The Elderslie area has been identified in Sydney’s strategic growth plans for land releases on the metropolitan rural-urban fringe. It is a valuable exercise to see how and when Elderslie was identified as part of Sydney’s planning framework.
Elderslie was not part of the NSW Government’s first attempt at town planning with the 1948 County of Cumberland Planning Scheme. A greenbelt surrounded the metropolitan area, and Elderslie was beyond it and not destined for the development. The scheme was prescriptive and met with significant opposition, including local government and the development industry, and the scheme was dissolved in 1963.
The County of Cumberland Planning Scheme flyer 1948 (City of Syd Archives)
The Elderslie area was included in the next planning iteration with the Askin Government’s 1968 Sydney region: Outline plan 1970-2000 A.D.: a strategy for development. This plan led to the 1973 New Cities of Campbelltown Camden Structure Plan and the Commonwealth Government’s Macarthur Growth Centre. This plan offered flexibility and changes and turned into a developer’s dream. Sydney’s urban sprawl continued to spread, and nothing much eventuated at Elderslie. (Ashton & Freestone 2008)
The first hint of real change at Elderslie occurred with the third strategic plan: the 1988 Sydney into its third century: a metropolitan strategy for the Sydney region. This plan envisaged that Sydney’s growth would be contained in newly developing areas along the transport routes: Northwest, Southwest, Bringelly and Central Coast, with higher densities to consolidate Sydney’s growth. (SRANSW 1995) These plans resulted in suburbia encroaching on the boundaries of Elderslie with the development of Mount Annan, Narellan Vale, Harrington Park and surrounding suburbs.
Air pollution and water quality issues in the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment further postponed the rezoning of land in the Elderslie area beyond 1990. (BBC Consulting) Meanwhile, another new metropolitan plan appeared in 1995, Cities for the 21st Century.
The Elderslie Urban Release Area was identified by the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning in 1995 under the 1980 Urban Development Program managed by the department. (BBC Consulting 1998) At the time, the department was looking for opportunities to drive Sydney’s urban growth (SRANSW 1995) and the identification and coordination of new residential land. (BBC Consulting 1998) The Elderslie Release Area consisted of 180 hectares, and it was envisaged that the area might yield 2800 lots, which was revised down to 1700 lots. (BBC Consulting 1998)
Sydney’s strategic planning was further updated with the 1998 Shaping Our Cities. This plan called for higher densities with familiar themes of better integration of land use and transport and promotion of suburban activity centres with a more explicit concern with urban design at a regional scale. (Ashton & Freestone 2008)
In 2000 the state government identified the Elderslie Urban Release Area for redevelopment under NSW Urban Development Program. The Elderslie area was zoned rural then, with a minimum subdivision of 40 ha. (Godden, Mackay and Logan 2001)
An article from the Camden press about the Elderslie Urban Land Release in 2000 by the NSW Government (The District Reporter, 3 November 2000)
The 180 ha. Elderslie Release Area was developed as part of the Camden Local Environmental Plan No 117 when it was put on public display in 2000 to replace the Camden LEP No 46. The LEP described the desired character of the area in a list of planning controls and was legislated in 2004. (Godden, Mackay and Logan 2001)
Elderslie was within the South West Growth Centre as part of the 2005 City of Cities: a plan for Sydney’s future metropolitan strategy of the state government. The plan reflected familiar urban planning themes of the end of sprawl with a more compact city, higher densities, sub-regional centred, transport integration and urban design. (Ashton & Freestone 2008)
Elderslie land releases
The names given Elderslie land releases range from the commodification of the rural aesthetic of the local area to a locality name, names of local identities or hints of the historical past.
1999 Elderslie
The Elderslie land release in 1999 (Macarthur Advertiser, 25 August 1999)
2000-2014 Elderslie Masterplan and community meetings
2004-2007 Camden Acres
The cover of the Camden Acres land release in 2004 (Camden Acres)
2005-2014 The Ridges
A flyer from the developer of The Ridges land release in 2006 (The Ridges AV Jennings)
2007-2014 Vantage Point
2008-2009 Camden Hillside
2009 Mount View Estate
2010 Elderslie Estate
2010-2012 Hillcrest
2011-2013 Merino
2012-2013 Camden Heights
2013 Studley Park
2016 Franzman Ave
2017 Lodges Road
2017-2023 Argyle
Screenshot of The Argyle land release in 2023 (The Argyle)
References
BBC Consulting 1998, Elderslie Open Space and Social Plan. Camden Council, Camden.
The story of the construction of the history of the Camden area. There are many versions and they are all correct. They all put their own spin on the way they want to tell the Camden story. Some good, some indifferent, some just plain awful.
(Facebook, 23 November 2015)
View of the farm of J. Hassel [Hassall] Esqr. Cow Pastures, New South Wales by Augustus Earle, c. 1825. State Library of NSW PXD 265, f. 2
Tourist history of Camden
The official story of the township as told to tourists is shared in the brochure for a historic walk around the Camden town centre published by Camden Council. It is reflective of the pioneer legend that has pervaded the Camden story and the legitimising narrative that is part of the nation-building story of a settler society. In many ways, it hides as much as it reveals. It states:
The historic town of Camden, less than an hours drive south-west of Sydney, is the cultural heart of a region that enjoys a unique place in our nation’s history.
The earliest developments of the Australian wool, wheat and wine industries are associated with the town following the original land grant from Lord Camden to John Macarthur in 1805.
The town is home to a large number of heritage listed attractions that reflect its strong links with the history of colonial settlement in Australia. Camden is rich in rural heritage with live stock sale yards, vineyards, Equestrian Park and dairy facilities.
The township reveals in its built heritage an interesting and varied range of architectural styles that reflect the town’s evolution from the earliest days of European settlement through to the modern era.
The walking tour brochure portrays Camden’s rich historical and cultural legacy and affords a valuable opportunity to both visitors and the local community to experience the town’s unique character and charm and appreciate some of its history first hand.
(Camden Heritage Walking Tour Brochure)
A similar heritage walking brochure exists for the Narellan area, which tells the story of European settlement of a planned government village that pre-dates Camden. Here there is also silence on many aspects of the past that are yet to be revealed to readers.
This short historiography is one of the few that has been attempted to illustrate the construction of the history of a rural community. One that has been recently published is included in the history of the gold-mining community of Linton in Victoria (2015). The author, Jill Wheeler, examines the broad range of influences that shaped the writing of that community’s history.
This paper should be read in conjunction with the Camden Bibliography, which is a list of published and other sources on the Camden District. It was my first attempt at compiling an authoritative list of sources on the local area and it has been pleasing to note that a host of researchers have found it to be a useful start.
This construction of the story of Camden history can be divided into a number of identifiable stages. Each stage reflects the values and attitudes of those who created the writing of the period, and the social and cultural filters that shaped their version of the story.
The Cowpastures frontier
From the beginning of European settlement in Australia curiosity drew those with an interest in wider issues to the local area. The first expeditionaries were naval and military officers who were trained to observe the landform and surroundings and record the detail in their logs and diaries. While providing a detailed account of their journeys they also recorded their observations and contact with Indigenous people. They recorded their observations of a managed landscape that was regularly burnt by the local Indigenous people. Prominent amongst these were Englishmen Watkin Tench (1790), Governor John Hunter (1795), David Collins (1795), George Bass (1796) and Lachlan Macquarie (1810, 1815, 1820), and Frenchmen Francis Louis Barrallier (1802) and Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1826).
Then there are the letters of settlers like John Hawdon of Elderslie in the 1820s who wrote back to England of his experiences in the Cowpastures and dealing with ‘the government men’. [convicts]
Amongst other writings, there are the reminiscences of Barron Field (1825), Thomas Mitchell (1836) and William Pridden (1843), while there are the journals of colonial women such as those of Annabella Boswell (1848).
Naming landform features gave the new arrivals a legitimacy of possession. For example on Governor King’s excursion to the area, he named the locality the Cowpastures because of the escaped cattle.
Central Camden c1930s (Camden Images)
Villages and beyond
The earliest records of settlement in the Cowpastures describe the conditions in the villages that were scattered across the area – Cawdor, Cobbitty, Elderslie, Narellan and then later Camden (1840).
The earliest accounts of Camden village, its planning, its establishment and development are carried in the Sydney newspapers – particularly The Sydney Morning Herald. During the 1840s the Camden Clerk of Petty Sessions Charles Tompson was a regular correspondent to the newspaper.
Even by the 1880s the changing nature of the Camden village and the district prompted nostalgia for the pioneering days of the early colonial period. The Camden Times and Camden News printed reminiscences of the town and district of JB Martin in the early 1880s and 1890s and RH Antill in the late 1890s, Richard Todd (1895 and 1896) as well as the stories from Obed West in the 1884 and 1885 in The Sydney Morning Herald. These stressed the progress and development of the town. Martin, the Camden Clerk of Petty Sessions for a period, made the point in his 1883 (Camden Times) reminiscences that the history of several English counties had been written by local history associations and he felt that a similar venture was worthwhile in the Camden district.
Further reminiscences were Thomas Herbert (1909) in the Town and Country Journal and Samuel Hassall’s (1902) In Old Australia and there are the unpublished reminiscences of Camden businessman Samuel Thompson (1905).
Wartime writing
The Boer War, then the First and later the Second World Wars provide a period of reflection for local folk who are away soldiering in foreign lands. They are amongst the first to write about the Camden District as home in nostalgic terms from far away places where they are under traumatic conditions.
These letters were published in the Camden News and during the Second World War the Camden Advertiser. Some have found their way into recent publications particularly on the centenary of the First World War.
John Kerry’s view of St Johns Church in 1890s (Camden Images)
Camden Aesthetic
An important theme in the Camden story is the development of a Camden aesthetic based on romantic notions surrounding the colonial properties of the landed gentry and the landscapes that were created by the Cowpasture patriarchs.
This first appeared in Andrew Garran’s highly successful Picturesque Atlas of Australasia (1886) and portrayed an idyllic English village at Camden surrounded by an ordered farming landscape. The engraving was accompanied by GB Barton’s account of the exploits of John Macarthur and the foundation of the colonial wool industry. This was a narrative that evolved into local and national mythology and was further advanced by Sibella Macarthur Onslow’s Some Early Records of The Macarthurs of Camden (1914), a collection of family papers.
1934 Australian Commemorative Postage Stamp
The legend of John Macarthur gained further momentum in the 1930s on the centenary of John Macarthur’s death in 1934 when Australia was in search of national heroes. He was the subject of stories in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society (1929) and biographies. His image appeared on a series of postage stamps and later on the new decimal currency in the 1960s. His character was the subject of a novel (1941) and a new Federal electorate of Macarthur (1949) was named after him. In 1960 the Camden community held a four-day celebration of the legend of the John Macarthur and the 150th anniversary of wool production in Australia called the Festival of the Golden Fleece (22-30 October).
The early 20th century also witnessed a shift in history writing identified by Graeme Davison from ‘pioneer’ to ‘patriarchal’ history writing and the development of the Camden aesthetic was part of that agenda.
There was William Hardy Wilson’s The Cow Pasture Road (1920) and Ure Smith’s watercolours and etchings in his Old Colonial By Ways (1928). Whimsical descriptions of Camden’s Englishness were published in Eldrid Dyer’s ‘Camden, The Charm of an Old Town’ (1926) and articles in The Sydney Morning Herald like ‘The Beauty of Age’ (1934).
The Royal Australian Historical Society published articles on the Camden District in its journal. The first appeared in 1928 on the Cowpastures, Cawdor and Cobbitty, which were followed by the Burragorang Valley (1934), Camden (1935), Narellan (1936), and the Cowpastures again in 1939.
Newcastle based journalist JJ Moloney, a former Menangle resident, published his reminiscences of Early Menangle in 1929. In Camden two local journalists, George Sidman and Arthur Gibson, each separately marked the golden jubilee of the foundation of the Municipality of Camden (1889). Sidman, the owner of the Camden News, published the memoirs of J. B. Martin in a series of newspaper columns. While Gibson, owner of the Camden Advertiser, commissioned James Jervis from the Royal Australian Historical Society to write The Story of Camden.
The end of the Second World War created an air of confidence in the Camden District, which by this stage was prospering from the wealth created by the Burragorang Valley coalfields. In 1948 the newly formed Rotary Club and Camden Community Centre commissioned the University of Sydney to conduct a sociological survey of the town to provide a foundation for ‘future development’. This was followed up in 1952 by an American sociologist from the University of Kansas City, ML ‘Jack’ Mason and his wife Elizabeth ‘Beth’. They surveyed the town and established that there was a five-tier social structure, which had its origins in the colonial period and the Cowpasture patriarchs. Both studies were suppressed from public gaze by vested interests until recent times.
Memorials of loss
As historians Graeme Davison and Gail Griffiths have noted the loss of local icons and ‘loved places’ creates a deep sense of insecurity and a desire by some for the ‘good old days’. The grieving process was triggered in the Camden District community from the loss of Burragorang Valley after the state government decided to build a dam in the 1930s. In the early 1960s, the New South Wales Government closed the Campbelltown to Camden rail link as part of a state-wide rationalisation process.
WW1 Memorial Gates at Macarthur Park (Camden Remembers)
There were five seminal events during this period, firstly, in 1957 the number of teachers from the newly established Camden High School formed the Camden Historical Society and held lectures, conducted field trips and outings.
Secondly, there was the erection of civic monuments celebrating the Burragorang Valley. The first monument, erected in 1962, was the Camden Rotary mural at the southern entrance to the town. The mural has designs celebrating Indigenous culture as well as the area’s farming and mining heritage. The stone for the wall came from the St Paulinos Catholic Church in ‘the Valley’.
Thirdly, a wagon wheel was erected by the Camden Historical Society outside the council chambers in 1977 to celebrate the teamsters who brought silver ore from Yerranderie through ‘the Valley’ to the Camden railhead. A heavy horse-drawn farm wagon was located outside the council chambers in 1978 to memorialise farmer workers and the horse. Each of these monuments recalled the values of the frontier; tenacity, stoicism, ruggedness, individualism, adaptability and Britishness. An 1899 water trough was added to these civic monuments in 1979 celebrating the town’s modernity when the town was connected to reticulated water; a sign of progress and development.
Camden Library Museum in John Street Camden
In 1970 the Camden Historical Society opened a folk museum in a room in the old council chambers encouraged by the Royal Australian Historical Society. The museum used simple displays of local ephemera, artefacts and other collectables supplemented with rudimentary signage to tell the Camden story.
The memorials of loss across the district extended to the numerous war memorials scattered throughout the Camden District that mourned the loss of men who never came home after the Great War. These monuments were added after the Second World War and in recent times with the centenary of the First World War, and have shaped and re-shaped the Camden story in ways that are still hard to identify. Their meaning is a statement of collective memory that is expressed in April and November every year by local communities.
Elsewhere in the district, The Oaks Historical Society was formed in 1979. It has contributed much material to the storytelling of the western part of the Camden District, particularly the Burragorang Valley and the silver mining fields of Yerranderie.
The rural-urban fringe and other threats
The role of loss in the Camden story acquired new meaning after 1973 when there was an identifiable shift in the interpretation and representation of ruralness in Camden. The release in 1973 of The New Cities of Campbelltown Camden Appin Structure Plan as part of the 1968 Sydney Regional Outline Plan triggered a wave of invaders from the city. Urban planners envisaged three regional centres on Sydney’s outskirts at Camden, Campbelltown and Appin with the ambitious idea of stopping the city’s urban sprawl.
Mount Annan suburban development which is part of Sydney’s urban sprawl c2005 (Camden Images)
These events strengthened the role of the Camden aesthetic. There was the re-making of place centred on the decline of the country town of Camden as the hub of a thriving rural economy to an idealised country town, a country town of the imagination.
Romantic representations of Camden’s rurality, especially St John’s church, became an important part of the contemporary consciousness. They found their way into official council policy and have been used in literature, publications, tourist and business promotions, websites, artwork, music, museum displays and a host of other places. In 1999 Camden Council’s strategic plan Camden 2025 adopted the language and imagery of Camden’s rurality when it outlined ‘the traditional qualities of a rural lifestyle’, ‘the historic nature’ of the area and the ‘unique rural landscapes and vistas’ in a country town atmosphere.
There was also the influence of the national bicentennial celebrations in 1988 and the publication in the same year of Alan Atkinson’s Camden, Farm and Village Life in Early New South Wales (1988) which examined the early decades of the township. The dust jacket used a romantic watercolour (1850s) attributed to Emily Macarthur which looks ‘across Camden Park to the north-west, with St John’s Church and the distant Blue Mountains closing the view’, with the Nepean River flowing across the vista, similar to the 1886 Garran engraving.
This period also the emergence of the local histories of the area written by keen amateurs with the most notable example being John Wrigley, who has put together several publications the first published in 1980 called A History of Camden. The Camden Historical Society started a small journal in 2001 called Camden History, which the society continues to successfully publish specialist local histories for a local audience.
The 21st century saw the evolution in the Camden story to a new generation of writers, most notable amongst them was this author. My work started with a local wartime study of a women’s voluntary organisation and has extended across a range of local themes including the rural-urban fringe, urban history, place, identity, philanthropy, the wartime homefront and local government. Most recently I have told the Camden story in a publication of a pictorial history of the district.
Ferguson’s Nursery at Hurstville, Mittagong and Sylvania
During the post-war years, Ferguson’s Nurseries continued to be located on Sydney’s urban fringe as the metropolitan area expanded into the rural surrounds.
Hurstville nursery prospered then closed, another opened on the urban fringe at Sylvania, a cold-climate nursery opened at Mittagong, and the Camden nursery closed.
In the mid-1960s, the family sold the business to new owners who continued to use the Ferguson nurseries as a trading name.
Significance
The importance of the colonial legacy of Francis Ferguson is emphasised in July McMaugh’s Living Horticulture. She only lists four New South Wales 19th colonial horticulturalists of significance, one of whom is Ferguson.
The Camden Nursery site remains quite significant in the history of the Australian nursery industry. Morris and Britton maintain that the site is
A rare remnant of an important and influential colonial nursery from the late 1850s and includes a collection of 19th century plantings and is a landmark in the local area. (Morris and Britton 2000)
Camden Nursery site
The Camden Nursery on the Nepean River stopped operating in the immediate post-war years, and the nursery headquarters relocated to Hurstville.
In 1937 Camden Municipal Council rejected an offer from Ferguson’s nurseries of 100 rose bushes for planting in Macarthur Park. The council did not want the nursery to take cuttings from the park’s rose bushes. (Camden News, 13 May 1937)
In the 1930s, the Camden press reported that Ferguson’s nurseries had purchased the property of W Moore between the Old Southern Road and the Hume Highway (Camden News, 11 April 1935). This was in the vicinity of Little Street. (Cole, CHS, 1989) This is likely the 1937 outlet fronting the Hume Highway in Camden and still operating in 1944. (Camden News, 18 February 1937, 17 February 1944)
The Camden Nursery outlet had stopped trading by 1946. The Camden press reported an application to connect the electricity supply to RB Ferguson’s property at the ‘the Old Nursery’. (Camden News, 19 December 1946, 27 November 1947)
Hurstville Nursery
By the mid-1950s, the nursery was trading as F Ferguson & Son, headquartered at Hurstville with branches at Sylvania and Mittagong. (Sun Herald, 13 September 1953)
Operations for Ferguson’s Nurseries were centralised at the Hurstville nursery in the post-war years, and the area around the nursery became known as Kingsgrove.
There was growth in the area following the opening of Kingsgrove Railway Station in 1931. Sydney’s residential development followed the development of suburban railway lines.
There was increased growth in the Hurstville area in the post-war years, with increased housing and rising land values.
The NSW Housing Commission built over 200 homes on the Ferguson Nursery Estate at Kingsgrove. (St George Call (Kogarah) 21 September 1945)
In the 1957 Plant Catalogue, the nursery indicates that the business had a Kingsgrove address and had branches at Sylvania and Mittagong (Ferguson Nursery 1957)
1957 Plant Catalogue
In the 1957 Plant Catalogue of 54 pages, the nursery listed a Kingsgrove address and branches at Sylvania and Mittagong (Ferguson Nursery 1957). The catalogue listed plant stock for sale with advice for the gardener to achieve the best results.
Cover of Ferguson’s Nursery Trade Catalogue for 1957 trading as F Ferguson & Sons (Camden Museum Archives)
The catalogue listed for sale: fruit trees; Australian trees and shrubs; flowering plants including roses, camellias (51 varieties), azaleas, hibiscus; conifers; ornamental trees; palms and cycads (varieties from California, Canary Islands, Siam, South America, India, China and Japan).
Amongst the fruit trees, the catalogue listed apples, apricots, citrus (cumquats, oranges, lemons, mandarins, grapefruit), nectarines, passionfruit, peaches, pears, plums (English, Japanese), prunes, quinces, as well as almonds and walnuts.
Roses were a speciality and included novelty roses for 1957, standard roses and others. The catalogue advised gardeners to achieve the best results with roses, particularly with planting and pruning. (Ferguson Nursery 1957)
Under Australian trees and shrubs, the catalogue stated:
Australia is endowed with of indigenous Trees and Shrubs that are entirely different and considered by many far superior to anything else in the world. Nothing is more useful for Parks, School Grounds, etc, that some of out Native Flora, and certainly nothing is more hardy or topical. (Ferguson Nursery 1957)
Fergusons offered a landscaping service to
assist and advise you in the correct formation and setting-out of Lawns, Drives, Shrubberies, also in the correct selection of suitable Shrubs, Roses, and all kinds of Flowering Plants, so that the ultimate results will be charming. (Ferguson Nursery 1957) (Ferguson 1957)
Sylvania Nursery
111 Port Hacking Road, Sylvania
In the post-war years, Fergusons Nurserys followed Sydney’s urban fringe and established a new nursery south of Hurstville in the Sutherland Shire at Sylvania.
Sutherland Shire was growing in the late mid-20th century. McDowells opened a department store at Caringbah in 1961, Miranda Fair Shopping Centre opened in 1964, the new Sutherland District Hospital opened in 1958, and the Sutherland Daily Leader was launched with its first edition on 29 June 1960. (Sutherland Shire Library)
The first mention of the Sylvania nursery in the Sydney press was in 1955 when Fergusons placed an advertisement for contractors to provide a quote to build a fibro cottage on the nursery site at 111 Port Hacking Road. (SMH, 1 October 1955)
The nursery opened for trading in 1961. A story in the Sutherland press about the history of the Ferguson Nursery group. (Sutherland Daily Leader, 26 April 1961)
Nurseryman Rex Jurd conducted the management of the Sylvania nursery. (McMaugh 2005:252) (McMaugh 2005)
Nurseryman Jurd recalled that Francis Ferguson’s granddaughter, Nancy, and her husband lived on the site. He said, ‘It seemed to Rex that they had little interest in the business’.
‘It was run down, and he spent two years there fixing it up and replacing all the plant material’, wrote Judy McMaugh.
The Sylvania Nursery extended from Port Hacking Road to the waterfront on Gwawley Bay (now Sylvania Waters) (McMaugh 2005: 252-253). According to Jurd, the nursery was not clearly visible to on-coming traffic and was on the low side of the road and suffered from ‘few customers’.
Jurd, a fellow student with well-known Sydney nurseryman Valerie Swain at Ryde School of Horticulture, left Fergusons in 1959 and started working for Smart’s Nurseries at Gordon. (McMaugh 2005: 252-253)
The Sylvania Nurserywas sold to the Pike family in 1966 and became part of Ferguson Garden Centre Pty Ltd. The new business retained the Ferguson name as part of the sale. (Sutherland Daily Leader, 16 May 1966)
The advice page for gardeners who purchased roses from Ferguson’s Nursery for their care and maintenance of roses. Trade catalogue for F Ferguson and Sons (Camden Museum Archives)
Mittagong Nursery
Hume Highway (then Old Hume Highway, then Ferguson Cres) Mittagong
Ferguson’s Nurseries developed a cold-climate nursery at Mittagong in 1939 and developed under the management of nurseryman Arthur Carroll.
According to nurseryman Bill Starke, Arthur Carroll ‘was equipped with a draught horse, a cross-cut saw, and an axe, and basically cleared the property by hand’. (McMaugh 2005: 105)
Mr Carroll was away on active military service during the Second World War and returned in 1946 as manager of the nursery, which traded as F Ferguson and Son. (Southern Mail, 10 May 1946)
An advertisement placed in the Southern Mail newspaper for F Ferguson & Son (Southern Mail, 17 May 1946)
Bruce Ferguson sold the Mittagong nursery to the Pike family in 1970. (McMaugh 2005:363)
This is the signage for Ferguson Cres (formerly the Hume Highway, then Old Hume Highway) at the intersection with Bowral Road, Mittagong. The street was named after the old Ferguson Nursery, located further north along what is now Ferguson Crescent. (I Willis 2022)
The former site of Ferguson’s Nursery on Ferguson Crescent (formerly Hume Highway, then Old Hume Highway) at Mittagong. This aerial view shows the remnants of the Hazelwood Garden Centre, which in 2022, is a housing development site called Ferguson Estate. (CRE 2021)
New ownership and the Ferguson name continues
Bruce Ferguson sold the Sylvania Nursery in 1966. (Reeve 2017)
Jack Pike of Pikes Nurseries Rydalmere and Arch and Alan Newport of Newport Nurseries Winmalee (Springwood) were new owners. (McMaugh 2005: 320) The new ownership arrangement was incorporated in 1966 as Ferguson’s Garden Centres Pty Ltd. (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 October 1967).
The Pikes were innovative businessmen, and the Sydney press ran a story in 1967 that promoted the nursery as Sydney’s new ‘supergardenmarket’. (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 October 1967).
In 1970 the business purchased the Baulkham Hills Garden Centre and re-named it Ferguson’s Baulkham Hills Garden Centre. By 1973 the Newports had sold out to the Pike family interests. (McMaugh 2005:320, 366)
In 1974 outlets opened at Narrabeen, Warringah Mall, and the Sydney CBD. (McMaugh2005:365-366)
By the 1980s, many centres across the Sydney metropolitan area, including Baulkham Hills, Sylvania, Bonnyrigg, Narrabeen, Guilford, Mittagong in the Southern Highlands, in Victoria the Mornington Peninsular and on the far-north coast at Alstonville. (McMaugh 2005:366)
The Baulkham Hills Centre traded as Ferguson’s Garden Centres Holdings Pty Ltd and was incorporated in 1981. The nursery ceased trading in 2018, and the site was developed for residential units in 2019.
References
Ferguson, F. (1957). Ferguson’s Nursery Catalogue. Hurstville, F Ferguson & Sons.
McMaugh, J. (2005). Living Horticulture, The lives of men and women in the New South Wales nursery industry. Sydney NSW, Nursery and Garden Industry NSW & ACT.
Morris, C. and G. Britton (2000). Colonial landscapes of the Cumberland Plain and Camden, NSW: A survey of selected pre-1860 cultural landscapes from Wollondilly to Hawkesbury LGAs. Sydney NSW, National Trust of Australia (NSW). 1 & 2.
Reeve, T. M. (2017). “‘Rawson’, Condamine Street, Campbelltown, a private residence, formerly known as ‘Marlesford’.” Grist Mills 30(2): 25-32.
Updated on 13 May 2023. Originally posted on 16 January 2022.
The Macarthur Bridge across the Nepean River is one of the most critical parts of the economic and social infrastructure in the Macarthur area on Sydney’s south-western rural-urban fringe.
The bridge can also be regarded as one of the most items of engineering heritage in the Camden Local Government Area. The bridge provides a high-level flood-free crossing of the Nepean River which can isolate the township of Camden when the numerous low-level bridges in the area are flooded.
The low-level bridges are the Cowpasture Bridge (Camden), the Cobbitty Bridge and the Menangle Bridge.
Macarthur Bridge View from Nepean River floodplain upstream from the Camden township in New South Wales (IWillis 2015)
History and Description
The Macarthur Bridge is named after one of the Camden district’s first land grantees John Macarthur and their pastoral holding of Camden Park, which the family still occupy. There are many descendants of the Macarthur family in the Camden district.
These were exciting plans that were never fully realized by the planners. The New Cities Plan turned into a developer’s dream and hastened Sydney’s urban sprawl into the southern reaches of the Cumberland Plain. The Macarthur Region is one of those legacies.
The New Cities Campbelltown Camden Appin Structure Plan of 1973 was completed by the NSW State Planning Authority of the Askin Government.
The Macarthur bridge guaranteed flood free access from the Burragorang Valley coalfields to the Main Southern Railway at Glenlee for American shipping magnate Daniel Ludwig’s Clutha Development Corporation.
This development was considered important given the defeat of the Askin Liberal Government’s support for a proposal by Clutha for a rail link between the Burragorang coalfields and the Illawarra coastline. The Askin government passed special enabling legislation, which turned into one of the first environmental disputes in the Sydney basin in the early 1970s.
The Construction of the Macarthur Bridge (RMS 1973, 71/2 mins)
The high-level Macarthur Bridge allowed the diversion of coal trucks from the Burragorang Valley coalfields away from Camden’s main street, passing across the low-level Cowpasture Bridge from 1973. Coal trucks then travelled along Druitt Lane and over the Macarthur Bridge to the Glenlee Washery at Spring Farm.
The flooding by the Nepean River of the road access to the township of Camden at the low-level Cowpasture Bridge had been a perennial problem since the town’s foundation in 1840.
Cowpasture Nepean River Road Rail Bridge 1900 (Postcard Camden Images)
In 2002 the NSW Minister for Transport replied to a question in parliament from Dr Elizabeth Kernohan, Member for Camden, about the bridge. The Minister stated
I am advised that Macarthur Bridge was built in the early 1970’s on the basis that most of the long distance traffic would use the F5. I am advised that the primary function of the Macarthur Bridge was for use as a flood relief route. It was built parallel to the Cowpasture Bridge at Camden to take the full traffic load when the Cowpasture Bridge is impassable.
I am advised by the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) that the bridge referred to was not specifically designed to be widened at a later date. (NSW Parliament, 8 May 2002)
Specifications
The Macarthur Bridge is a 26-span, 3380 feet (approximately 1.12 km) long concrete structure that carries the Camden Bypass across the Nepean River and its flood plain. The bridge was built between 1971 and 1973, originally to carry Hume Highway traffic, on a flood-free alignment around Camden.
The Camden Bypass
The Camden Bypass is the former Hume Highway alignment between the localities of Cross Roads and Camden. It is marked as State Route 89. The proper route is from Cross Roads, skirting Camden via the Camden Bypass and ending at Remembrance Drive, another part of the former Hume Highway near Camden South.
The Camden Bypass was in turn bypassed in December 1980 when the section of what was then called the South Western Freeway (route F5) from Campbelltown to Yerrinbool was opened. It has grown in importance as a major arterial road linking the Hume Motorway, WestLink M7 and M5 South Western Motorway interchange at Prestons, near Liverpool, with Camden.
The Macarthur Bridge northern approaches from the Camden Bypass (1Willis, 2015)
Open to traffic and construction details
The official plaque on the bridge states:
Macarthur Bridge.
The bridge was designed by the staff of the Department of Main Roads and is the longest structure built by the Department since its inception in 1925. Length (Overall) 3380 feet comprising 26 spans each of 130 feet long. Width between kerbs 30 feet with one footway 5 feet wide. Piled foundations (max 90 feet deep) were constructed by the Department’s Bridge construction organisation. Piers and superstructure by contact by John Holland (Constructions) Pty Ltd. Total cost of bridge £2,600,000.
RJS Thomas Commissioner for Main Roads
AF Schmids Assistant Commissioner for Main Roads
GV Fawkner Engineer-in-Chief
FC Cook Engineer (Bridges)
Department of Main Roads, New South Wales
Open to traffic on 26 March 1973
Memories
Facebook 30 June 2021
Annette DingleI remember the day it opened, the school ( Camden south) walked to it . I lived in the street under it ( it was a dead end back then ) we use to play in the “tunnels “ under the bridge. You could only go so far before there was no air . Fun times
In 1964 the Campbelltown-Ingleburn News ran a banner headline on its front page, SYMBOL OF PROGRESS. The newspaper announced the opening of a new council administration building as part of a proposed civic centre precinct in the town centre.
The newspaper headline was a statement of faith in the confidence of Campbelltown and its planned declaration as a satellite city by the state government.
The eight-storey office building was the tallest structure in the town centre and was visible from all parts of the area. The top floors provided a ‘bird’s eye’ view over central Campbelltown and completely dominated its surroundings.
The Campbelltown Council office building is an outstanding example of a mid-century modernist high-rise office tower in the Macarthur region. Unfortunately the hopes and dreams of local decision makers who approved its construction were dashed in later decades.
View of Campbelltown Council administration building from Campbelltown Railway Station in 1967 showing its prominence in the town centre. (CCL)
A metaphor for a community on the move
The new administration building was a metaphor for Campbelltown’s growing confidence in the 1960s and the town’s future.
The building symbolised the hopes and dreams of planners and administrators and the immense changes that were to engulf Campbelltown over the following decades.
At the official opening on 28 November, 1964 Campbelltown Mayor TK Fraser felt that the town was on the verge of something special. He said,
At the threshold of the most dynamic period in the history of its area, Campbelltown Municipal Council, imbued with a strong sense of purpose and complete confidence in the future, has provided this imposing Administrative Building’.
The building, the first stage of a Civic Centre which will cater for the needs of a rapidly expanding community, stands as a practical demonstration of the confidence with which Council faces the future convinced that this area, steeped in history, at present of unsurpassed rural charm, will develop, in the near future, into a thriving Satellite City. (Official programme)
A view of the moderne Campbelltown Council administration building in the mid-1960s which was officially opened in 1964. This image was taken by local Campbelltown photographer Geoff Eves and shows the clean lines and minimalist style. (G Eves)
The administration building was developed under the guidelines of the County of Cumberland Scheme. It was part of an existing Campbelltown civic precinct that included the ambulance station and courthouse, and adjacent to the police station and railway station.
Alderman Percival, the vice-chair of the council Civic Centre committee, maintained that the building’s design catered for the anticipated administration by the council as a satellite city. The status of a satellite city was part of the proposed decentralisation by the County of Cumberland with Campbelltown’s projected population to grow to 200,000. (Construction, 11 September 1963)
Planning for the new office building had begun in 1961 when the school of arts building provided inadequate to accommodate council staff. Initially housed in the old town hall council staff had moved out into the school of arts after the 1948 amalgamation with Ingleburn Municipal Council.
‘The move into the new 1964 building was not without criticism’, said Alderman Percival. He argued that the council’s progression with the project was a ‘considerable moment’ for the municipality.
He said, ‘It was a necessary demonstration of confidence in the municipality by Council’. (Campbelltown Ingleburn News, 1 December 1964)
The architects agreed and said that the size, height and position of the building emphasised ‘the importance and dignity of Local Government function in the affairs of the city’. The two-storey atrium in the vestibule added greater emphasis to the building’s importance because of its aesthetic features including ‘sculptured central column, cascades and pool’. (Construction, 11 September 1963)
Campbelltown’s future assured says Deputy Premier at official opening
The New South Wales Minister for Local Government and Deputy Premier PD Hills officially opened the building on 28 November 1964.
Minister Hills re-assured the council that the state government was about to make Campbelltown a self-contained satellite city beyond the Green Belt of the Cumberland Plan.
Mr Hills said, ‘Campbelltown is a thriving urban centre set in rural surroundings, but so close to Sydney metropolis that it largely acts as a dormitory-area for a workforce which finds its employment in the metropolitan area’.
‘It will be necessary to create accommodation within or close to the County of Cumberland, but outside the Green Belt, for an additional 300,000 people every eight years’, he said.
‘This means that we must have beyond the Green Belt but within 30 to 50 of Sydney a series of satellites which will be self-contained in the local sense but yet regionally associated with the metropolis’.
The minister said, ‘In the selection of sites for such development, the Campbelltown area is an obvious choice’. (Campbelltown-Ingleburn News, 1 December 1964)
Campbelltown Council Office Building foundation stone 29 February 1964 (H Neville 2020)
Storm clouds gather of the planning horizon
The decision by Campbelltown Municipal Council to build the new office accommodation was based on the direction and security provided by the state government’s County of Cumberland plan.
Unfortunately for the council, the New South Wales had abolished the County of Cumberland in December 1963 twelve months before the opening of the new building.
The state government had removed the security of the existing planning framework on which the council had initially been based its decision to proceed with the new building.
Yet the minister continued to re-assure Campbelltown Council of its position at the opening of the administration building in November 1964. (Campbelltown-Ingleburn New, 1 December 1964)
The New Cities of Campbelltown Camden Appin Structure Plan 1973 prepared by The State Planning Authority of New South Wales as part of the 1968 Sydney Region Outline Plan.
The rosy future of Campbelltown spoken about by the minister and the mayor was not quite as secure as they might have presented it to the community.
Upbeat statements by the mayor and minister encapsulated the elements that eventually foreshadowed dark clouds gathering on the Campbelltown planning horizon.
In the end the storm clouds that gathered around the planning processes rained down on the Campbelltown area in the late 1970s and early 1980s, creating much angst for many in the community.
An important local icon
While the contested nature of the planning regime gave many in Campbelltown severe heartburn in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the city was left with an iconic mid-century moderne marvel.
Designed by Sydney architects Davey, Brindley and Vickery in an Internationalist style the office building is a rare intact example in the area of this type of architecture in the local area.
A view of Campbelltown Council administration building from Campbelltown Railway Station in 1966 (CCL)
The building retains much of its 1964 integrity with its clean lines and minimalist non-maintenance finish and functional design with the use of concrete, brick, glass and aluminium materials.
The office building is an essential marker of mid-20th century Campbelltown and a statement of intent by a council that felt that the town had a secure future as a Sydney satellite city.
A moderne architectural gem
Sydney architects Davey, Brindley and Vickery stated that the ‘sharp vertical lines’ of eight-storey building had a steel-encased frame and was built on piles with reinforced concrete floors connected by two high-speed lifts.
The International modernist design style had steel, glass and mass-produced materials as the main characteristic. The rooms had the full expanse of the width of the building with its clean lines supported by dull and shiny surfaces. (Campbelltown Ingleburn News, 1 December 1964)
An image of the Campbelltown Council Administration Building from official programme given to dignataries at the opening in November 1964 (CMC)
A feature of the building was the entrance vestibule with a two-storey open atrium, which contained a floating stairway over an indoor garden. On the east side of the vestibule was a cast bronze multiplane historical mural by Bim Hilder mounted on a high exposed aggregate wall. (Campbelltown Ingleburn News, 1 December 1964)
The north wall of the foyer was faced with black marble with contrasting white marble door jamb and scag-terrazzo floor. The architects noted that the two primary colours were black and white, which compared with the red cedar-lined ceiling under the mezzanine level. (Campbelltown Ingleburn News, 1 December 1964)
The stairs to the first level were black scag-terrazzo with a black anodised aluminium balustrade with clear glass panels. On the first floor, the panelled cedar walls contrasted with contrasting black and white colouring. (Campbelltown Ingleburn News, 1 December 1964)
The architects stated that the building was finished in non-maintenance materials. The exterior charcoal colouring of the building contrasts with a black anodised aluminium building. The sun-blades were heavy baked enamel with infill walls of dark brick. (Campbelltown Ingleburn News, 1 December 1964)
The 1964 International modernist building created quite a precedent in the small country town of Campbelltown, where the local community leaders were confidently predicting a bright future.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Local Studies Librarians at Campbelltown City Council Library for their assistance in the completion of this post.
The Camden district can be hard to define and has changed over time. Dr Ian Willis conducted research in the mid-1990s to determine the extent of the Camden district at the outbreak of the Second World War. This was part of his post-graduate studies at the University of Wollongong on the effect of the Second World War in Camden.
Map of the Camden district in 1939 showing the extent of the area with Camden in the east. The silver mining centre of Yerranderie is in the west. (I Willis, 1996)
The boundary of the Camden district could be: an arbitrary line on a map based on a political decision; a natural region; an idea in someone’s mind; the delivery round of a Camden business; the geographic circulation area of a Camden newspaper; the emotional attachment of a person to a general area called Camden; the catchment area of a special event in Camden; the membership of a Camden organisation; the social networks of people who live in the Camden area; or any combination of these.
From historical research I have conducted I have found the boundary of the Camden district to a moveable feast. By the 1930s it took in an area of 1180 square kilometres and a population of around 5000. The result is on the attached map. It is a combination of the factors outlined above.
Origins of the Camden district
The concept of the Camden district was set in motion by 1827 when the early pattern of the early land grants had determined the road network. This process was re-enforced by the arrival of the tramway in 1882, the road traffic along the Hume Highway going to Goulburn, and the movement of silver from Yerrandarie and coal from the Burragorang Valley to the Camden railhead. As a result, the town became an important transport interchange and centre for economic activity for a district, which extended out to Burragorang Valley and Yerrandarie.
By the 1930s the growth of the town had attracted additional businesses and the town had become the centre for government services and community organisations. The town was a meeting place for local people and acted as a stepping off point to the rest of the outside world.
The district’s population came together on Sale Day (still Tuesdays) to meet and do business. The livestock sales were the town’s busiest day of the week The annual Camden Show was (and still is) always a popular attraction and people came from a wide area to compete and exhibit their crafts, produce and livestock.
Daily life in the Camden district is recorded in the two local newspapers
District life was reported in detail in Camden’s two newspapers, the Camden News and the Camden Advertiser, which were widely circulated in the area. Camden businesses had customers from all over the local area. Some had regular delivery runs that reached to Burragorang Valley and beyond.
Since the 1930s many things have happened. The largest change has been the growth in population, and the town and district are now part of the Greater Metropolitan Area of Sydney. Despite this, the district still has a discernable identity in the minds of local people.
1973 New Cities Plan
The creation of The new cities of Campbelltown, Camden, Appin: structure plan(1973) was one of the most profound changes to the Camden district. The New Cities proposal was part of the 1968 Sydney Region Outline Plan developed by the State Planning Authority of the Askin Liberal government and became a developers’ dream.
The New Cities Plan 1973
Current planners, bureaucrats, businesses, and residents need to have an understanding of this local identity and build on the opportunities that it presents.
Today the Camden district is part of the Macarthur region.
Macarthur Regional Tourist Promotion by Camden and Campbelltown Councils
One of the largest tourist attractions in the local area in the mid-20th century was a local milking marvel known as the Rotolactor.
Truly a scientific wonder, the Rotolactor captured people’s imagination at a time when scientific marvels instilled excitement in the general public.
In these days of post-modernism and fake news, this excitement seems hard to understand.
Menangle Rotolactor in the 1950s Postcard (Camden Images)
What was the Rotolactor?
The Rotolactor was an automated circular milking machine with a rotating platform introduced into the Camden Park operation in 1952 by Edward Macarthur Onslow from the USA.
Part of agricultural modernism, the Rotolactor was installed by the Macarthur family on their colonial property of Camden Park Estate to improve their dairying operations in the mid-20th century.
The idea of a rotating milking platform was American and first introduced in New Jersey in the mid-1920s.
Camden Belgenny Farm Rotolactor Model 2 model in 2018 (I Willis)
The 1940s manager of Camden Park, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Macarthur Onslow, inspected an American Rotolactor while overseas on a business trip and returned to Australia full of enthusiasm to build one at Camden Park.
The Menangle Rotolactor was the first in Australia and only the third of its kind in the world.
Camden Belgenny Farm Rotolactor Model 3 display in 2018 (I Willis)
The rotating dairy could milk 1,000 cows twice a day. It held 50 cows at a time and was fed at as they were milked. The platform rotated about every 12 minutes.
The Rotolactor was a huge tourist attraction for Menangle village and provided many local jobs.
In 1953 it was attracting 600 visitors on a weekend, with up to 2000 visitors a week at its peak. (The Land, 27 March 1953)
The structure plan did recognise the importance of the Rotolactor and the cultural heritage of the Menangle village. (The State Planning Authority of New South Wales, 1973, p. 84)
These events, combined with declining farming profits, encouraged the Macarthur family to sell out of Camden Park including the Rotolactor and the private village of Menangle.
The Rotolactor continued operations until 1977 and then remained unused for several years. It was then purchased by Halfpenny dairy interests from Menangle, who operated the facility until it finally closed in 1983. (Walsh 2016, pp.91-94)
Community festival celebrates the Rotolactor
In 2017 the Menangle Community Association organised a festival to celebrate the history of the Rotolactor. It was called the Menangle Milk-Shake Up and was a huge success.
Menangle Milk Shake Up Community Festival, organised by the Menangle Community Association in 2017 (MCA)
The Festival exceeded all the expectations of the organisers from the Menangle Community Association when it attracted over 5000 people to the village from all over Australia. (Wollondilly Advertiser, 18 September 2017)
A true country event like in the old days. So many visitors came dressed up in their original 50s clothes, and all those wonderful well selected stall holders. It was pure joy.
Despite these sentiments, the event just covered costs (Wollondilly Advertiser, 5 April 2018)
The festival’s success demonstrated to local development interests that Rotolactor nostalgia could be marketized and had considerable commercial potential.
The Menangle Community Association attempted to lift the memory of the Rotolator and use it as a weapon to protect the village from the forces of urban development and neo-liberalism
Menangle land developers also used the festival’s success to further their interests.
Developer Halfpenny made numerous public statements supporting the restoration of the Rotolactor as a function centre and celebrating its past. (The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 2017).
Menangle Rotolactor in a derelict condition in 2016 (Image by Karen)
The newspaper article announced that the site’s owner, local developer Ernest Dupre of Souwest Developments, has pledged to build a micro-brewery, distillery, two restaurants, a farmers market, a children’s farm, a vegetable garden, and a hotel with 30 rooms.
In 2017 the state government planning panel approved the re-zoning of the site for 350 houses and a tourist precinct. Housing construction will be completed by Mirvac.
Mr Dupre stated that he wanted to turn the derelict Rotolactor into a function with the adjoining Creamery building as a brewery next to the Menangle Railway Station.
He expected the development to cost $15 million and take two years. The plan includes an outdoor concert theatre for 8000 people and a lemon grove.
Facebook Comments 6 August 2021
Reply as Camden History Notes
Bev WatersonRemember it well. My parents would take us there quite regularly.
Elizabeth SearleJD Gorey, The pilot was asking about this during our trip to the farm. He may be interested in the article Originally posted 19 July 2019. Updated 6 April 2021.
Craige Cole I remember travelling from our family dairy farm on the far south coast to visit the Rotalactor in the late 60s and recall the total awe of my parents. I know that visit was the catalyst for us installing a new more efficient dairy setup.
Caroline TavendaleCraige Cole our friends own a dairy farm in Rochester, Victoria. They have rotolactor dairy, installed it about 3 years ago.
The show is an immersive experience for participants and observers alike in the real smells, sounds and sights of a sample of the farm in rural Australia.
The 2019 Camden Show provided an immersive experience for participants and observers alike in a host of farming activities. The authentic sights, sounds and smells of the show ring and surrounds enlightened and entertained in a feast for the senses. (I Willis, 2019)
The show represents the authentic real life of country people. It is a performance bringing history to life by storytelling through a host of demonstrations, events and displays.
The show is historical representation of the past in the present illustrating a host of aspects of rural heritage through experiential learning.
Living history reveals layers from the past
The show reveals itself in a multi-layered story of continuity and change on the edge of the Camden township. What was once a small isolated rural village at the Nepean River crossing and is now a thriving Sydney suburb on the city’s metropolitan fringe.
Competitive sections of the show have come and gone with changes in the farming economy. Livestock, produce, craft and cooking sections each tell a story of different aspect of rural life. What was once an integral part of the rural economy is now a craft activity and completely new sections have appeared over the decades.
Camden resident and artist Sandra D entered her creation in the Bush Cuppa Tray competition and won first prize. Her entry provided a feast for the sense with scones, cup of tea, a copy of the Bulletin magazine, a story of painting ‘en plein air’ in the 1890s, gum leaves. All this activity taking place on 21 December 1889 at Montrose in Victoria. (I Willis, 2019)
Where once rural artisans were part of the local economy their activities are now demonstrations of heritage and lost trades. Show patrons once used to arrive in a horse and cart today’s show-goers watch competitive driving of horse and sulkies in the show ring.
This excited first timer won second place for a group of zucchinis in the produce section of the 2019 Camden Show. Marilyn Judith W grew her entry on her plot at the Camden Community Garden where a number of other gardeners also entered their produce. Marilyn had an immersive experience at the show and volunteered her time at the community garden stall giving away seedlings to adults and children alike. (I Willis, 2019)
Sideshows and carnies continue show traditions that have their origins in English village fairs and carnivals of the past and even a hint of the Roman Empire and their circuses.
The success of the show illustrates a yearning by those attending to experience and understand elements of the traditions of a rural festival in the face of urban growth and development.
History
The Camden Show is a rural festival that is part of the modern show movement that emerged from the Industrial Revolution. The first series of agricultural shows in the early 19th century demonstrated modern British farming methods and technology.
The first agricultural shows in New South Wales were in the early 19th century and the first Camden Show in 1886. The 19th century agricultural show movement set out to demonstrate the latest in British Empire know-how and innovation in farming.
The site of the show on the Nepean River floodplain is one of the first points of contact between European and Indigenous people and the cows that escaped from the Sydney settlement in 1788 former the Cowpasture Reserve in 1795. For living history it is material culture which grounds the audience in time and place.
All good farmers had a reliable truck to cart stock and hay to the market from the farm and to take trips into town. This one dates from the mid-20th century at Bringelly NSW on display at the Camden Show with a friendly passenger. (I Willis, 2019)
A 2010 meeting of Camden Council on Sydney’s southern outskirts voted five to four to demolish a simple 1890 Federation farm cottage known as Carinya at Harrington Park. The owner, Nepean Pastoral Company, wants to develop a 97-residential lot subdivision on the farm site.
Carinya Cottage c.1890 is a simple Edwardian brick farm cottage at Harrington Park demolished in 2010 (Camden Historical Society)
The decision illustrates a wider malaise that has enveloped heritage in this state — a worrying trend that is seeing our past disappear.
Demolition of Carinya
Camden Council’s decision to approve Carinya’s demolition was based on reports written by heritage consultants, Urbis. Urbis stated that, while the cottage was intact and in reasonable condition, it was not of local significance. In their view Federation cottages, while rare in the Narellan area, are not rare in the Camden local government area (LGA). Secondly, Carinya has little associative value with the Cross and Paxton families who lived there.
Many people do agree with these conclusions. In the past Carinya has been overlooked in heritage surveys of the Camden LGA and had not been included on any local lists of historic houses. While not a reason for demolition, it is a contributing factor.
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 spokeswoman on planning (”Heritage at risk”, National Trust Magazine, February-April 2010).
More than this the imminent loss of Carinya reflects wider problems in heritage affairs across New South Wales. There is a blatant disregard of the importance of simple cottages of historic value especially at a local level. They represent the lives of ordinary folk. Simple salt of the earth people who struggled to make a living from the soil.
The story of Carinya fits within the Australian Historic Themes identified by the Australian Government (Australian Heritage Commission 2001). These are common national standards for idenfication and conservation of heritage places. Yet this does not qualify Carinya for recognition of local significance.
Even examples of Australia’s important early colonial houses on Sydney’s urban fringe, which are of national significance, such as like Oran Park House and Maryland suffer from indecision and dithering by the authorities.
Conflict of interest in heritage
There is a real, or at least a perceived, conflict of interest for some by heritage consultants in the assessment process. Consultants are a gun for hire. There needs to be a separation of roles in the assessment process of historic houses. The judgment concerning the assessment of significance should be conducted by an independent third party. Heritage consultants should not be judge, jury and hangman. There is a need for due diligence.
The assessment process needs the expertise of professional historians to examine the appropriate historical evidence. There were no historians engaged in the assessment process of Carinya. Urbis has largely relied on a cursory examination of documents at the local library and museum.
Carinya Cottage c.1890 is a simple Edwardian brick farm cottage at Harrington Park demolished in 2010 (Camden Historical Society)
Council planning and development officers are under incredible pressure to meet timely decisions for development applications. This particularly applies in the Camden LGA, which is a designated growth area for Sydney.
Council officers and their elected councilors rely on reports written by heritage consultants. Officers and councilors may have had little or no specific training assessing heritage significance, local or otherwise. They are not experts in history and heritage.
One of the casualties in the assessment process is the thorough and considered assessment of historic houses.
Loss of interest in heritage
The current political climate in NSW is not conducive to the protection of historic houses. Heritage is not a high priority. Crowded Sydney and a shortfall in housing stock are political priorities. For this read new estates on the urban fringe, like the approved Carinya farm subdivision.
The developers of Carinya farm housing estate are selling a dream that is just that, a dream. The new estates create a bland homogenised suburban streetscape with little charm or character.
The Carinya farm sub-division is part of Sydney’s urbanisation. An octopus that devours all in its path — including ethical standards, community identity, sense of place and apparently local heritage and history.
The destruction of simple charming 19th century cottages is unnecessary. There is a demand from house buyers who want to live in historic cottages. These buyers restore the cottages to their former glory.
What have we come to in the new century? We have certainly not come to appreciate our past, our inheritance.
Oran Park Raceway was doomed in 2008 to be part of history when it was covered with houses in a new suburb with the same name. It was also the name of a former pastoral property that was part of the story of the settler society within the Cowpastures. The locality is the site of hope and loss for locals and new arrivals.
The suburb of Oran Park is on Sydney’s southwestern urban fringe just east of the history, and picturesque village of Cobbitty, and the relatively new suburb of Harrington Park is to the south.
Signage at the entry to the Oran Park land release area (I Willis, 2018)
Oran Park Raceway was a glorious thing
The Oran Park Motor Racing Circuit was located in the southwestern and western part of the original Oran Park pastoral estate. The main Grand Prix circuit was 2.6 km long with a mixture of slow, technical and fast sweeping corners and elevation changes around the track.
The primary circuit was broken into two parts: the south circuit, the original track built in 1962 by the Singer Car Club and consisted of the main straight, pit lane garages and a constant radius of 180-degree turns at the end.
The north circuit was added in 1973 and was an 800-metre figure-8. Apart from the primary racing circuit, there were several subsidiary activities, and they included two dirt circuits, two four-wheel training venues, a skid pan, and a go-kart circuit.
Oran Park Raceway was a popular motorsport venue in the Sydney area. This image is from 1997, showing open-wheelers racing at the circuit. (Camden Images)
The racing circuit has been used for various motorsport, including club motorkhanas, touring cars, sports sedans, production cars, open-wheelers, motocross and truck racing. In 2008 several organisations used the circuit for driver training, including advanced driving, defensive driving, high performance, and off-road driving.
The track hosted its first Australian Touring Car Championship in 1971, a battle between racing legends Bob Jane and Allan Moffat. The December 2008 V8 Supercar event was the 38th time a championship was held at the track. Sadly for some, the track will go the way of other suburban raceways of the past. It turned into just a passing memory when it closed in 2010.
The Daily Telegraph noted that several other Sydney tracks that have been silenced. They have included Amaroo Park, Warwick Farm, Mt Druitt, Sydney Showground, Liverpool and Westmead speedways. The public relations spokesman for Oran Park, Fred Tsioras, has said that a few notable drivers have raced at the circuit including Kevin Bartlett, Fred Gibson, Ian Luff, Alan Moffat, Peter Brock, Mark Weber, and others.
Innovations introduced at the Oran Park Raceway included night, truck, and NASCAR racing. Tsioras claims the track was a crowd favourite because they could see the entire circuit.
Oran Park Raceway Control Tower
An integral part of the Oran Park Raceway was the control tower. It had offices for the Clerk of the Course, timekeepers, the VIP suite, the press box, and general administration.
Control Tower Oran Park Raceway 1997 (Camden Historical Society)
In the early days, the facilities at the circuit were pretty basic, including the control tower. The circuit was a glorified paddock, and race organisers held mainly basic club events. The track surface was pretty rough, and there was a make-do attitude among racing enthusiasts.
The control facilities in the early days at the track were very rudimentary. The first control tower used in 1962 by the members of the Singer Car Club, who established the track, was a double-decker bus. Race officials and timekeepers sat in the open air under a canvas awning on the top of the bus at club race meetings.
The Rothmans tobacco company funded a new control tower, built around 1980. The Rothmans company was a major sponsor of motorsports in Australia then. Tobacco sponsorship of motorsports was seen as an efficient marketing strategy to reach boys and young men.
Tobacco & cigarette advertisements were banned on TV and radio in September 1976. While other tobacco advertising was banned from all locally produced print media — this left the only cinema, billboard and sponsorship advertising as the only forms of direct tobacco advertising banned in December 1989.
Motorsport projected an image of style, excitement, thrills and spills that drew men and boys to the sport. Motorsport has been symbolized by bravery, strength, competitiveness, and masculinity. This imagery is still portrayed in motorsport like Formula One racing.
According to Will Hagan, the influence of the tower’s design was the El Caballo Blanco Complex at Narellan, which opened in 1979 and was a major tourist attraction. The control tower, like El Caballo Blanco, was constructed in a Spanish Mission architectural style (or Hollywood Spanish Mission) like the Paramount cinema in Elizabeth Street (1933) or Cooks Garage in Argyle Street (1935) Camden.
Cooks Service Station and Garage at the corner of Argyle and Elizabeth Streets Camden in the mid-1930s. This establishment was an expression of Camden’s Interwar modernism. (Camden Images)
The Spanish Mission building style emerged during the Inter-war period (1919-1939). It was characterised by terracotta roof tiles, front loggia, rendering of brickwork and shaped parapets.
The Spanish Mission building style was inspired by the American west coast influences and the relationship between the automobile, rampant consumerism and the romance promoted by the motion pictures from Hollywood.
According to Ian Kirk and Megan Martin from their survey of interwar service stations, the Spanish Mission building style was popular with service stations in the late 1920s and early 1930s, particularly in the Sydney area. Their survey discovered more than 120 original service stations surviving in New South Wales from the interwar years.
Some examples of Interwar garages included the Broadway Garage and Service Station in Bellevue Hill, the former Seymour’s Service Station in Roseville, Malcolm Motors in King Street, Newtown and the Pyrmont Bridge Service Station in Pyrmont. Kirk and Martin have maintained that, unlike the United States, early service stations in Australia were privately owned and did not have to be designed according to an oil company’s in-house style.
Motorsports became popular in the Interwar period and were associated with the glamour and excitement of the cars. The interwar period (1918-1939) is interesting in the history of Australia. It was a time that contrasted the imperial loyalties of the British Empire with the rampant consumerism and industrialisation of American culture and influence.
The interwar period was one in which country towns and the city were increasingly dominated by motor vehicles. It was a time when the fast and new, the exotic and sensual came to shape the style of a new age of modernism and competed with the traditional and conservative, the old and slow, and changes to social and cultural traditions.
There were many motor car brands competing for consumers’ attention, and the aspirations and desires of a new generation were wrapped up in youth, glamour, fantasy, and fun.
This was reflected in the growth of elegant and glamorous car showrooms and the appearance of service stations and garages to serve the increasing number of motor car owners.
In Camden, this period of modernism generated Cooks Garage at the corner of Argyle and Elizabeth Street, not far from the new slick and exciting movie palace, the Paramount Movie Theatre. In central Camden, the Dunk commercial building at 58-60 Argyle Street was a shiny new car showroom displaying Chevrolet motor cars from the USA. Advertisement boasted that the cars were:
Beautiful new Chevrolet is completely new. New arresting beauty of style; new riding comfort and seating; …with more comfort.
The buyer had the choice of car models from commercial roadster to sports roader, tourer, coupe and sedan, which sold for the value price of £345.
In New South Wales, motor vehicles increased from 22,000 in 1920 to over 200,000 in 1938. There was an increasing interest in motorsports in Sydney by enthusiasts of all kinds.
Dreams and development on the raceway site
In 1983 the Oran Park Raceway track was owned by Bill Cleary, and he stated to the Macarthur Advertiser that his family had owned the property for 38 years. In 1976 he put together a proposal to create a sports and recreation centre for the raceway area. The proposal was raised again in 1981 and included a themed entertainment park, an equestrian centre, a dude ranch, a motel, a health and fitness centre, a model farm and cycling, hiking and bridle trails. But it all came to nothing.
An aerial view of the former Oran Park Raceway in 2008 shows the track and its surroundings. Now all are covered by housing. (P Mylrea/Camden Images)
The current track was purchased in the mid-1980s by Leppington Pastoral Company (owned by the Perich family) and in 2004, was rezoned for housing. It was estimated at the time that there would be 21,000 houses. Tony Perich stated in 2007 to the Sydney Morning Herald that he planned to build almost one-fifth of the 11,500 dwellings in Oran Park and Turner Road in a joint venture with Landcom. Mr Perich’s company spokesman, Greenfields Development Corporation, stated that the first houses would be on the larger lots.
Oran Park 2008 planned housing development
In 2008 Oran Park is part of the South West Growth Centre area, which is the responsibility of the New South Wales Government’s Growth Centres Commission, which was eventually planned to accommodate 295,000 people by 2031. The Oran Park and Turner Road Development were expected in 2008 to house 33,000 people.
In an area east of the raceway, it is planned that an aged care facility will be developed for elderly and retired citizens with work starting in 2011. The project will consist of independent living villas and apartments, assisted living units, a daycare centre and a high and low-care aged facility with a dementia unit.
Oran Park display homes near the town centre in 2012. (OPTC)
In 2008 the raceway made way for 8000 homes to house 35,000 people, complete with the town centre, commercial precinct, and entertainment facilities. It was planned to include primary schools, two high schools, a court, a police station, and a community centre. The suburb, Raceway Hill, was planned to have streets named after the old track.
The colonial history of Oran Park
In the colonial days of early New South Wales, Oran Park was initially made up of two principal land grants, one of 2,000 acres, Harrington Park, granted to William Campbell in 1815 and another to George Molle in 1817, Netherbyes, of 1600 acres which ran between South Creek and the Northern Road. According to John Wrigley, the name Oran Park appears on the pre-1827 map as part of Harrington Park, Campbell’s grant. Campbell arrived on the brig Harrington, in 1803 as a master.
The New South Wales State Heritage Register states that the Oran Park portion was subdivided from the Harrington Park estate in 1829 and acquired by Henry William Johnston in 1852. The Oran Park estate is representative of the layout of a country manor estate, with views afforded to and from the manor over the landscape and to the critical access points of the estate. These were representative of the design philosophies of the time.
The image clearly shows the hilltop locality of Oran Park House, typical of gentry estate houses across the Cowpastures. This landscape drew on the influence of the philosophy of Scot JC Loudon and Englishman Capability Brown (early 20thc, Camden Images)
Oran Park House was located in a picturesque Arcadian pastoral scene by using the best of European farming practices and produced an English-style landscape of a park, pleasure grounds and gardens. The house was located in a ‘sublime landscape’ with the integration of aspect, orientation, and design, drawing on influences of Scotsman JC Loudon, Englishman Capability Brown and Sydney nurseryman Thomas Shepherd.
Oran Park House
The two-story Georgian-style house was built in c.1857 and is described as having a roof with a simple colonial hipped form, windows with shutters, an added portico and a bridge to the two-story original servant’s wing at the rear. There are detailed cedar joinery and panelling on the interior. The house is located on a knoll creating an imposing composition set amongst landscaped grounds with a panoramic view of the surrounding area.
Oran Park House in 1995 in a photograph taken by John Kooyman (Camden Images)
According to the NSW State Heritage Register, the house is an example of the Summit Model of a homestead sited on a hilltop with the homestead complex. The entrance to Oran Park is on an axis with the house’s southern façade, with a carriage loop with mature plantings in front of the house.
Oran Park house was acquired by Thomas Barker (of Maryland and Orielton), who sold it to Campbelltown grazier Edward Lomas Moore (of Badgally) in 1871. The property was leased and subsequently owned by Atwill George Kendrick, who had a clearing sale on the site in 1900. The house had alterations, possibly under the direction of Leslie Wilkinson (professor of architecture, University of Sydney) in the 1930s.
The Moore family sold the Oran Park House, and land to B Robbins and Mr Smith operated a golf course with trotting facilities. It was sold in 1945 for £28,000; in 1963, 361 acres were purchased by ER Smith and J Hyland, farmers. The homestead and stables were sold in 1969 by John and Peggy Cole and purchased by the Dawson-Damers, members of the English aristocracy. The Dawson-Damers undertook restoration guided by architect Richard Mann. John ‘DD’ Dawson-Damer was an Old Etonian and car collector.
John Dawson-Damer was a prominent motor racing identity and was killed in an accident while driving his Lotus 63 at a race meeting at Goodwood, West Sussex, in 2000. Dawson-Damer was the managing director of Austral Engineering Supplies Pty Ltd and was involved with the International Automobile Federation and the Historic Sports Racing Car Association of New South Wales. Ashley Dawson-Damer, his wife and socialite, was a member of the council of governors of the Opera Australia Capital Fund and a board member of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation.
After her husband’s death, she sold the house, with its historic gardens and 107 hectares of pasture, in 2006 for $19 million to Valad Property Group. The State Heritage Register describes the house and surrounding estate as an outstanding example of the mid-nineteenth-century cultural landscape with a largely intact homestead complex and gardens within an intact rural setting.
Oran Park House was renamed Catherine Park House
Oran Park was renamed Catherine Park House in 2013 by the developers of the new housing release Harrington Estates Pty Ltd (Mac Chronicle 10 Oct 2013). The name change was agreed upon by Camden Council and celebrated Catherine Molle, the wife of George Molle.
In 1815 Molle was allocated a grant of 550 acres which he called Catherine Fields after his wife Catherine Molle, on the northern bank of South Creek opposite his grant of Netherbyres.
In 1816 George Molle was granted Netherbyres, of 1,600 acres (647.5 hectares) which ran between South Creek and the Northern Road on the south bank of South Creek. In 1817 he was granted Molles, Maine, 1550 acres east of the Great South Road.
George Molle was baptized in Mains, Berwickshire, Scotland, on 6 March 1773. George joined the Scots Brigade (94th Regiment) as an ensign and served in Gibraltar, The Cape of Good Hope, India, Egypt and Spain. He was promoted to Colonel and served at Gibraltar before transferring as the Colonel of the 46th Regiment of Foot when ordered to serve in the Colony of New South Wales.
On 20 March 1814, he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony, second in command to Governor Macquarie.
George and his wife played an active part in the public life of the colony of New South Wales, patron of the Female Orphan School and a member of the committee for the Civilization, Care and Education of Aborigines.
The suburb of Catherine Park was planned in 2013 to contain 3100 with 9500 residents. (Mac Chronicle 15 Oct 2013)
Oran Park, in recent times
In early 2018 the developer Greenfields and Landcom reported in their newsletter that construction of the new Camden Council Library building is progressing well. A new off-leash dog area was under construction in the new release areas around the new high school. It is the second area developed in the land release.
Oran Park Public School at the opening in 2014 (OPPS)
The newsletter detailed the road construction for Dick Johnson Drive, one of the many roads named after motor-racing greats. The street will connect with The Northern Road in 2019. Works are progressing on the latest release areas around Oran Park Public School and on earthworks associated with Peter Brock Drive. The school opened in 2014 with new staff and students adjacent to Oran Park Podium shopping centre. The shopping centre was opened by New South Wales Premier Mike Baird in late 2014 with 28 speciality shops.
Oran Park Town Centre has been used as the land sales office since the first land release in 2013 (OPTC)
New parkland was opened in a recent release area in 2018, and new traffic lights were operational at Peter Brock Drive and Central Avenue.
A new free monthly 20pp A4 newspaper, the Oran Park Gazette, appeared in the suburb in 2015. It is published by the Flynnko Group based at Glenmore Park. The Gazette started with a circulation of 3500 and is part of a stable of five mastheads distributed across the Western Sydney region.
Camden Council transferred an administrative function to the new office building in 2016. An open day inviting residents to inspect the new facilities was a huge success.
![View of the farm of J. Hassel [Hassall] Esqr. Cow Pastures, New South Wales by Augustus Earle, c. 1825. State Library of NSW PXD 265, f. 2](https://camdenhistorynotes.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/view-of-the-farm-of-j-hassel-esqr-cow-pastures-new-south-wales.jpg)
![The New Cities Plan 1973[1]](https://camdenhistorynotes.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/the-new-cities-plan-19731.jpg)
![Map Camden District 1939[2]](https://camdenhistorynotes.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/map-camden-district-19392.jpg)
![Oran Park Public School 2014 [2] (OPPS)](https://camdenhistorynotes.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/oran-park-public-school-2014-2-opps.jpg)
Camden History Notes 
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