There is a crying need for a local Camden Residential Heritage Style Guide. Why do other Local Government Areas in Australia have a Residential Style Guide for their heritage housing styles, but Camden does not.
Federation Camden is a period of growth from the dairy industry across the district represented by sturdy timber cottages (I Willis)
Camden is one of Australia’s most historic localities, yet newcomers and locals have to guess what a historically accurate guide to residential housing styles is.
The new Camden Region Economic Taskforce (CRET) is an opportunity to promote the historic and heritage nature of the local area. The Taskforce promotional material states that Camden LGA has a ‘unique history’ and that the aim of the CRET is to maintain ‘Camden’s unique historic heritage and natural environment’.
This is an opportunity to see if Camden Council is prepared to back its words with action. One easy way to do this would be to draw up a Residential Heritage Style Guide for the Local Government Area.
Camden heritage is a tourism drawcard to the local area. It creates jobs and business opportunities.
Carinya Cottage c1890 was an example of a Federation Edwardian Farm Cottage at Narellan, now demolished (Camden Historical Society)
creating the right environment to support the growth of business and industry (both existing and future).
Houses are an integral part of our daily lives. We live in them and take them for granted. But they are more than this. A house is a historical statement of its time. As history changes, so does the type of housing.
The CRET publicity states that the Camden LGA is a ‘rapidly growing area’ and is subject to change in the form of ‘rapid commercial and industrial development’. There needs to be an understanding, according to the CRET, of ‘our unique heritage’.
The final membership composition of the Camden Regional Economic Taskforce (CRET) was announced by Camden Mayor Symkowiak on 3 November 2017. The press release making the announcement states;
Anyone with enquiries about the taskforce can contact Council on 4654 7777 or email: CRET@Camden.nsw.gov.au.
There are a number of housing styles that have been identified by architects in Australia since colonial times. The major periods of the styles are: 1. Pre-colonial period 30,000 BCE – 1788 2. Old Colonial Period 1788 – c. 1840 3. Victorian Period c. 1840 – c. 1890 4. Federation Period c. 1890 – c. 1915 5. Inter-War Period c. 1915 – c 1940 6. Post–War Period c. 1940 – c. 1960. 7. Late Twentieth Century c. 1960 – c. 2000 8. Twenty–First Century c. 2000 – present. The Camden Local Government Area has residential buildings from most of these time periods.
Camden has a number of very good examples of town buildings from the Victorian era (I Willis)
The housing style of a particular location in the Camden or Narellan area gives the place a definite character and charm. It makes a place special and gives it a sense of its identity (Inter-war period along Menangle Road). The housing style will give the place its special qualities. The houses are a reflection of the times in which they were built.
The style is an indicator of the historical activities that have gone on in that area. It is a statement on changing tastes, lifestyles, social attitudes, cultural mores, and other factors (Inter-war cottages in Elizabeth Street and the use of colour glass in lead-light windows or the appearance of garages for the new motor cars of the day).
An example of modern Ranch style design from the early 1960s at 64 Macarthur Road Elderslie NSW, now demolished (I Willis 2010)
The housing style may be complemented by a garden and landscaping that reflects the tastes and lifestyles of the occupants of the building. Even gardens go through fashion trends (English-style gardens or native gardens).
The housing style says a lot about the occupants. Whether they were landed gentry, who owned one of the large estates in the area (Camden Park House, Brownlow Hill, Denbigh) or ordinary farmers who were making a living from a patch of ground (simple Federation weatherboard cottages like Yamba cottage in Narellan or the Duesbury family in Elizabeth Street or Hillview in Lodges Road).
The cottage known as Ben Linden at Narellan is an excellent example of the Edwardian period in the Camden Local Government Area (J Kooyman, 1997, Camden Images)
Camden has been remote from the urban influences that drove the high forms of these architectural styles. However, local people adapted the style to suit their purpose (simple Federation brick or timber farm cottages like in the Struggletown complex or Barsden Street). Sometimes, they created their own vernacular style that used local materials.
Some of these styles have more examples in the Camden area than others. This reflects the economic prosperity in the history of the area. The Inter-war period is one of these times. Between 1915 and 1940, the town grew based on the wealth generated by dairying and, later, coal. There are quite a number of inter-war buildings in Camden (Californian bungalows on Menangle Road and Murray Street). The post-war period of housing construction in Camden on Macquarie Avenue and along the Old Hume Highway was driven by the economic activities surrounding the mining of coal in the Burragorang Valley.
Each housing style illustrates cultural influences from Great Britain in the Victorian style or from the United States in the Inter-war period in the Californian Bungalow and the Ranch style in the post-war period.
Camden shows the influence of the American West Coast during the Inter-war period with Californian bungalows (I Willis)
The local housing stock shows the skills and expertise of local builders, such as Harry Willis or Walter Furner, who constructed much of the Interwar housing stock. Ephraim Cross supplied brick for some Federation-style cottages in the area, James English in the 1940s, and Ron McMIllan in the 1950s and 1960s.
Each period represents the modern and progressive ideas of its time. Each housing style is a representation of the hopes and aspirations of those who built the houses. Just as Oran Park housing developments are representative of the late 21st century, Harrington Park and Mt Annan are representative of the late 20th century. They have been driven by the urban expansion of the Sydney area.
Within each of the major time periods, there are a number of sub-divisions. There are around five major styles within the Inter-war period, such as the Californian bungalow (West Coast USA influence) or the Art Deco (European influences). The post-war period had around six style divisions ranging from austerity (which reflected the lack of availability of building materials and labour following WW2) to ranch style (which illustrated the post-war influences from West Coast American and Californian housing styles).
Yamba Cottage, Kirkham c. 1913, is an example of a Federation Edwardian farm cottage on Camden Valley Way at Narellan (Camden Images)
Camden needs a Residential Heritage Style Guide to consolidate all these factors and influences in the Local Government Area.
Why is it that other Local Government Areas around Australia can achieve this, but Camden cannot? What is the matter without local government representatives? Examples from other parts of Australia include
In Western Australia, the City of Subiaco has issued a document called Dwelling Style Indicator for bungalow architectural styles.
Camden Local Government Area has examples of housing stock that corresponds with each of these housing styles. What is wrong with Camden Council on this matter?
Success was achieved in 2023 when Camden Council commissioned City Plan Heritage to prepare the Camden Material and Colour Guide. While not exactly a residential style guide, it has many of its elements and provides useful and practical advice for owners of heritage properties, particularly for property owners within the Camden Heritage Conservation Area.
Updated on 21 December 2023. Originally posted on 11 February 2017 as ‘Camden Needs A Residential Heritage Style Guide’.
Ben Linden Narellan J Kooyman 1997 (Camden Images)
Ben Linden at Narellan
Ben Linden is an outstanding example of the Edwardian cottages across the local area.
Camden has quite a number of Edwardian cottages in the town area, on surrounding farms and in local district villages. They are typical of the early twentieth century landscape in the local district.
The housing style was evidence of the new found confidence of the birth of a new nation that borrowed overseas trends and adopted them to suit local conditions. These style of houses were a statement of the individualism and the national character.
The name Edwardian is loosely attached to cottages and buildings erected during the reign of Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. This period covers the time after the Federation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 when the six self-governing colonies combined under a new constitution. They kept their own legislatures and combined to form a new nation.
Yamba Cottage, KIrkham c. 1913 (Camden Images)
Australian architecture
Examples of Edwardian style cottages, including in and around Camden, were an Australian version of English Edwardian houses. Houses were plainer in detail, some with lead lighting in the front windows. Australian architecture was a response to the landscape and climate and the building style tells us about the time and the people who built them, how they lived and other aspects of Camden’s cultural heritage.
The Edwardian style of housing also includes a broad range of styles including Queen Anne, Federation, Arts and Crafts and Early Bungalow. These styles often tend to be asymmetrical with a projecting from gable, can be highly decorated with detailed work to gables, windows and verandahs. Edwardian style cottages often fit between 1900 and 1920, although the style extends beyond this period influencing the Interwar style housing.
Ben Linden
Ben Linden was constructed in 1919 by George Blackmore originally from North Sydney. George Blackmore, born in 1851 was married to Mary Ann and had seven children. George and his family lived in Ben Linden from 1921 to 1926. After this time he retired as a builder and eventually died in 1930.
George’s son George Sydney Blackmore, who was a merchant, lived across the road from Ben Linden in the 1920s with his wife Rena and two boys at Narellan Stores at 332 Camden Valley Way.
The house is located on Edward Lord’s 1815 grant of Orielton Farm, which in the 1830s was a reported as a productive farm mainly used for grazing. In the 1870s the hunting seemed to be a popular pastime with the pursuit of live hares by greyhound by owner William Rudd, when it was described as a grazier’s property.
By 1920 it was recorded that there ‘out-houses, building, erections and fences’ on the property.
Ben Linden has some of the typical Edwardian Cottage Detailing
A number of Camden Edwardian style timber cottages have a projecting room at the front of the cottage with a decorated gable, adjacent to a front verandah, with a hipped roof line. This housing style is often characterised by a chimney that was a flue for a kitchen fuel stove and chip copper in an adjacent laundry. In some houses plaster cornices were common, sometimes there were ceiling roses, skirting and architraves. A number of been restored while unfortunately many others have been demolished.
Some Camden Edwardian homes had walls of red brickwork, sometimes with painted render in part. While there are many examples in the local area of timber houses with square-edged or bull-nosed weatherboards. Sunshades over windows supported by timber brackets are also common across the local area.
Doors in Edwardian style houses typically have three or four panels, with entry doors sometimes having an ornamentation. Common windows were double hung while later cottages may have had casement windows especially in the 1920s. Some cottages have return L-shaped verandahs, sometimes roofed with corrugated bull-nosed iron. Verandah post brackets had a variety of designs, with lattice work not uncommon feature. Verandahs featured timber fretwork rather than Victorian style cast ion lacework for ornamentation. Front fences may have had pickets, or just a wire fence in country areas.
Typical Edwardian colour schemes range from apricot walls, gables and barge boards, with white lattice panelling, red roofing and green coloured windows, steps, stumps, ant caps.
64 John St Camden, early 20th century( J Riley)
Edwardian Cottage Garden
Gardens were often more complex than Victorian examples. Amongst Edwardian gardens growing lawns became popular. Sometimes had a small tree in the front yard which could frame the house and might separate it from adjacent houses. Common trees included magnolia, elm, tulip tree or camellias, while shrubs and vines might have been agapanthus, agave, St John’s Wort, plumbago, standard roses, begonias, day lily, jasmine and sometimes maidenhair ferns.
Window detailing Camden Edwardian Cottage Elderslie (I Willis)
Camden Edwardian Cottage
In the March 2014 edition of Camden History Joy Riley recalls the Edwardian cottages in John Street. Joy Riley vividly remembers growing up as a child and calling one of these cottages her home. ‘I lived at 66 John Street for the first 40 years of my life before moving to Elderslie with my husband Bruce Riley. The two rooms of 66 John Street were built by the first John Peat, Camden builder, to come to Camden. In the 1960s I had some carpet put down in my bedroom, the floor boards were so hard, as they only used tacks in those days to hold carpet, the carpet just kept curling up.’ She says, ‘The back of the house was built by my grandfather, William Dunk. They lived next door at 64 John Street. He also built the Methodist Church at Orangeville or Werombi.
Cooks Garage in Argyle Street Camden the route of the Hume Highway c.1936 (Camden Images)
Camden Modernism
One of the hidden parts of the history of Camden is the influence of modernism. Few in the community know much about it at all. Yet it has an important influence on the town in a variety of ways from domestic and commercial architecture to host of other areas. Modernism is a vague term that describes a philosophical period from the mid-1800s to the mid-20th century
Camden was not isolated from global trends and cultural forces and the trends around modernism are part of this story. The forces of modernism shaped the world were influenced by industrial growth, the growth of cities and the First World War. The Great War and the Russian Revolution challenged ideas from the past and the failure of the status quo. The senseless slaughter of the First World War challenged the moral authority of progress from the Enlightenment.
Many supporters of modernism in Camden and across the world rejected the certainties of the Enlightenment and the dogmas of religious belief. Modernism influenced art, music, architecture, social organisation, daily life and the sciences.
Major events during this period included the development of the railway, the The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, the building of engineering structures like the Brooklyn Bridge (1883) and the Eiffel Tower (1889), the innovation of the electric telegraph from 1837, the adoption of standard time by British railway companies from 1845 and the invention of photography.
Modern ideas in art also began to appear more frequently in commercials and logos, an early example of which, from 1919, is the famous London Underground logo designed by Edward Johnston. The skyscraper is the archetypal modernist building. There was the emergence of the Bauhaus School and Art Nouveaux. A more sinister reality was emerging on the Continent, in the form of Nazi art and Soviet agit-prop. Only Art Deco, a rather sleek design style aimed at architecture and applied art, expressed any confidence in the future. There was the rise of fascism, the Great Depression and the march towards the Second World War.
The period of modernism includes the Victorian period, the Edwardian period and extends to include the interwar period of the 20th century. During the Edwardian period Camden was influenced by the dairy revolution, which saw innovations in the dairy industry. While the economic development and material prosperity of the interwar period was driven by the emerging Burragorang Valley coal industry.
Fashion parade illustrating changes in modernism in Camden
Modernism and changes in fashion
Shock horror – women show their legs and wear pants
Changes in fashion through modernity, including in Camden, were representative of changes and continuities in society. The changes were brought by the Industrial Revolution and the technology that it spawned and probably the greatest of these was the railway and in the 20th century, the motor car.
The railways were the greatest revolution of the early modern period and created mass movement of people, regular timetables and triggered the appearance of mass tourism. Steam ships hastened this and Camden folk regularly travelled to the metropolitan centre of the Empire in London.
The growth of industrial society and capitalism brought increased wealth and increased leisure time, entertainment and personal freedom. Mass culture clashed with high culture and the First World War brought the horrors of mechanised warfare.
Many new pastimes were brought by new inventions that included the bicycle, the movies, the motor car, the wireless, the telegraph, the aeroplane and the milk bar. The popularity of the bicycle gave women increased freedom of movement which was represented by the fashions they wore while cycling. There was the need for increased freedom of movement, a new social force had arrived.
Young folk in Camden went to the movies at the Star Empire Theatre and later the Paramount Cinema. They were exposed to the latest fashions in clothing, motor cars and all things American. Icons of early 20th century American culture including the movie stars like Charlie Chaplin and Shirley Temple.
The inter-war period fashions saw women freed from the corset and there was the appearance of cosmetics and rayon, which replaced expensive silk. New industrial processes produced ready-to-wear. There were shorter hemlines and shock horror – women showed their legs and wore pants.
Consumerism was hastened by the Victorians and really gained momentum during the inter-war period. Social norms were challenged and new ideas created by new technologies drove many changes in the daily life of those living in the Camden district.
Camden general stores, like Whitemans and Cliftons, carried goods from all parts of the British Empire for the consumption of the local community. Modernism was a transnational force that embraced the Camden community.
Interwar Modernism in Camden
The interwar years were a period of transition and increasingly the motor car replaced the horse in town, and on the farm the horse was replaced by the tractor, all of which supported the growing number of garages in the town. The interwar landscape was characterised by personalised service, along with home and farm deliveries by both horse and cart and motor cars.
Despite the prosperity of the interwar period the town was still dominated by the colonial gentry and their estates. Apart from their convict labour in the early years, they established a system of class and social relations that ordered daily life in the town from its foundation until after the Second World War. While the townsmen dominated the early period of local government, by Federation the landed gentry had usurped their power and had imposed their political mantra of conservatism on the area. The dominance of the Macarthur’s Camden Park over the local economy during the interwar period was characterised by the construction of the Camden Vale milk processing factory (1926) adjacent to the railway. It was an example of Camden’s industrial modernism. The company developed TB free milk and marketed it through the Camden Vale Milk Bar, a retail outlet on the Hume Highway (1939); complete with a drive-through.
For a country town of its size the town had modern facilities and was up-to-date with the latest technology. The town had two weekly newspapers, Camden News and the Camden Advertiser, there was opening of the telephone exchange (1910), the installation of reticulated gas (1912), electricity (1929), replacement of gas street lighting with electric lights (1932) and a sewerage system (1939), and by 1939 the population has increased to 2394. The town’s prosperity allowed the Presbyterians built a new church (1938), while a number of ‘locals’ built solid brick cottages that reflected their confidence in the town’s future.
Selected examples of interwar architecture
Dairy farming
Camden Vale milk processing factory, 11 Argyle Street, Camden. Built in 1926 by the Camden Vale Milk Co, a subsidiary of Camden Park Estate Pty Ltd.
Camden Valley Inn, Old Hume Highway, Camden, c.1938 (Camden Images)
Camden Vale Inn, Remembrance Drive (Old Hume Highway), Camden (now Camden Valley Inn). Architect: Cyril Ruwald. Builder: Herb English. A milk bar on the Hume Highway built in 1939 by the Camden Park Estate Pty Ltd to market its Camden Vale milk from TB tested dairy herds on Camden Park. It was ‘designed in the Tudor style, with walls in attractively coloured brickwork suggesting a touch of modernity’. [ Camden Park Estate Pty Ltd, Camden Vale Special Pasteurised Milk Production and Distribution, Camden, Camden Park Estate Pty Ltd, c.1938.]
Motor industry
Cooks Garage in Argyle Street Camden the route of the Hume Highway c.1936 Interwar Spanish Mission Style (Camden Images)
Cooks Garage, 31-33 Argyle Street, Camden. Built in 1935. Owned by WH Cook. It was built in the Spanish Mission style, and was characterised by terracotta roof tiles, a front loggia, rendering of brickwork and shaped parapets. Since demolished.
Main Southern Garage, 20-28 Argyle Street, Camden. Built in the mid 1930s.
Dunk House, 56-62 Argyle Street, Camden. Built by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden, in 1937. The building was a car showroom, shop complex and professional suites owned by EC Dunk.
Clintons Motor Showroom, 16 Argyle Street, Camden. The car showroom was built in 1947 by Mark Jensen for Clinton Motors, the Holden dealership in Camden. According to the Camden Heritage Inventory it is a rare masonry Art Deco style building with large shopfront windows and wrap around awning.
Retail
102-104 Argyle Street, Camden. Built by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden in 1939. Stuckey Bros, bakers and pastry cooks, occupied premises and fitted it out in 1940. According to the Camden News it was ‘fitted with every modern device’.
Banks
Bank of NSW, 1938, Argyle St, Camden the route of the Hume Highway (I Willis)
Bank of New South Wales (Westpac), 121-123 Argyle Street, Camden. Built by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden in 1936. The two storey building had a residence upstairs and a banking chamber downstairs. According to the Camden Heritage Inventory the building is Georgian Revival style.
Rural Bank, 115-119Argyle Street, Camden. Built by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden in 1937. The two storey building had a residence upstairs with banking chamber downstairs. Art deco style. There is trachyte stonework on the facing of building.
Churches
Presbyterian Church, 42 John Street, Camden. Built in 1938. Architect: George Gray, R.Vale. A brick church, which according to the Camden Heritage Inventory the buildings is Gothic Revival (Gothic Interwar) style.
Hotels
11.Camden Inn (Hotel), 105-107 Argyle Street, Camden. Built by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden in 1933. Tudor style.
Agriculture
Front, AH&I Hall , 191-195 Argyle Street, Camden. The brick front of the building was added to the weatherboard hall in 1936. The original hall was constructed in 1899 by George Furner for JW Macarthur Onslow as a drill hall for the Camden Mounted Rifles.
Cinema
Paramount Theatre, 39 Elizabeth Street, Camden. Built in 1933. It was owned by DJ Kennedy who had interests in other suburban movie cinemas in the Sydney area. It was designed in the Spanish Mission style.
Residential
Elizabeth Street, Camden
Cottage, 25 Elizabeth Street, Camden. Built in the 1930s by Mel Peat.
Flats, 33 Elizabeth Street, Camden. Built in 1930.
Menangle Road, Camden
Cottages, 1-3 Menangle Road, Camden. Built between 1924-1925 by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden. According to the Camden Heritage Inventory a group of Californian Bungalows.
Methodist Parsonage, 24 Menangle Road, Camden. Built in 1935.
Cottage, 26 Menangle Road, Camden. Built by Mel Peat in 1931 for N Freestone.
Murray Street, Camden.
Cottages, 24-28 Murray Street, Camden. Built by Mel Peat in 1937. According to the Camden Heritage Inventory a group of Californian Bungalows.
Hospital
Extension, Camden Hospital, Menangle Road, Camden. Built by Mel Peat in 1939.
Aviation
Bellman Hangers, Camden Airfield, Macquarie Grove Road, Camden. Built in 1941. The Federal Government acquired the airfield from Edward Macarthur Onslow in 1940 for a central flying school under the Empire Air Training Scheme. The hangers were erected by RAAF as temporary accommodation for aircraft. They were designed by NS Bellman in 1936 (UK) as temporary buildings.
Howlett’s Cafe and Milk Bar, Camden, 1954 (Camden Images)
Camden Cafes and Milk Bars
The local milk bar is a largely unrecognized part of Camden modernism where the latest trends in American food culture made their way into the small country town by Australian-Greek immigrants. The design, equipment and fit-out of local cafes and milk bars was at the cutting edge of Interwar fashion. The cafes were a touch of the exotic with their Art Deco style interiors, where fantasy met food without the social barriers of daily life of the Interwar period. Camden milk bars rarely just sold milk shakes unlike their counterparts in the city. To make a living and ensure that their businesses paid their way the cafes and milk bars also sold fruit and vegetables, meals, sandwiches, lollies, sweets and chocolates.
These include Camden Cafe owned by the Sophios Bros, then the Cassimatis Bros in the 1930s. It became the Capital Cafe in 1935. There was the iconic Camden Valley Inn Milk Bar opened with a great fuss in 1939 on Camden Park estate by the Macarthur Onslow family.
Stuckey Bros Building Bakers Argyle Street Camden c1941 (I Willis 2012)
Stuckey Bros Building Camden, Bakers
Camden has an art-deco style inspired building at 102-104 Argyle Street. It is the 1940 Stuckey Bros Pastrycooks and Bakers building, built by Harry Willis and Sons. The bakery was operated by HH & LC Stuckey and a bakery had been on the site from before 1912, when the Stuckeys purchased the business from J Fleming.
The building front is yellow-cream brick called polychrome, meaning a brick with more than one colour. The shop front above street level is finely detailed with curved bricks and bay-style window in the centre of the building. The roof is green tiles.
The building is an interesting and unusual example of a two-storey Interwar retail building. The use of decorative polychrome brickwork is unusual for Camden township. It is an attractive example of a commercial building, and while the street level shopfronts have been altered it has not compromised the intergrity of the remainder of the building.
Camden News 24 April 1941
Originally the shopfront was tiled with curved glass (bow windows) defining the shop entrance. There was a laneway on the western side (facing the shopfront the right-hand side) with access to the rear of the premises, which now has a retail business located on it. Many Camden Argyle Street laneways have been filled in and are now occupied by retail premises. How many can you pick?
The shopfront is the public interface for retail premises and streetscapes. Stuckey Bros original shopfront window glass had metal surrounds and a tiled entry (ingos/outgo or setback) that made it three-dimensional and interesting. A style of shopfront that was common from the Edwardian period. The shopfront awning is still largely as it was in 1940.
According to the Camden News Stuckey Bros was fitted out with every ‘modern device’. The shop opened at 6.30am, and the first shop assistant arrived at 8.00am. The shop closed at 7.00pm and operated 6 days a week. The doughmakers came in at 11.00pm and the bakers used wood-fired ovens, which were fired up over the weekends as it took too long to heat them up when cold.
Stuckey Bros did home deliveries with a horse and cart to Camden, Elderslie, Cobbitty and Brownlow Hill. The mailmen would take bread to The Oaks, Burragorang Valley, Yerranderie, Werombi, and Orangeville. The Stuckeys kept their horses in the Rectory paddock next to St John’s Church.
The Stuckeys were a staunch Methodist family and Beryl Stuckey played the organ at the Methodist Church, while Frank Stuckey was the superintendent of the Sunday School for over 20 years from the 1940s.
The site of the Stuckey Bros shop and bakery had been used as a bakery from 1852 when William McEwan built a premises and in the 1890s Mrs McEwan helped her sons Geordy and Alf run the business.
Read more @ Frank Stuckey, Our Daily Bread, The Story of Stuckey Bros, Bakers and Pastrycooks of Camden NSW, 1912-1960. Camden, F Stuckey, 1987.
Dunk House, Argyle Street, Camden c.1937 (I Willis 2013)
Dunk House, A Modern Car Showroom in Camden.
There is a building at 56-62 Argyle Street, Camden, which is an understated Art Deco style example of the Interwar period. It is Dunk House. Its integrity is still largely intact and it clearly shows the impact of the new found wealth in the town from the Burragorang coalfields.
Dunk House has intact art deco style motifs adjacent to the entry above the display window front. There is black tiling on the shopfront, and a brass surround of the large display window on the former car showroom. The showroom has intact timber flooring and the interior and shopfronts have little changed from the 1930s when the building was erected by its owners. The brass names plates are still attached to the shopfront where the tenant business would put their name plate.
The Dunk House was built by renowned Camden builder Harry Willis & Sons in 1937. The premises was a car showroom, shopping complex and professional suites owned by EC Dunk. Downstairs there were 3 shops, the largest being a car showroom for General Motors cars. Upstairs there were 8 ‘compartments’ or rooms or what we would not call professional suites, each fitted out with modern amenities which included water, wash basin and electric light.
The tenants in 1937 included the downstairs shopfront leased by L Lakin, grocer and Mr Boulous, mercer. Later they included JL Hogg, dentist and in the 1950s dentist Newton Tobrett. At the rear of the property there a series of sheds which operated at auction rooms run by the Dunks.
In 1938 EC Dunk was the Camden agent for General Motors Chevrolet cars.
Camden Advertiser 14 August 1938
For more information on Interwar Camden click here
Gayline Drive-In Movie Theatre at Narellan
One of the notable attractions in the local area in the 1950s-1990s was the drive in movie theatre, which was located on Morshead Road, Narellan (now Narellan Vale). Along with rock ‘n roll, transistor radios, the bikini, the mini-skirt, it defined the lifestyle of the baby boomers. It was as popular with teenagers as it was with young families. It was a defining moment for a 20th century culture that was based around the icons of the period: cars and movies.
Signage from the Gayline Drive-In Movie Theatre at Narellan (I Willis)
The drive in at Narellan was owned and operated from 1967-1992 by EJ Frazer and operated as the Gayline Drive in Movie Theatre.
Modernism in 1960s Elderslie NSW
Wrought iron work, Macarthur Road Elderslie NSW 1960s (I Willis 2010)
The lands releases in the Camden suburb of Elderslie in 1960s have produced a number of houses that have expressed mid-20th century modernism. The house designs were taken from the book of project homes of the day and were quite progressive.
Australian architects including Robin Boyd were expressing Australian modernism. These architects were commissioned by housing developers like Lend Lease to design their housing estates. One such development was the Lend Lease Appletree Estate at Glen Waverley in Melbourne. Another Lend Lease land release and group of show homes were at their 1962 Kingsdene Estate in Carlingford,
The Elderslie homes were built by the miners who worked in the Burragorang Valley and they wanted new modern houses. They generated the wealth that funded the urban growth of the Camden suburbs of Elderslie and South Camden.
Elderslie was one of the original land grants to John Oxley in 1816. The area has been dominated by farming, particularly orchards and vineyards.
Elderslie examples of 1960s modernism include houses in Luker Street characterised by low-pitched rooves, open planned but restrained design, with lots of natural light streaming in full length glass panels adjacent to natural timbers and stone. There are also ranch style houses in River Road with open planning and wide frontages to the street, some architect designed.
These houses are all located in and amongst Federations style farming houses of the Edwardian period. The Federation style houses were on large blocks of land that were sub-divided during the 1960s.
The now demolished Henning’s house in Macarthur Road (image) is an example of open planned ranch style. Other modernist designs are the blocks of flats in Purcell Street, with use of decorative wrought iron railings.
Sunset Avenue in Elderslie was a new land release with a mix of 1960s modern low-pitched roof open planned houses interspersed with New South Wales Housing Commission fibro construction homes.
Other land releases of the 1960s were the New South Wales Housing Commission 1960s fibro houses some of which are located in Burrawong Road and Somerset Street.
Example of modern design from the early 1960s at 64 Macarthur Road Elderslie NSW (I Willis 2010)
Ranch-style housing in Elderslie
There are a number of ranch style houses in the Elderslie area along Macarthur Road and River Road in particular. Some are brick, while others are timber construction.
Ranch-style housing is a significant post-Second World War housing style. The housing style has been noted by architect Robert Irving as an Australian domestic architecture style. Parramatta City Council has recognised the housing style of heritage significance.
American History of Ranch-Style Homes
The original house style came from California and the South-west of the USA, where architects in these areas designed the first suburban ranch-style houses in the 1920s and 1930s. They were simple one-storey houses built by ranchers who lived on the prairies and in the Rocky Mountains. The American architects liked the simple form that reflected the casual lifestyle of these farming families. After the Second World War a number of home builders in California offered a streamlined, slimmed-down version. They were built on a concrete slab without a basement with pre-cut sections. The design allowed multi-function spaces, for example, living-dining room and eat-in-kitchen which reduced the number of walls inside the house. The design was one of the first to orient the kitchen/family area towards the backyard rather than facing the street. The design also placed the bedrooms at the front of the house. The marketing of the ranch-style house tapped popular American fascination with the Old West. (Washington Post, 30 December 2006)
Katherine Salant, ‘The Ranch, An Architectural Archetype Forged on the Frontier’, Washington Post, 30 December 2006
Residence, 64 Macarthur Road Elderslie
64 Macarthur Road Elderslie c1960 (IWillis 2010)
Sunset Avenue in Elderslie was a new land release with a mix of 1960s modern low-pitched roof open planned houses interspersed with New South Wales Housing Commission fibro construction homes.
Other land releases of the 1960s were the New South Wales Housing Commission 1960s fibro houses some of which are located in Burrawong Road and Somerset Street.
The integrity of the residence was intact until it was demolished in 2011, including the front fence that was built in 1960 by the Hennings of ‘Chromatex’ bricks. There were a number of mature trees on the site that added to the aesthetic quality of the site.
In 2011 a ranch-style house in Macarthur Road Elderslie was unfortunately demolished to make way for a pre-school. Camden’s ranch-style houses are part of the town’s post-Second World War development and growth.
The Macarthur Road house was one of a number in the Elderslie area and two of these have been demolished. One of the demolished ranch-style houses, Kalinda, was located off Lodges Road Elderslie and owned by the Whiteman family. The Whitemans owned a general store in Camden that operated for nearly a century. The house was a weatherboard cottage and demolished in late 1990s to make way for Sydney’s urban development in the Elderslie area. The house was located high on the ridge with a pleasant outlook facing west over the Narellan Creek floodplain. Visitors approached the house from Lodges Road by driving up to the top of the ridge along a narrow driveway.
Elderslie is a suburb of Camden, the traditional land of the Dharawal people. It lies on the southern end of the Camden Municipality, 62 km southwest of Sydney, on the rural-urban fringe.
Elderslie borders the Nepean River to the west, Narellan Creek to the north, Camden By-Pass to the south, and Studley Park Golf Course to the east. The population at the 2001 census was 2,638.
Elderslie Autumn Scene Camden Valley Way 2014 (IWillis)
Under Governor Macquarie’s stewardship, the area now known as Elderslie was the site of several smallholder land grants along the Nepean River between 1812 and 1815.
One large grant was given to John Oxley, a member of the colonial gentry, in 1816. He called it ‘Ellerslie’, although by 1828, he had changed it to ‘Elderslie’. Oxley’s grant was one of the five large estates in the Camden area that used convict labour.
Elderslie can lay claim to the first building in the Camden area. This was a small hut erected at the Nepean River crossing, after the 1803 visit of Governor King, for the government man who looked after the cattle in the Cowpastures. It is reported that the hut was still in existence in 1822.
View of the Government Hut at Cowpastures, 1804. State Library of NSW SSV1B / Cowp D / 1
The village of Elderslie was planned along the Great Northern Road (now Camden Valley Way) with a subdivision and sites for a church, parsonage and marketplace.
A post office was opened in 1839 – and closed in 1841 when it was moved to Camden. Several village blocks were sold by auction in 1841; three months after the Elderslie land sales, the village was effectively overwhelmed by land sales across the river in Camden.
The first church in Elderslie was St Mark’s Anglican Church, built in 1902 of plain timber construction. The church is framed by a substantial 150-year-old camphor laurel tree and has only ceased functioning in recent years.
This charming image taken by John Kooyman in 1998 shows St Mark’s Church of England and the hall at the rear of the church under the shade of the magnificent camphor laurel tree. (Camden Images)
Hilsyde is one of the more significant homes in the Elderslie area and was built in 1888 by Walter Furner, a local builder. Several significant cottages were owned by the Bruchhauser family, who were viticulturists and orchardists in the Elderslie area, as were the Fuchs, Thurns, and most recently, the Carmagnolas.
Viticulture has been re-established at Camden Estate Vineyards on the deep alluvial soils of the Nepean floodplain. There were plantings of mixed varieties in 1975 by Norman Hanckel, and in the 1990s, these had been entirely converted to Chardonnay, which best suited the soil and climate of the area. Grapes for wine had previously been grown in this location by Martin Thurn, one of the six German vinedressers brought out by the Macarthurs of Camden Park in 1852.
Table grapes were grown throughout the Elderslie area and sold in the Sydney markets. Vegetables were grown on the floodplain adjacent to Narellan Creek by Sun Chong Key, one of several Chinese market gardeners in the Camden area, in the first half of the 20th century. Apart from farming, the floodplain and surrounding areas have been subject to extensive sand mining for the Sydney building industry.
Elderslie was the first stop after Camden on the tramway between Camden and Campbelltown, which began operations in 1882. The locomotive (affectionately known as Pansy) had 24 services each weekday, including passenger and goods services.
Observant travellers to the area can still make out the earthworks of the tramway on the northern side of Camden Valley Way along the floodplain. The tramway operated until 1963, when several branch lines in the Sydney area were shut. The tramway, which ran beside the Hume Highway between Elderslie and Camden, was often closed due to flooding.
Little Sandy with a footbridge across the Nepean River at Camden c.1950. This area on the Nepean River was always a popular swimming spot. Diving board in the foreground. (Camden Images)
Swimming became one of Elderslie earliest organized sporting activities after the Nepean River was dammed in 1908 with the construction of the Camden Weir. Water backed up behind the weir for four kilometres through the Elderslie area and provided relatively deep water suitable for swimming. The Camden Aquatic Sports Carnival was organized in 1909 and attracted over 1000 spectators, and this was the location of the Camden Swimming Club in the 1920s.
There were two popular swimming holes at Kings Bush Reserve and Little Sandy, where the Australian Army built a footbridge during World War II (and there is still one in that location today). By the 1950s, increasing river pollution put pressure on authorities for a town swimming pool, which was eventually opened in Camden in 1964.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the growth of coal mining contributed to local population growth and demand for residential land releases on farmland adjacent to the floodplain. This created a need for education facilities and led to the establishment of Mawarra Primary School (1972) and Elderslie High School (1976).
A view of John Oxley Cottage, which is the home of the Camden Visitors Information Centre at 46 Camden Valley Way, Elderslie. The late 19th-century Victorian workman’s cottage is now located in Curry Reserve. The silhouette was moved to this location from John Oxley Reserve on Macquarie Grove Road at Kirkham. (I Willis, 2020)
Elderslie was also identified as part of the growth area for Greater Sydney, initially as part of the Macarthur Growth Centre Plan (1973), then the Metropolitan Strategy (1988) and most recently in the Cities for the 21st Century plan (1995). Some of these land releases caused concerns over air quality issues and deteriorating water quality in the Hawkesbury-Nepean River, and consequently, they were deferred until 2005.
In the most recent Elderslie land releases, developers have commodified the rural mythology and imagery of ‘the country town’ and associated rural vistas, with names like ‘Camden Acres’, ‘The Ridges’ and ‘Vantage Point’. These values have attracted ‘outsiders’ to the area, hoping to find places where ‘the country still looks like the country’. Part of this imagery is found in Elderslie’s older residential streets, a picture in November when the Jacarandas provide a colourful show of purple and mauve.
One of Elderslie’s most notable residents was possibly the Australian poet and actor Hugh McCrae (1876-1958). He lived in River Road in the 1930s and occasionally after that. He was a member of the Sydney Bohemian set, a friend of Norman Lindsay and a member of the Camden elite: for example, local surgeon Dr RM Crookston and his wife, Zoe. McCrae wrote about the local area in works like ‘October in Camden’ and ‘Camden Magpie’. He was awarded an OBE (1953) for services to Australian Literature.
The interwar period in Camden was a time of economic development and material progress. The prosperity of the period was driven by the local dairy industry and the emerging coal industry. The town’s population grew by over 35 per cent between the end of the First World War and the beginning of the Second, so that in 1939, the town was the centre of a district that covered 455 square miles (1180 square kilometres) and had a population of over 5,000.
Central Camden showing the intersection of Argyle St (Hume Highway) and John St. View west along Argyle St, WH Anderson fountain in the middle of the intersection, c1930s (Camden Images)
Camden was one of the most important commercial and administrative centres between Sydney and Goulburn. The town was the centre of the police district, it had the regional hospital, it was the largest population centre, and it was a transport node of a district that spread from Campbelltown to the lower Blue Mountains.
Hume Highway
During the interwar period, one of the most important economic arteries of the town was the Hume Highway (until 1928, the Great South Road). Most understood the value of the rail connection to Camden, most obviously because you heard it, smelt it and saw it. Yet few understand the significance of the Hume. The highway had run up the town’s main street from colonial times until 1973 when it was moved to the Camden Bypass and then subsequently moved in 1980 to the freeway.
The highway and railway were the conduits that brought the international influences of modernism and consumerism to the town and the goods and services that supported them. These forces influenced the development of the local motor industry, the establishment of the local cinemas and the development of the local airfield. All important economic, social and cultural forces for the time.
‘Locals’ travelled to the city for higher-order retail goods, specialist services and entertainment, while the landed gentry escaped to the cosmopolitan centre of the British Empire; London. Conversely, the Sydney elite came to experience the new gentlemanly pastime of flying at the Macquarie Grove Airfield.
Camden Vale Inn & Milk Bar, Camden, c.1939 (Camden Images)
Camden Modernism
For a country town of its size, the town had modern facilities and was up-to-date with the latest technology. The town had two weekly newspapers, Camden News and the Camden Advertiser. There was the opening of the telephone exchange (1910), the installation of reticulated gas (1912), electricity (1929), and the replacement of gas street lighting with electric lights (1932) and a sewerage system (1939), and by 1939 the population has increased to 2394. The town’s prosperity allowed the Presbyterians to build a new church (1938), while a number of ‘locals’ built solid brick cottages that reflected their confidence in the town’s future.
Presbyterian Church, 42 John Street, Camden. (I Willis 2023)
Despite the prosperity of the interwar period, the town was still dominated by the colonial gentry and their estates. Apart from their convict labour in the early years, they established a system of class and social relations that ordered daily life in the town from its foundation until after the Second World War. While the townsmen dominated the early period of local government, by Federation, the landed gentry had usurped their power and had imposed their political mantra of conservatism on the area.
The dominance of Macarthur’s Camden Park over the local economy during the interwar period was characterised by the construction of the Camden Vale milk processing factory (1926) adjacent to the railway. The company developed TB-free milk and marketed it through the Camden Vale Milk Bar, a retail outlet on the Hume Highway (1939), complete with a drive-through.
The interwar years were a period of transition. Increasingly, motor cars replaced horses in town, and on farms, horses were replaced by tractor, all of which supported the growing number of garages in the town. The interwar landscape was characterised by personalised service, along with home and farm deliveries by both horse and cart and motor cars.
The former Bank of NSW, former Westpace building 1938, Argyle St, Camden, the route of the Hume Highway (I Willis, 2023)
Morphology of town centre
The layout and shape of interwar Camden have changed little from the 19th century, and the town centre has a certain bucolic charm and character that is the basis of the community’s identity and sense of place. Strip shopping and mixed land use support the country’s feeling, which has become the basis of the modern ‘country town idyll’.
In recent years, Camden has been targeted by the New South Wales government as one of the growth centres for the Sydney metropolitan area. It has become part of Sydney’s exurbanistion on the rural-urban fringe. City types move out of the city looking for places where ‘the country looks like the country’. This has only served to reinforce the duality of the love/hate relationship the community had with Sydney and the city/country divide that has been part of the rural ideology of the area.
The ‘locals’, for their part, have retreated to nostalgia in the form of an Arcadian view of the world through a ‘country town idyll’. The romance of the idyll is based on the iconic imagery of Camden as a picturesque English village, with the church on the hill, surrounded by rural vistas. The idyll has become a defence mechanism against the onslaught of Sydney’s urbanization and the interwar heritage that is part of the town’s iconic landscape.
Macquarie Grove Airfield 1930s Camden (Camden Images)
Selected Examples of Interwar Architecture in Camden
1. Camden Vale milk processing factory, 11 Argyle Street, Camden. Built in 1926 by the Camden Vale Milk Co, a Camden Park Estate Pty Ltd subsidiary.
2. Camden Vale Inn, Remembrance Drive (Old Hume Highway), Camden (now Camden Valley Inn). Architect: Cyril Ruwald. Builder: Herb English. A milk bar on the Hume Highway was built in 1939 by the Camden Park Estate Pty Ltd to market its Camden Vale milk from TB-tested dairy herds on Camden Park. It was ‘designed in the Tudor style, with walls in attractively coloured brickwork suggesting a touch of modernity’. [ Camden Park Estate Pty Ltd, Camden Vale Special Pasteurised Milk Production and Distribution, Camden, Camden Park Estate Pty Ltd, c.1939.]
Camden Valley Inn, Camden, c.1938 (Camden Images)
3. Cooks Garage, 31-33 Argyle Street, Camden. Built in 1935. Owned by WH Cook. It was built in the Spanish Mission style and was characterised by terracotta roof tiles, front loggia, brickwork rendering, and shaped parapets. Since demolished.
Cooks Garage, Argyle St, Camden, the route of the Hume Highway through the town in the 1930s, 1936 (Camden Images)
4. Main Southern Garage, 20-28 Argyle Street, Camden. Built in the mid-1930s.
5. Dunk House, 56-62 Argyle Street, Camden. Built by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden, in 1937, it was a car showroom, shop complex, and professional suites owned by EC Dunk.
6. Clintons Motor Showroom, 16 Argyle Street, Camden. Mark Jensen built the car showroom in 1947 for Clinton Motors, the Holden dealership in Camden. According to the Camden Heritage Inventory, it is a rare masonry Art Deco building with large shopfront windows and a wraparound awning.
Clintons Motors at 16 Argyle Street Camden in 1983. The business was the Holden dealership for the Camden area. The premises opened in 1948. (Camden Images)
7. Stuckey Bros Bakery, 102-104 Argyle Street, Camden. It was built by Harry Willis and Sons in 1939. In 1940, Stuckey Bros, bakers and pastry cooks, occupied the premises and fitted it out. According to the Camden News, it was ‘fitted with every modern device’.
Stuckey Bros Building Bakers Argyle Street Camden c1941 (I Willis 2012)
8. Bank of New South Wales (Westpac), 121-123 Argyle Street, Camden. Built by Harry Willis and Sons in 1936, this two-story building has a residence upstairs and a banking chamber downstairs. According to the Camden Heritage Inventory, it is in the Georgian Revival style.
Camden’s Argyle St (Hume Highway) in 1938 with Bank of New South Wales and Rural Bank on left looking east (Camden Images)
9. Rural Bank, 115-119Argyle Street, Camden. Built by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden in 1937. The two-storey building had a residence upstairs with a banking chamber downstairs. Art Deco style. There is trachyte stonework on the facing of the building. Churches
10. Presbyterian Church, 42 John Street, Camden. Built in 1938. Architect: George Gray, R.Vale. A brick church, which, according to the Camden Heritage Inventory, has a Gothic Revival (Gothic Interwar) style.
11. Camden Inn (Hotel), 105-107 Argyle Street, Camden. Built by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden in 1933. Tudor style refurbishment. Formerly the Commercial Hotel.
Camden Hotel, 105 Argyle Street, Camden (I Willis, 2023)
12. Front, AH&I Hall, 191-195 Argyle Street, Camden. The brick front of the building was added to the weatherboard hall in 1936. The original hall was constructed in 1899 by George Furner for JW Macarthur Onslow as a drill hall for the Camden Mounted Rifles.
13. Paramount Theatre, 39 Elizabeth Street, Camden. Built-in 1933. It was owned by DJ Kennedy who had interests in other suburban movie cinemas in the Sydney area. It was designed in the Spanish Mission style.
Paramount Movie Theatre, Elizabeth Street, Camden built in 1933. (Camden Images)
14. Cottage, 25 Elizabeth Street, Camden. Built in the 1930s by Mel Peat.
15. Flats, 33 Elizabeth Street, Camden. Built in 1930.
16. Cottages, 1-3 Menangle Road, Camden. According to the Camden Heritage Inventory, they are a group of Californian bungalows built between 1924 and 1925 by Harry Willis and Sons, Camden.
17. Methodist Parsonage, 24 Menangle Road, Camden. Built in 1935.
18. Cottage, 26 Menangle Road, Camden. Built by Mel Peat in 1931 for N Freestone. Murray Street, Camden.
19. Cottages, 24-28 Murray Street, Camden. Built by Mel Peat in 1937. According to the Camden Heritage Inventory, a group of Californian Bungalows.
20. Extension, Camden Hospital, Menangle Road, Camden. Built by Mel Peat in 1939.
21. Bellman Hangers, Camden Airfield, Macquarie Grove Road, Camden. Built in 1941. The Federal Government acquired the airfield from Edward Macarthur Onslow in 1940 for a central flying school under the Empire Air Training Scheme. The RAAF erected the hangers as temporary accommodation for aircraft. They were designed by NS Bellman in 1936 (UK) as temporary buildings.
Anne Philp, Caroline’s Diary, A Woman’s World in Colonial Australia, Anchor Books Australia, NSW, 2015, x + 269 pages; ISBN 9780992467135.
This is a book where Anne Philp has created a narrative around the personal diaries of English woman Caroline Husband who came to New South Wales in the mid-19th century. Her father, lawyer James Husband, fell on hard times and fled his Hampstead Hill house in England with debt-collectors in pursuit, and was followed to Australia by his wife and seven children. Caroline has documented her thoughts, her experiences and her feelings of her life adventure from England to Sydney, and then the Wellington District, Armidale and finally Camden. She has provided a window into the world where imperial linkages have intersected with the life of her family, her husband, her church and her community.
Discover of diaries
Caroline’s diaries were discovered by chance lying in the back of a drawer at the historic Camden property, Brownlow Hill, by Joan Downes, the wife of one of Caroline’s descendants in the 1980s. The strong Camden connections are set from beginning of Caroline’s story on the voyage out from England in 1852 when one shipboard companion was a Mr Downes of Brownlow Hill. In early 1883 Caroline’s daughter May married Fred Downes of Brownlow Hill and had four children, one of whom gave birth to John, Joan’s husband. Caroline had originally moved into the Camden District with her family and household staff in 1875 when Henry purchased the Georgian style Wivenhoe from politician Sir Charles Cowper. Using her agency Caroline quickly re-established a social network after her move from Saumarez (137) and commenced calling on the Barkers of Maryland, the Macarthurs of Camden Park, the Chisholms of Gledswood and the Downes of Brownlow Hill. Local folklore has it that the Thomas’s Camden move was to ensure that Caroline’s daughters were married off to appropriate Sydney bachelors.
Flippant young girl
Caroline’s voice is heard in Philp’s use of extensive diary extracts which are organised chronologically beginning with the 1851 Great Exhibition in London. The nineteen year old Caroline, an educated writer, is a party animal with a constant round of outings accompanied by her younger sister, Cordy, in and around London. She has a rather indulgent, flippant manner which upsets some of her elders and is reflected in her immaturity. Author Anne Philp remarks about the apparent ease ‘with which the Husband girls are able to move around unchaperoned’ (18) even on visits to family relatives and friends. The whirlwind of actors in Caroline’s life-story are clarified for the reader by Philp by the provision a number of appendices including Cordy’s scrapbook, family trees, a list of who’s who, index and images of family and houses. Caroline has used cross-writing, sometimes called cross-hatching, where she wrote across the page at 900 from earlier text in her diaries, presumably to save paper which was expensive. For the historian it makes deciphering these writings difficult and time consuming. Philps notes her ‘writing became almost unreadable, particularly when she crosswrote’ (103) with excitement at the impending marriage to squatter Henry Arding Thomas.
Voyage Out
The chapters mark out Caroline’s life and provide an insight into how English society dealt with those who fell out and their sudden collapse of good fortune. Some fled and Caroline’s voyage out to Sydney in 1852 aboard the General Hewitt, a former convict ship of 961 tons, under Captain Gatenby, which took four months and ten days and sailed directly from Plymouth to Sydney. Caroline’s Diary joins around 800 other diarists’ accounts of the 19th century voyages to Australia. Many were written by educated well-off women and for them writing a diary was a way of normalising the deprivations and uncertainties of the journey. (a) Although for Caroline the worst of the voyage seemed to be boredom and dull company, ‘Very dull & stupid – dread the breakfasts & dinners – Mr Hay is so dull.’ (46) Yet a fellow ship passenger, Catherine Roxburgh, had a rather different view of the Husband girls. She stated in a letter to her sister that they possessed ‘no depth’, they were ‘deficient in judgement and prudence’ and she described Cordelia as ‘rather fond of being admired, [and] likes society’. Catherine felt that her shipmates viewed the journey out as a time to ‘eat’, ‘drink and be merry’. (48-49) This contrasted with the early weeks of the voyage where Caroline felt that it was ‘A dreadful life. No wind in our sails. The mankind exceedingly disagreeable…’ (46).
Fresh commentary of colonial Sydney
Caroline’s fresh commentary of colonial Sydney, a small Victorian outpost of the British Empire, through her youthful eyes is unencumbered by the town’s dark history and brutal heritage. The value of the diaries are the sharp witty observations of social life and the comparisons the reader can draw between metropolitan London and young colony of Sydney. Her positive outlook on life combined with Sydney’s Englishness presented a not unfamiliar place for Caroline and she soon started re-creating a life as a social butterfly. The Husband girls, Caroline, Cordy and Fanny, attracted the cream of Sydney’s eligible bachelors as a string of would-be suitors. Sydney’s shortage of suitable women made the family’s modest lodgings at Woolloomooloo a honey pot, a coterie of potential wives. The sisters had a busy schedule of excursions, opera, theatre, balls, parties and social callings in Sydney, topped off with regular church attendances. Even later in life Caroline enjoyed a rich social life based around the church in Armidale, with constant rounds of calling, (163) playing the church harmonium and working at the church bazaar. While Henry undertook magistrate duties in Armidale and constant business and social visitors. The Thomases were leading citizens in the Armidale District reflecting their wealth and status.
Diary impulsive and frank
‘Refreshingly frank’ is how Anne Philp describes Caroline’s comments on her ‘middle-class’ life, written as they were ‘from a woman’s point of view’ (1). Caroline’s diary entries are short and lively. Her thoughts are impulsive, expressive and reflect her youth and zest for life. ‘We had supper and he walked home. Do like him very much.’ (105) ‘We had a splendid breakfast dinner & tea enjoyed ourselves extremely.’ (98) Caroline provides glimpses of the rituals of middle class courtship in Victorian Sydney relatively unencumbered by chaperones or prying parents. ‘J.M. spooney with me again!’ (102) and around the same time in February 1856 she ‘Went to the South Head & did not get home till 11 at night – enjoyed it so much.’ (102)
Adventures around Sydney
Caroline’s and Cordy’s adventures around Sydney read like a whimsical colonial travelogue. Their were regular excursions with young men to Bondi, Coogee, Parramatta, and Manly Beach and frequent mentions of boating and yachting excursions on Sydney Harbour, cricket matches (121) and Regattas on Port Jackson (57). Sydney was like a new suitor for the Husband girls, to be wined, dined and enjoyed. Like England the girls enjoyed a considerable degree of freedom in Sydney given the strictures and formality of Victorian society, and walked considerable distances around the town – up to 16 miles (69). There is a rich sense of the landscape in Caroline’s writing as it passes before her like the pages of her diaries. As her journey through life grows her commentary on her world matures with it. She has sharp observations of early townships, the trials of coach travel, and the challenges and risks encountered on the frontier. She records her movements throughout the colony, on the steamers between Sydney and Morpeth, the long overland coach journey through Bathurst into the Wellington District and her frequent trips from Maitland to Saumarez in the New England District. In 1882 even a family holiday to Manly Beach for her six children and nursemaid (235).
Women’s life-writing
Caroline’s Diary touches the primary discourses of the nineteenth century including imperialism, religion, the frontier, separate spheres and others, and is typical of other Victorian female diarists who explore women’s emotions, privacy and domesticity.(b) Gender and the separate spheres of men and women, which are often hidden, are revealed in Caroline’s subjectivity and her identity. There is Henry’s public role as squatter pastoralist and public official while Caroline has her private domestic world organising her family and household. Caroline’s Diary is typical of the genre of women’s life-writing that was popular in the Victorian period in England, including Queen Victoria. Her writing gives insights into how she negotiated her space in society, her possession of knowledge, her inter-personal relationships and how her writing helped the healing process in the face of loss. Life for Caroline in colonial New South Wales provided many challenges and she used the agency she enjoyed within the strictures of society to effectively exercise her power within her domestic space. Religiosity is important to Caroline and she is a regular church goer throughout her life. Sydney’s St James Church, one of the oldest in Australia, is central to her story, as it was the colony. Familial links are a constant theme, along with women’s health issues, that were particularly problematic for colonial women. Historian Anne Philp has provided a view how an English family fitted into colonial New South Wales, with its transnational linkages between the bush, provincial Sydney and metropolitan London.
Silences and interruptions
The diaries also have silences and interruptions that in their own way have as much to say as Caroline’s extensive diary notes. Silence and knowledge re-enforce each other. These speak to the hardships and challenges that women faced on the colonial frontier where life was precarious, male dominated and sometimes violent. Henry’s close affection for his ‘city-bred’ wife and her welfare indicate a depth of feeling not often found in colonial narratives. Her diaries provide a clear picture of the dangers faced during pregnancy and birth, the trials of the chronic illness of her husband and the death of her sister, Cordy at age 23, during the Siege of Lucknow in India in 1858 (149). The family regularly returned to Sydney during Caroline’s confinements, a privilege working class women in rural New South Wales did not have or could afford. Rural patriarchy is clearly demonstrated in the moves that Henry forced on Caroline and her growing family, often at short notice, when he sells the family pastoral holdings. Caroline is moved to Saumarez Station at Armidale with a three-month old baby and a young nursemaid Ellen. Henry then moved the family again to the grand home of Wivenhoe, near Camden New South Wales.
A lack of communication
Communication, or the lack of it, were a constant of theme of colonial existence at a time when there was no Facebook or Instagram. During the colonial period the thirst for knowledge about family and friends was no less intense or urgent than it is today. Caroline’s writing demonstrated the hunger by all for news from home and elsewhere including England, Sydney and her sister in India. Caroline and her family had to wait months for any news of the fate of her sister after the Siege of Lucknow during the 1857 Indian Rebellion (149). Distance was relative and the country and city divide was as large a psychological divide as the gap between London and Sydney. The actors in Caroline’s story where eager for news, any news, of family and friends about births, deaths, marriages and other celebrations. Visits to town from the pastoral station, whether Sydney or Armidale, to catch up on business, news, and gossip were just as important as news from England or India. Isolation was the curse of the bush, and could be particularly burdensome on young city born women with small children. ‘Very miserable. Got up early in the hopes dear Henry would come but he didn’t.’ (113).
Service and governesses
Domestic service was the most common form of employment for single working class women for decades during the 19th century. Caroline grew up in a household with domestic staff and on the voyage out: ‘Very uncomfortable without a servant’ (52) After Caroline was married had certain expectations about her own household staff. At Wivenhoe Caroline engaged three live-in staff and a children’s nursemaid and her daughters were educated at home by a governess. The diaries illustrate how she negotiated hiring governesses for her own children as well as other household staff, including nursemaids and general servants. Caroline provides commentary on how her mother hired servants from amongst the Irish immigrant girls who arrived at Hyde Park Barracks in the 1850s (71). Caroline’s story even explores the experiences the colonial governess because of her family’s poor financial standing on arrival in Sydney in 1852. Caroline’s had a short and unsuccessful engagement as a governess for Reverend WM Cowper, colonial born and Oxford educated, at Stroud in northern New South Wales, the settlement for the Australian Agricultural Company.
Settler colonialism
It is an interesting question to ask how this diary is placed in relation to the current debate around settler colonialism. On another level the diaries can be read as an exposition of the story of a settler society where the Indigenous Australians have disappeared from the landscape. There is a fleeting mention of Caroline and Henry attending a ‘corrobbero’ (117) at Buckinbah in the Wellington District, like attending an English country fair. By the 1850s the ‘black problem’ had been resolved and squatters wives like Caroline had little if any interaction with Aborigines, even in rural areas. The dispossession of territory underwrote the type of rural capitalism practiced by the Thomases at Buckinbah in the Wellington District, at Saumarez in the New England and Wivenhoe at Camden. The diaries give hints of the issues surrounding squatting and raising sheep without fences. At Buckinbah in 1856 there were thirteen outstations with shepherds in charge (113) that had to be re-supplied with lambing and station work (114). Shepherd supervised flocks of a thousand without a horse. The owner on his horse would search for lost sheep and much time was spent looking for stray sheep (117). Much the same routine existed at Saumarez in 1858. By the time the Thomas’s turn up at Wivenhoe pastoralism is regulated by fences.
Fresh view of her world
Caroline’s Diary provides fresh view on the colonial world of New South Wales from the eyes of an English woman that contrasts with the dark tales of death and misery of frontier violence, or the hagiographic views of the explorers, pioneers and nationalism. The story weaves through the ins and outs of the daily goings on for the rural elite, while providing an exploration of life between the city and country giving intimate personal details of family life. Women’s diaries from the Camden District are rare and this type of exposition is even less common. This is a valuable addition to these types of works and in the process Caroline’s Diary has created a great read for any fan of colonial stories.
The early colonists of the Sydney area viewed the landscape from several different perspectives, according to historian Grace Karskins in her book The Colony a History of Early Sydney (2009). This also applied to the Cowpastures.
The meaning of landscape
The term landscape has a variety of meanings.
The two most common are when landscape refers to all the visible features of an area of land, usually the rural features and the aesthetic appeal of neat paddocks and fields. The other meaning is applied in an artistic sense and is its pictorial representation of an area of countryside, usually in a painting.
There can be different types of landscapes, such as cultural and physical.
Landscapes have different meanings in different scholarly disciplines; for example,
art (English landscapes of Turner and Constable),
photography (American Ansel Adams),
literature (the idealised pastoral scene or bucolic in art, music and literature, for example, English poet Milton, William Wordsworth; an early form is the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories; William Gilpin’s Observations on the River Wye was published in 1770, the idea of the picturesque began to influence artists and viewers and British romanticism),
architecture (the term landscape architecture was invented by Gilbert Laing Meason in 1828 and was first used as a professional title by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1863), and
gardening (Italian influences of an arcadia – The English garden (and later French landscape garden) presented an idealised view of nature.- The work of Lancelot “Capability” Brown and Humphry Repton and in the Cowpastures, JC Laudon).
These views of landscapes are culturally derived and depend on the viewer’s interpretation, which is the essence of landscape and its contribution to the sense of place.
View of the Government Hut at Cowpastures, 1804. State Library of NSW SSV1B / Cowp D / 1
Seven principles
Grace Karskins’s The Colony, A History of Early Sydney (Karskins: 242) has presented seven principles of interpretation that she maintains were used by the early colonists of Sydney towards to new environment they took possession of the land in 1788.
All of Karskin’s seven principles are evident in the diaries and accounts of the Cowpastures by a host of Europeans who travelled through the area. They are:
Utilitarian – the economic benefit – the protection of the cows and the herd
Picturesque – the presentation of the Cowpastures as a result of the burning of the environment by the Aborigines –fire stick farming – the reports of the area being a little England from the 1820s – Hawdon
Regulatory – banning of movement into the Cowpastures to protect the cows
Political and philosophical – evils of the governors and transportation were the true corruptors of the countryside
Natural history – collecting specimens and describing fauna and flora – Darwin’s visit to Sydney – the curiosity of the early officers
‘New natures’ – the environmental impact of flooding along the Nepean River and clear felling of trees across the countryside
Emotional response – how the European viscerally experienced the countryside – sights, smells, hearing – and its expression in words and pictures.
The aesthetics of the Nepean River floodplain caught the attention of the early Europeans in a landscape managed by the local Dharawal people for hundreds of years. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Pond (2020 IW)
How these were used in reports and diaries often depended on the written work’s audience in England or France. Often the accounts were used to promote a book and sometimes a set of paintings or sketches.
Sometimes there were just personal comments in a diary, or reports were the basis of a book published in England on the person’s return home from Sydney.
The reports of the Cowpastures in the colonial period by a host of naval officers, military personnel and surveyors have elements of all these views of the landscape.
Exploring examples of landscape interpretation
Anyone interested in exploring some of the aspects of these types of interpretation sees other posts on this blog that mention:
The township was established near the Government Hut that was as the accommodation used by the constables who were employed to guard the entrance of Cowpastures Reserve for the wild cattle in 1804 near the ford across the Nepean River. State Library of NSW SSV1B / Cowp D / 1
Carinya Cottage c.1890 is typical of brick Edwardian cottages across the district that was closely associated with the Paxton and Cross family. The cottage was unfortunately demolished in 2010 to make way for a new housing estate. (Camden Historical Society)
Little Sandy footbridge across the Nepean River at Camden c.1950 with a diving board in foreground. The location was a popular spot for swimming and other water activities. In the 1920s and 1930s this part of the river was the location of the Camden Swimming Club. The footbridge was constructed during the Second World War as a training exercise for troops from the Narellan Military Camp. (Camden Images)
The Nepean River has shaped the Camden’s sense of place and the image shows Nepean River below the Cowpasture Bridge in 1900 in the vicinity of the ford mentioned by Governor Macquarie. The low state of the river indicates the effect of the Federation drought (mid 1890s-1902) on the local area. (Camden Images/CA Poole)
Camden’s Argyle Street (the Hume Highway) in 1938 with the Rural Bank and Bank of New South Wales on the left. The setback and height of the buildings in Argyle has not changed in 70 years. The key buildings are still identifiable from the same location at the John Street round-about. (Camden Images)
The Georgian Revival style Bank of New South Wales building was constructed in 1936 at 121-123 Argyle St, Camden. The bank manager and his family lived on the upper level in a self-contained flat. (I Willis)
Central Camden in the early 1930s with the Woolpack Inn on the corner of John and Argyle Streets and the Commercial Banking Co building is on the opposite side of John Street. (Camden Images)
An Edwardian weatherboard cottage at 64 John Street Camden is typical of domestic architecture of the town and surrounding district in the early 20th century. At this time John Street was still unpaved, while guttering was constructed on block stone. ( J Riley)
Located on the Hume Highway the Tudor style Camden Valley Inn was built in 1938 as a milk bar to sell the Gold Top Camden Vale milk brand from Camden Park. Designed by architect Cyral Ruwald and constructed by builder Herb English. (Camden Images)
Cafes were a popular stop on the Hume Highway in central Camden serving milk shakes, hamburgers and mixed grills. Howlett’s Cafe was located at 159 Argyle Street show in this 1954 image. (Camden Images)
During the Second World War a number of airmen were killed in flying accidents in squadrons that statioed at RAAF Base at Camden Airfield. They are buried at Camden War Cemetery on a rise on Cawdor Road. (I Willis)
Camden Airfield was the location of the RAAF Central Flying School at the beginning of the Second World War training pilots and air crew for the Empire Training Scheme.
Coal mining added wealth in the post-war years and quite a few fibro cottages were constructed at Elderslie to provide accommodation for mine workers. They are an identifiable part of Camden modernism. (I Willis)
Local identity Llewella Davies was a member of the Camden Voluntary Aid Detachment, the paramilitary auxiliary of the Red Cross, that was part of the Second World War homefront war effort. (CHS0614)
St John’s Church has been the moral heart of Camden’s sense of place since the church was constructed during the 1840s. It is located at the top of John Street which was unsealed in this image from the 1890s. (Camden Images)
The Hume Highway brought all aspects of modernism to the town from Sydney including motoring and consumerism at the Spanish Mission style Cooks Garage at the corner of Elizabeth and Argyle Street Camden in 1936 (Camden Images)
It prompted me to think about a piece I wrote in 2010 about the loss of Edwardian farming heritage on the urban-rural interface on Sydney’s edge. In that I expressed dismay at the loss of early 20th craftsmanship that was seen by decision makers as redundant and out of date. To be replaced by ubiquitous uninteresting modern boxes.
It is interesting that those who think outside the box can take a simple Edwardian cottage, with flair and patience, turn it into a modern family without devaluing the original craftsmanship that built it.
There is a distinct lack appreciation amongst many contemporaries of simple robust country farm cottages that, with imagination and patience, can be up-dated with contemporary fit-outs that suit the needs of the current homeowner.
Despite Pascoe’s outcries others have a different take on the story.
Neglectful heritage lists
In 2010 Jonathon Chancellor noted (‘Fight to save Tilba underlines heritage neglect’, SMH 22/3/10) that many councils had ‘neglectful heritage lists’.
Even more damming, ‘heritage listing at the local level does not provide much protection at all’, wrote Graeme Aplin, from Macquarie University, in Australian Quarterly (May-June 2009).
‘What we have witnessed over the last five years is the systematic dismantling of heritage protection’, stated Sylvia Hale, Greens spokesperson on planning (‘Heritage at risk’, National Trust Magazine, Feb-Apr 2010).
Demolition of Federation farm cottage
In 2010 Camden Council approved the demolition (Camden Council, 23/3/10) of a simple 1890 Federation farm cottage known as Carinya at Harrington Park. The owner, Nepean Pastoral Company, sought to develop a 97 residential lot subdivision on the farm site.
Carinya Cottage c1890 (Camden Historical Society)
The Harrington Park housing estate is now fully occupied by newly arrived families from the burbs who are probably completely unaware of the history of Carinya. They come with the own hopes, just as the Cross and Paxton families, who lived in Carinya cottage, did in an earlier generation.
The story of Carinya cottage fits within the Australian Historic Themes identified by the Australian Government (Australian Heritage Commission 2001). These are common national standards for identification and conservation of heritage places. Yet this did not save it from the demolisher’s hammer.
Australian’s have a genuine interest in their past and the story of their ‘historic’ homes. Witness ABCTV’s ‘Who’s Been Sleeping in My House’ and the efforts of what Adam Ford calls housetorians. He is able to ‘unlock the mysteries of the past’ and tell a good yarn about houses across Australia.
One homeowner Dorothy felt that Ford’s investigations increased her sense of attachment to place and her home. She stated
‘I feel like it has been a place that has nurtured and cared for a lot of people over the years. It’s cosseted us and cared for us’.
Dorothy’s husband Mark felt a sense of responsibility to the future occupants of the house. He stated
‘The house will be here long after I’ve gone and I’m just privileged enough to be living here for a period of time.’
These homeowners have a creative appreciation of the worth of the story embedded in their homes. They understand that they are participants in an unfolding history, by providing a new layer in the story.
For Pascoe this is part of the ‘creeping heritage disease [that] is making its way up through the decades’. This is an unfortunate view of the world, but not uncommon is a world driven by post-modernist individualism. A world where communities have lost their soul and inclusiveness. The dollar reigns supreme and does little to nurture the landscape.
Selling a dream
In 2010 the developers of the Carinya sub-division were selling a dream. For some the dream is realised for others the new estates create a bland homogenised suburban streetscape with little charm or character.
The Carinya sub-division was part Sydney’s urbanization that, like an octopus, devours all in its path. Including ethical standards, community identity, sense of place and apparently local heritage and history.
The destruction of a simple charming 19th century farming cottages was unnecessary. Old and new can blend and add to the vibrancy and interest of emerging urban landscapes.
The council seems to be blind to the possibilities that a creative use of history and heritage has in the urban landscape for tourism, business and the wider community. The pleadings of the Chamber of Commerce for a ‘prosperous’ business sector have fallen on deaf ears at council. Likewise the pleadings of the community for positive and deep engagement in the urban planning process in one of Sydney’s most sensitive and historic town centres.
Heritage values and good urban planning are not mutually exclusive as some commentators obviously think. But they do require patience, creativity, flair and community engagement from all stakeholders.
The Nepean River is one of the most important waterways in the Sydney basin and has particular significance for Sydney’s southwestern rural-urban fringe.
Nepean River near Cobbitty 1900 (Camden Images)
The Nepean River catchment extends south and east of the Sydney Basin to take in areas near Robertson and Goulburn.
West of Wollongong the tributaries including Cataract Creek, Avon River, Cordeaux River that flow north-west and then into the deep gorges of Pheasants Nest and Douglas Park.
The river opens up into a floodplain and flows past Menangle and crosses the Cowpastures and southern Cumberland Plain past Camden and Cobbitty.
The river then flows north through the gorge adjacent to Wallacia and enters Bents Basin before it is joined by the Warragamba River and changes its name to the Hawkesbury River.
The Nepean River is economically important to the Sydney Basin and is used for mining, irrigation, recreation and other activities. It is ecologically significant to the area and has several rare and endangered species of plants.
Cultural importance
The river has an important meaning in terms of its intangible cultural heritage to the local landscape. The river and its surroundings had special meaning to the Indigenous Dharawal people of the Cowpastures area.
The river defines the landscape and the construction of place in the localities along the river including Menangle, Camden, and Cobbitty.
One locality of special significance is Little Sandy at Camden.
Little Sandy
Little Sandy on the Nepean River at Camden has been a popular spot with local Europeans for many decades for swimming, picnicking, boating and fishing. It is rich in the memories of local folk played out their childhoods, experienced the pangs of youth and enjoyed time with their families.
Little Sandy has been an important part of Camden cultural heritage for generations. It is a locality with a strong sense of place and identity with people’s memories.
The site has layers of meaning that can be peeled back and reveal a landscape of diverse dimensions. Its story has meaning across the generations.
The site and the pondage were created on the Nepean River with the construction of the Camden Weir in 1907. It is a culturally created landscape.
Today thousands of local residents enjoy the same rituals at Little Sandy on their jaunts along the Nepean River bike path with the friends and family.
Little Sandy with a footbridge across the Nepean River at Camden c.1950. Diving board in the foreground. (Camden Images)
Swimming carnivals
Nepean River swimming carnival 1917 Little Sandy (Camden Images)
In the early 20th century Little Sandy was a favourite swimming spot. In the 1920s the Camden Swimming Club built galvanised iron dressing sheds painted green in an area now known at Kings Bush Reserve.
Swimming became one of Elderslie’s earliest organised sporting activities after the Nepean River was dammed in 1907 with the construction of the Camden Weir.
Water backed up behind the weir for four kilometres through the Elderslie area and provided relatively deep water suitable for swimming.
The Camden Aquatic Sports carnival was organised in 1909 and attracted over 1000 spectators and was the location of the Camden Swimming Club in the 1920s.
The area was divided into Big Sandy, which was a deep hole, near Kings Bush Reserve. About 100 metres upstream was Little Sandy where the water was shallower. Learn to swim classes were held for a short time and Boy Scouts would go swimming there, according to Milton Ray.
Len English says
“In the 1950s the area was used for swimming by pupils from Camden Public School’, ‘The girls went with the female teachers to Little Sandy, while the male teachers and boys went downstream to Camden Weir.’
Olive McAleer says
‘Little Sandy was a popular spot for family picnics between the 1920s and 1940s’.
The river stopped being a swimming spot when it was condemned because of pollution by medical authorities in the early 1960s. It was replaced by Camden Memorial Swimming Pool in 1964. (P Mylrea, ‘Swimming in the Nepean River at Camden’, Camden History, March 2006)
Little Sandy footbridge over Nepean River at Camden in 1943 (Camden Images)
In 1943 military authorities from the Narellan Military Camp were anxious to undertake a practical training exercise for engineers. In September they sought the view of Camden Municipal Council on erecting a footbridge and the council immediately agreed with the proposal.
The council covered the cost of some of the timber so that the bridge remained the property of the council. The Australian Military Forces Engineers supplied the labour, supervision, transport vehicles and operators for the transport of stores and construction material.
The site at the bottom Chellaston Street connected two reserves on either side of the Nepean River. One on the Chellaston Street side and the other at River Road Elderslie.
In late September 1943, 40 troops started building a wooden footbridge 120 feet long and 4 feet wide. Construction took around four weeks and was finished by 28 October.
Observers commented on a
‘fine piece of workmanship…that would be much appreciated’ by the local community.
(Camden News, 16 September 1943, 23 September 1943, 28 October 1943).
Nepean River 1900
Nepean River below Cowpasture Bridge 1900 (Camden Images/CA Poole)
This image of the Nepean River is taken in the vicinity of the Camden Weir. It gives an indication of the degraded state of the river around 1900. There is evidence of sedimentation and streambank erosion caused by hard-hoofed animals trampling river banks.
These issues were typical of Australia’s inland waterways in the late 19th century after extensive clearing of the catchments for forestry, farming and other activities.
Sue Rosen quotes from James Atkinson’s 1826 An Account of the State of Agriculture and Grazing in New South Wales in her book on the environmental history of the Nepean River.
Atkinson states that even by the mid-1820s the river banks were undermined and collapsing into the stream. There were deposits of sand in the river channel and clearing practices had caused increased run-off, accelerated the degradation of the river channel and increased obstruction in the river bed. All evident in the 1900 photograph of the river channel at Camden.
Atkinson felt that the original European settlers had failed to ‘improve’ the land for farming and that its farming potential had been compromised. The settlers had in Atkinson’s terms failed to fulfil the original objectives of opening up the land and favoured, according to Rosen, ‘the cultivation of a landscape reminiscent of British romantic pastoral scenes’.
The earliest reports of the Nepean River date from 1795. David Collins wrote about his impression after a wet spring in his An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (London, 1798). These impressions have been quoted in Alan Atkinson’s Camden where it states there were
large ponds, covered with ducks and the black swan, the margins of which were fringed with shrubs of the most delightful tints.
After a dry spell, the river at Menangle was reported by George Caley in his ‘Report of a Journey to the Cowpastures’ (1804, ML) to be ‘reduced to a small compass’ and the water having ‘the foul appearance of a pond in a farmyard’.
Learn more
Sue Rosen Losing Ground An Environmental History of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment, Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1995.
Alan Atkinson, Camden, Farm and Village Life in Early New South Wales, Melbourne, OUP, 1988.
Camden Weir 1907
The picturesque scene at the Camden Weir on the Nepean River c.1917 (Camden Images)
The Camden Weir pondage created an aesthetic water feature that runs through the Camden township and took in the Little Sandy. The aesthetic has moral, experiential, spiritual and well-being aspects to it.
The Camden Weir was constructed by New South Wales Public Works Department after the completion of the Cataract Dam from 1907.
The compensation weir was one of number constructed along the Nepean River to safeguard the ‘riparian rights’ of landowners affected by the interruption of flow to the river, according to John Wrigley.
A riparian right is the ability to take water from the river. The water supply dams of the Upper Nepean Scheme reduced the flow of the tributaries of the Nepean River, and the weirs were to ‘compensate’ for the loss of water flow.
The other weirs near Camden were at Menangle, Begins, Thurns, Camden Sharpes and Cobbitty. The weirs were eventually transferred to the management to the Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board as part of the Sydney Water Supply system.
Learn more @ John Wrigley,’ Nepean River Weirs’, The District Reporter 3 August 2001
Water has a calming effect on the mind and takes the mind to a quiet, tranquil and peaceful place.
Some say it can dim our internal chatter and calm some people.
Water provides a degree of serenity and the purifying effect it can have on the soul. Water can have a soothing meditative effect on some people.
People need to re-charge and re-vitalise in the tranquillity of the environment provided by the tranquillity and serenity of the pool provided by the weir.
For others, a visually pleasant water feature can also be a source of healing and relaxing in a man-mad environment.
Those that went swimming at Little Sandy had an experiential relationship with the water. Water is used to nourish and replenish man after exertion.
Swimming carnivals were a time of community celebration and strengthening community resilience.
The pondage at Little Sandy also has a scientific value for the marine ecosystem it supports. It supports a range of life from eels, to perch, birds, reptiles and other life.
The Little Sandy pondage creates a pleasant water feature that circles the township. The beauty of the scene with the trees along the water’s edge framing the quiet of the pond.
People doing simple tasks like fishing, picnicking, walking and re-engaging with nature on the water’s edge. The surface of the water is a mirror that reflects the images of the trees and bushes on the water’s edge.
At dawn on a cold frosty morning, steam rise of the water’s surface as the walkers’ feet crackle under the frozen grass on the water’s edge. There is a splash as a kingfisher dives into the water after a fish, that breaks the silence of the space.
The world disappears momentarily as you sit on the water’s edge taking in the serene quiet surroundings of the pond.
A new footbridge
Little Sandy Footbridge after completion of work 2014 (I Willis)
The Little Sandy footbridge was officially opened on 4 May 2014 with another community event.
The weather gods were kind, and while there was a cool breeze and an overcast start the sun came out and the crowd turned up with families of mums and dads and the kids.
Camden Council organised a family fun day in Chellaston Reserve where there were stalls, a free train ride along the bike track and information stands.
The day opened at 11.00am and wound up in the afternoon at 3.00pm. Camden Rotary provided a sausage sizzle which sold out early in the day.
An information stand was provided by Camden Historical Society which was staffed by volunteers John and Julie Wrigley, Bob Lester and Rene Rem, while others turned up later.
This was another community event that has been typical of the popularity of the site for the Camden community.
Pre-cast concrete
The new pre-cast concrete 43-metre footbridge at Little Sandy on the Nepean River was completed in April 2014. Camden Council let contracts for the completion of a new footbridge in September 2013.
The new structure replaced a wooden footbridge that was damaged in a flood in 2012. The new footbridge was jointly funded by the council and the state government.
The finished footbridge is part of the Nepean River cycleway that joins Camden with Elderslie, South Camden and Narellan. Local resident Kevin Browne stated in 2012 (Camden Narellan Advertiser 31 July) that:
the bridge was part of the unique attraction of living in a rural area [and] the availability of serene, natural beauty.
After the 2012 damage to the footbridge and its closure, local residents started to campaign for its replacement.
This culminated in a community meeting in the mayor’s office in August 2013 when 19 local residents attended an information session with the mayor, the Member for Camden, and the council’s general manager and engineering staff.
The original footbridge was constructed in 1943 as a military training exercise by the AMF Engineering Corps stationed at Narellan Military Camp.
Camden Council agreed to fund the cost of the materials while the engineers provided the labour (40 men), supervision and vehicles. The original footbridge was 120 feet long and 4 feet wide.
Learn more @ The District Reporter 17 August 2012.
Kings Bush
King’s Bush is the reserve adjacent the river’s edge at Little Sandy and is named after Cecil J King, the rector of St John’s Church between 1893 and 1927.
According to John Wrigley, King kept his horse in the paddock next to the river and swam at the same spot in the river.
Reverend King was a keen sports fan and played for the Camden Cricket Club and was the team’s wicketkeeper for several years. In 1927 he was the patron of the Camden Golf Club and president of the Union and St John’s tennis club.
King was ordained at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney in 1887 by the Bishop Barry of the Sydney Archdiocese. (Camden Advertiser 2 June 1949)
Learn more @ John Wrigley, Place Names on the Camden Area, Camden, CHS, 2005.
Chellaston Street
Chellaston Street ends at the Nepean River in Chellaston Reserve in the vicinity of Little Sandy. Chellaston was a single storey brick residence at 38 Menangle Road built by Camden builder John Peat and used as his family home.
Chellaston Street was part of land releases on the south side of the township in the 1920s. There were several land releases in the area during the Inter-war period including Victory Ave and Gilbulla Ave that run off Menangle Road.
Learn more @ John Wrigley, Place Names on the Camden Area, Camden, CHS, 2005.
Camden History Notes 
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