (1822 by purchase)

This Charles Kerry Image of St Paul’s Anglican Church at Cobbitty is labelled ‘English Church Cobbitty’. The image is likely to be around the 1890s and re-enforces the notion of Cobbity as an English-style pre-industrial village in the Cowpastures (PHM)

Private villages in the Cowpastures

VillageFounder (estate)Foundation (Source)
CobbittyThomas Hassall (Pomari)1828 – Heber Chapel (Mylrea: 28)
CamdenJames and William Macarthur (Camden Park)1840 (Atkinson: Camden)
ElderslieCharles Campbell (Elderslie)1840 – failed  (Mylrea:35)
Picton (Stonequarry in 1841 renamed Picton in 1845)Henry Antill   (Jarvisfield)1841  (https://www.aussietowns.com.au/town/picton-nsw#:~:text=Origin%20of%20Name,at%20the%20Battle%20of%20Waterloo.)
WiltonThomas Mitchell (Parkhall)1842 – failed (https://www.towersretreat.org.au/history/park-hall-east-bargo-1841-1860)
The OaksMrs John Wild (Vanderville)1858 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oaks,_New_South_Wales)
MenangleJames and William Macarthur (Camden Park)1863 – arrival of railway (https://camdenhistorynotes.com/2014/02/16/menangle-camden-park-estate-village/)
   

Updated on 26 May 20223. Originally posted on 28 May 2022 as ‘The Englishmen of the Cowpastures’

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St John’s Church Camden, the soul of a country town

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The emotional heart of the town

On the hill overlooking the Camden town centre is a church building representing the community’s historic, moral and emotional heart, its sense of place. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the church represents the town’s soul, built below it on the Nepean River floodplain in the mid-19th century.

St John’s Church Camden (2005 I Willis)

A metaphor for the order and stability

The church is a metaphor for the order and stability it represented in the wilds of the colonial frontier. It was at the centre of the original proposal for the English-style village of Camden in the 1830s, along with a courthouse and a gaol.

For the Macarthurs of Camden Park estate, the church was the centre of their moral and spiritual conservatism. As part of similar early 19th English estate villages, the church represented the stability and order Macarthur required of the new community on their estate. More than this, the church was a central part of the landscape vistas of the village from Camden Park House.

James Macarthur (Belgenny Farm)

James Macarthur’s view of the world

According to Alan Atkinson, the church represented James Macarthur’s religious view of the world where faith emanated from the ‘joint initiative of all classes’. Macarthur maintained that ‘collective and mutual dependence’ was an essential part of the ‘Christian spirit’ that would be a ‘symbol of for their reliance on each other’. [i]

The church cause was promoted by James and William Macarthur, and they appealed to neighbours and employees for a fund to construct the church. By 1835 the Macarthurs subscribed £500 of a total of £644 from estate workers and neighbours.

The church’s building coincided with Governor Bourke’s  Church Act of 1836 which offered a subsidy for building churches in the New South Wales colony. Macarthur applied for a subsidy of £1000 of the total cost of £2500.[ii]

St John’s Church Camden around 1900 (Camden Images)

The church was constructed with local bricks and timbers and was consecrated in 1849. Hector Abrahams states that St John’s church:

In its architectural innovation and picturesque placement in a controlled landscape, it is among the most important parish churches in Australia.[iii]

Camden religious precinct

The church and its grounds are in a religious precinct that includes the rectory and stables (1859), church hall (1906), and a cemetery. While the church was initially proposed in a ‘classical’ style, it was eventually constructed in the Gothic Revival style, which became popular in Sydney then. Sydney architect Hector Abrahams maintains that St Johns was the first Gothic Revival church in the colony of New South Wales when it finished in 1844.

Gothic revival

Gothic revival looked back to the glory of the medieval period, in contrast to neo-classical styles, which were popular at the time. To its supporters, Gothic architecture was representative of Christian values that were being destroyed by the Industrial Revolution. Gothic architecture was aligned with the conservatism of the Macarthurs rather than the republicanism of the French and American revolutionary wars and neoclassicism. Its popularity was partly driven in the colony of New South Wales by the rebuilding of the British Houses of Parliament in 1834, which evoked a romantic age.

St John’s Church at the top of John Street overlooking the village of Camden around 1895 C Kerry (Camden Images)

Camden’s Englishness

Over the subsequent decades, St John’s church has represented Camden’s Englishness. Probably the first reference to St John’s church and its Englishness was in the Anglican newspaper, the Sydney Guardian when it stated

it’s graceful and really well proportioned spire presents a cheering object to the up country traveller, as it breaks the dull outline of bush hill carrying the mind back to scenes well remembered and deeply loved by all English hearted folk (Sydney Guardian quoted in Clive Lucas Stapleton & Partners, St. John’s Anglican Church Precinct Menangle Road, Camden Conservation Management Plan, 2004, Sydney, p.44)

In 1926 the church was at the forefront of the mind of Eldred Dyer, who wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that Camden was reminiscent of English parish church towns. He wrote that as he stepped out and walked around the town centre, he lifted his:

 eyes to the old church as it stands in beauty on its hill, and In a flash you are transported to some old English church town. In a moment, if you have understanding, you and in a flash you are transported to some old English church town.[iv]

To a travel writer for the Sydney Mail in 1926, the church was the dominant English-style landscape feature on a road trip through the area:.

the shapely and lofty steeple of its church raising itself above the copse of frees on the hilltop and giving the little township a quaintly European aspect.[v]

From its inception, the church has become central to all representations of the Camden township and what it means to be born and bred in the district. The church is the fundamental icon is the community’s sense of place and identity.

Vista of St John’s Church from the Nepean River Floodplain 1910 Postcard (Camden Images)

Church symbolism

The church symbolism is central in tourism literature, business promotions, stories of the town, its history, and other representations of the district.

The church continues to dominate the town centre skyline and the minds and hearts of all Camden folk. Here hoping that this continues for another century.

Notes

[i] Atkinson, Alan.  Camden / Alan Atkinson  Australian Scholarly Publishing North Melbourne, Vic  2008  http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy0904/2008431682.html  pp.30-32

[ii] Atkinson, Alan.  Camden / Alan Atkinson  Australian Scholarly Publishing North Melbourne, Vic  2008  http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy0904/2008431682.html  pp.30-32

[iii] Hector Abrahams, Christian church architecture, Dictionary of Sydney, 2010, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/christian_church_architecture, viewed 16 March 2017

[iv] Sydney Morning Herald (NSW: 1842 – 1954), Saturday 28 August 1926, page 9

[v] Sydney Mail (NSW: 1912 – 1938), Wednesday 11 August 1926, page 46

Camden’s St John’s Church and cemetery are located on the ridge overlooking the town centre (I Willis, 2021)

Updated on 13 May 2023. Originally posted on 16 March 2017.