Yearning, Longing and The Remaking of Camden’s Identity: the myths and reality of ‘a country town idyll’.

April 29, 2024 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Australian Historical Association 2007 Regional Conference

Engaging Histories

University of New England, Armidale

23-26 September 2007

Yearning, Longing and The Remaking of Camden’s Identity: the myths and reality of ‘a country town idyll’

Abstract

This article discusses the concept of a “country town idyll” in Camden, an idealised version of a country town from an imagined past that uses history to construct imagery based on Camden’s heritage buildings and other material fabrics. The paper delves into the origins of the idyll, examines its development, and investigates its validity in its contemporary context. It shows how its supporters have used history as a community asset to remake Camden’s identity and explore how the ‘country town idyll’ has been used variously as a political weapon, a marketing tool, and a tourist promotion.

Key terms: Country town idyll; Heritage buildings; Community asset; Political weapon; Tourist promotion.

Article

In May this year, the headline on the front page of the Macarthur Chronicle screamed ‘Home Invasion’. The report warned that

The rural landscape surrounding Camden will be engulfed by suburbia when the construction starts on the Oran Park and Turner Rd precincts early next year. More than 30,000 will occupy 11,500 homes in the two precincts, which form part of the South West Growth Centre. By 2030 Camden will be surrounded by new suburbs consisting of up to 181,000 homes as dense as some of Sydney’s most populated areas.[1]

Sydney’s urban expansion into the local area has challenged the community’s identity and threatened to suffocate Camden’s sense of place. In the face of this onslaught, many in Camden yearn for a lost past when Sydney was further away, times were simpler, and life was slower. This nostalgic vision, a type of rural arcadia, which I have called ‘a country town idyll’, holds a significant place in Camden’s history. This paper, unique in its exploration of the ‘country town idyll ‘, aims to delve into this idyll and show how its supporters have used history as a community asset to remake Camden’s identity.

Initially, the paper will define the ‘country town idyll’ and then show that its origins are drawn from the broader traditions within rural studies. The discussion will then examine the idyll’s development and investigate its validity in its contemporary context. This will be done by exploring its values and how it has been adopted by various stakeholders, including local government, businesses, land developers, and community organisations. The paper will also explore how the ‘country town idyll’ has been used variously as a political weapon, a marketing tool, and a tourist promotion. So, what is meant by the term ‘country town idyll’? This question will be answered in the course of our analysis.

What is the country town idyll?

For this paper, the ‘country town idyll’ is an idealised version of a country town from an imagined past that uses history to construct imagery based on Camden’s heritage buildings and other material fabrics. At the heart of the idyll is the view that Camden should retain its iconic imagery of a picturesque country town with the church on the hill, surrounded by a rustic rural landscape made up of the landed estates of the colonial gentry. Its supporters created the idyll to isolate Camden, like an island, in the sea of urbanisation and development that has enveloped the town. The imagery is firmly located in ‘the country’ that Kerrie-Elizabeth Allen maintains, a location of nostalgia where one can experience an idyllic existence. Central to this notion is nostalgia and an escape from the present, where rural life was associated with an uncomplicated, innocent, genuine society in which traditional values persisted and a place where lives were real. Relationships were seen as honest and authentic.[2]

Camden’s St John’s Church and cemetery illustrating the bucolic nature of the town centre and the church on the hill (I Willis, 2021)

These are the values that the supporters of Camden’s ‘country town idyll’ have encouraged and then expressed in the language they used to describe it. They talk about retaining Camden’s ‘country town atmosphere’, ‘Camden’s country charm’, or ‘country town character’. They describe the town as ‘picturesque’ or having ‘charming cottages’. To them, Camden is ‘ a working country town’ or simply ‘my country town’. These elements evoke an emotional attachment to a place that existed in the past when Camden was a small, quiet country town that relied on farming. So, where did the idyll come from?

The origins of the idyll.

The origins of the ‘country town idyll’ are to be found in the rural ethos that is drawn from within the nineteenth-century rural traditions brought from Great Britain, where there was a romantic view of the country that had an ordered, stable, comfortable, organic small community in harmony with the natural surroundings.[3] This rural culture’s elements have been described as ‘countrymindedness’,[4] ‘rural ideology’[5], ‘rural ethos’,[6] ‘ruralism’[7], and a ‘rural idyll’.[8] They have been a preoccupation of many scholars,[9] including contemporary writers like the Australian poet Les Murray.[10] Within this tradition is an Arcadian notion of a romantic view of rural life, where a distinction is drawn between the metropolis and the village, commonly known as the town/country divide. This was the essence of pre-war Camden, a town of around 2000, where rural culture provided the stability of a closed community which was suspicious of outsiders, especially those from the city, with life ordered by social rank, personal contacts and familial links. It was confined by conservatism, patriarchy and an Anglo-centric view of the world. Camden’s ‘rural culture’ reached a watershed during the 1960s, after which social, economic, and political conditions combined to change Camden’s rurality permanently.

The historical development of the country town idyll and its contemporary use by its supporters

The planned post-war urban growth of Greater Sydney set the conditions for the development of the idyll. Sydney planning authorities had earmarked Camden as part of the Greater Sydney Area and the County of Cumberland Plan as early as 1948. The idea was to form a girdle of countryside around Sydney (a rural-urban fringe) and for Camden to be part of it. In 1968, Camden was included as part of Sydney’s outer rural area in the Sydney Region Outline Plan.[11] While Camden may have been part of each of these plans, they had little direct effect on the township or its rural identity, but this was about to change.

The New Cities Structure Plan Campbelltown, Camden, Appin 1973 (SPA NSW Government)

For many, the release of The Three Cities Structure Plan Campbelltown, Camden, Appin in 1973 was a direct assault on Camden’s ‘rural character’. The plan covered Campbelltown, Camden and Wollondilly local government areas, which, according to the plan, were destined to become part of Sydney’s urban sprawl. For one, Liz Kernohan, the structure plan rang alarm bells. She was a scientist who worked at the University of Sydney Farms at Cobbitty, west of Camden.[12] She was a ‘city type’, an outsider, who came to Camden in 1960 and became a strident advocate for retaining Camden’s country town charm, that is, Camden’s country town idyll. The release of the structure plan prompted her to stand for election to Camden Municipal Council. She based her election platform on the retention of Camden’s ‘rural character’, and while she was not the first to take an interest in these values, her election to Camden Council in 1973 helped crystallise the idyll in the minds of many in Camden for the first time.

Kernohan used the values within the idyll as a constant theme throughout her political career, including her election to the New South Wales Parliament in 1991. In her maiden speech to parliament, she stated that her constituents wanted a semi-rural lifestyle and that ‘explosions of suburbia’ did not constitute progress.[13] Kernohan maintained that Camden’s identity and sense of place were built on the town’s historical place and exemplified by Camden Park, the colonial property of John Macarthur and his descendants, and the Camden Museum, managed by the Camden Historical Society. Kernohan used the values within the idyll to create a direct link between Camden’s history and an idealised landscape from the past. She maintained that:

The Camden district [had] the unique history of being the area where the wool and wine industries were developed by the Macarthur family. Camden municipal council [sic] wants to retain the area’s rural heritage and environment and is encouraging developers to enhance the country town image and take cognisance of the history of the area.[14]

Kernohan’s political activity in the early 1970s helped the development of the idyll and contributed to the formation of the Camden Resident Action Group (CRAG). CRAG was one of the first organisations in Camden to advocate the values within the country town idyll publicly, and it received strong support from Kernohan. The members of CRAG felt that Camden’s rural culture was being undermined by urban growth and set out to effectively isolate Camden from Sydney’s urbanisation. The members of CRAG sort historical links through time to strengthen their sense of belonging and participation in space and place. Janice Newton has maintained that these types of progress associations were more nostalgic and defensive and looked to conservation as their ideal, as opposed to progress associations of earlier times that were positive and supported development. [15]

The Camden Museum Library building in central Camden where the Camden Museum is managed by the Camden Historical Society (I Willis 2023)

The Camden Historical Society, which fitted the same mould as CRAG, fostered an interest in local history and memorialised Camden’s pioneering past with several civic monuments in the early 1970s.

Newton quotes British research, showing that these ‘peripheral communities have a consciousness and valuing of difference’, an identity of separateness. The identity of difference is one of the central values within the country town idyll. The local community has long held animosity toward Sydney-based decision-makers dating back to the nineteenth century, and this has been expressed as the town/country divide. Kernohan encapsulated these values when she stated that,

Camden will be happy to be known as that large country town on the outskirts of Sydney with its own suburbs; it does not want to become part of suburban Sydney.[16]

Geographers readily identify this difference as exurbanisation. According to US research, exurbs are ‘places just beyond the suburbs where the country looks like the country’.[17] This is the rural landscape on Sydney’s rural-urban fringe that Camden offers its new arrivals. A rural landscape that promises the new arrivals lots of ‘country town charm’. These city types are looking for greener pastures on the rural-urban fringe where they can escape the city, but interestingly, not the city’s attractions. The values brought to Camden by these new arrivals, including the search for separateness, have altered the community’s subjectivity – the feeling of the community about themselves – and forced a re-evaluation of how the community sees itself, and this is expressed as the country town idyll. Interestingly, the desire by the new arrivals for difference is similar to the values of separateness in gated estates, where residents are trying to isolate themselves from the outside world and the perceived evils of the city.[18] For Camden’s new arrivals, the Camden township is a metaphorical gated estate with the Nepean floodplain as the fence surrounding the estate. They are protected from the evils of the city, such as crime and congestion, by open space in their ‘contemporary country living’—all part of the country town idyll.

Difference and exclusivity within the idyll are supported by Gleeson’s view that areas of new land releases on the fringe of the Sydney Metropolitan Area, like Camden, have become part of an ‘edge city…existing largely in isolation and antipathy to the older cities’. [19] Exclusivity appealed to Camden’s new arrivals who, Kernohan claimed, had come to Camden to ‘escape city conditions’. According to Matt Leighton, the Narellan Chamber of Commerce president, they were ‘refugees’ from the city. [20] Leighton felt they had graduated ‘a step up’ by making their home in Camden. At the same time, others wanted Camden to become the ‘Bowral of Western Sydney’ by ‘attempting to stay out of the fast lane’[21] or maintaining that it should become the ‘Double Bay of the South Western Sector’ of Sydney.[22] Gleeson maintains that the new arrivals were looking to create new ‘urban villages’, which, he claims, is part of a ‘postmodern angst’ where ‘contemporary suburbanisation in Australia is shaped by the mounting anxiety and insecurity among Australia’s urban middle class’. He argues that all this has been fuelled by the ‘neo-liberal restructuring’ of the last 20 years and the ‘new political emphasis on self-provision’. Gleeson claims that this creates ‘aspirational communities’ on the city’s fringe with a high degree of ‘cultural homogeneity’. [23] In other words, Gleeson would maintain that Camden’s new arrivals were looking for a safe and secure environment with predictable lifestyle outcomes in an Anglophile community where their lifetime investment in housing was protected from the city’s threats. This fitted Kernohan’s Camden and the country town idyll she advocated.

Kernohan was a strong supporter of the idyll until she died in 2004, and her success was due, in part at least, to her recognition of the processes associated with the development of the idyll, which has contributed to the changes in Camden’s identity and sense of place. Kernohan encapsulated this process in the language of Camden’s conservative rural tradition and successfully used it in her political platform. She harnessed Camden’s rurality, or what was left of it, and pragmatically voiced the underlying aspirations of Camden’s old and new residents for some sense of stability in the face of constant demographic change in an ideal past. She did this very effectively in 1994 when she opposed a land release by Industrial Equity. Industrial Equity planned a land release at South Camden, at Cawdor, of 4900 lots. There were protests, and a public meeting was held in July, attracting over 300 people.[24] Kernohan campaigned to keep the area ‘pristine’ and had the number of lots reduced to 777, of between 0.4 and 1.0 hectares, and the provision of public housing stopped. The threat from public housing tenants, real or otherwise, would, it was maintained, would undermine the values of privately owned properties on the estate. Industrial Equity’s development was rejected and remains undeveloped. [25] Yet, eight years later, in 2002, Stockland successfully promoted a land release adjacent to this area called Bridgewater. The Bridgewater development is typical of the development found in ‘exurbia’ or Gleeson’s ‘edge city’ that has fostered the country town idyll in Camden.

Over the last five years, the developers of the Bridgewater land release have used the idyll to sell their allotments to locals and city types. It has been advertised as a ‘contemporary rural lifestyle’ and stridently maintained in its press releases that it was not ‘suburbia’. Stockland claimed the estate was within an hour of the city, where ‘second and third homebuyers are looking to upgrade their lifestyle’ and enjoy extensive parklands.[26] Stockland claimed in its 2006 advertising that its development at South Camden was

An idyllic community bordered by undulating countryside, Bridgewater offers the ultimate country lifestyle a mere 50 minutes from the Sydney CBD.[27]

The promotional literature for the Bridgewater land release used images of blond-haired young children frolicking in an idyllic rural vista in the late afternoon light. The images draw heavily on the nostalgia of a carefree childhood in the country, free from the evils of city life. In other promotional literature, Stockland claimed that their estate was

Set in the charming rural enclave of South Camden on Sydney’s metropolitan fringe. Bridgewater offers you the chance to create a new contemporary country lifestyle. Surrounded by the unique heritage and ambience of 19^th century farm buildings and homesteads, Bridgewater is the epitome of modern country style, providing innovative, contemporary living in a truly historical Australian setting.[28]

The promotional article is supported by panoramic vistas of Camden’s rural countryside.

Formalisation of the idyll

The first formalisation of the idyll occurred in 1999 with the development of Camden Council’s strategic plan. The strategic plan, which captured community sentiment, was drawn up ‘in consultation with the community’[29] and drew heavily on the values of the idyll. It acknowledged the threat of Sydney’s urban sprawl and the desire for separateness by the community using local history. In the introduction to the plan, it states that

Camden has retained many of the traditional qualities of a rural lifestyle and environment and is characterised by historic towns, country villages and new suburban areas. This has been achieved whilst accommodating the fastest urban growth in the Sydney Region. Importantly, it is not a mere extension of the suburban sprawl by Sydney. [30]

It further maintains that

Camden’s unique rural landscapes and vistas have been retained and improved…[and that]…Camden town has retained its country town atmosphere and culture.[31]

The plan claims that the council recognised the community’s aspirations and the idyll’s role in urban planning within the local government area. It maintains that

The council recognised that economic prosperity and quality of life are linked to its rural identity. The attributes of safety, friendliness and close-knit community associated with rural lifestyle also contribute to the amenity of Camden as a place to live and enjoy.[32]

The council acknowledged that ‘the rural nature of Camden attracts newer residents’ and that ‘the rural landscape is an important factor in the lifestyle of the Camden community’.[33]

The idyll received a significant boost in 2004 with the completion of the Camden Draft Heritage Plan. While the plan does not formally acknowledge the country town idyll, it uses history to recognise the special status of Camden. The plan identified several unique qualities of the Camden town area, which supported the idyll. They included: the town’s reputation as one of the few original Cumberland Plain country towns still intact; the town’s early farming and settlement history; the area’s sizeable early colonial landed estates; the town’s association with the Macarthur family; the layout of the town that still reflects its original purpose; the arrangement of the town which took advantage of the views and vistas of St Johns Church on the hill. The report recommended: the adoption of the Camden Township Conservation Area based on the original grid plan for the town, which still exists; the mix of colonial buildings in the town area; the mix of residential, commercial, retail and industrial activity in the town area; the rural properties that still exist on the edge of the town centre; the location of the Nepean River floodplain wrapping around three sides of the town; St Johns Church on the hill; and the historical development of the town that is still evident in the properties and usage of the buildings in central Camden.

St Johns Church Camden around 1900 (Camden Images)

Two aspects of the Draft Heritage Plan[34] warrant special attention as they are critical to understanding the contemporary use of the idyll in Camden, the Nepean River floodplain and the St John’s church. Each has a particular historical, moral, social and psychological significance within the idyll. The supporters of the idyll have used both the Nepean floodplain and St John’s Church and the history associated with them as a political weapon, tourist promotion and part of the construction of heritage iconography. The floodplain is the site of several activities that reinforce Camden’s rural past. They include: the Camden Town Farm, an old dairy farm; Bicentennial Park, an old dairy farm; Camden Showground; the old milk factory of the Macarthurs on the northern approach to the town; and the Camden saleyards, which still operate.

An aerial view of Camden in 1940 with St John’s Church on the ridge above the town centre dominating the surrounding area looking towards Camden Park House in the far distance (Camden Images)

Firstly, the moral imperative of the church on the hill that is St. Johns underpins the values of the idyll and the development of the romantic notions surrounding the town and its past. The church was built on the town’s highest point in 1840 and provides an essential psychological and spiritual focus for the community by dominating the town’s skyline. St Johns is a sacred site associated with the pioneering heritage of the town during the colonial period and the role of the Macarthur family. The Macarthur family ruled over Camden for over 150 years, and the church was central to Macarthur’s moral view of the world and how that should be played out in the town.[35] The town was their metaphysical castle, and they were the squires, especially between 1890 and 1943, when power rested with two Macarthur women, Elizabeth and Sibella Macarthur Onslow. The social authority of these women was absolute. They ensured that the village of Camden reflected their view of the world as much as possible. Nothing escaped their scrutiny or influence, and St Johns was central to their view of the world in Camden. Elizabeth Macarthur Onslow encouraged the maintenance of the proprietaries of life, moral order, and good works, as well as memorialising her family by donating a clock and bells to St John’s Church in 1897.[36] She also memorialised the memory of her late husband by providing a public park named after her husband (Onslow Park), now the Camden Showground. This is one of the sites in Camden that celebrates the idyll each year at the Camden Show. A prominent member of the show committee, Dick Inglis, who was past president,1962-1974, a member of the firm William Inglis and Sons, auctioneers, stock and station and bloodstock agents, and a member of a prominent Camden colonial family, recently claimed that he was proud that the Camden Show was ‘still a country show’ and he hoped that it stayed that way.[37]

This is an aerial view of the Camden town centre, showing the Nepean River in the distance. It clearly shows how the Nepean River floodplain surrounds the township, with a sweeping bend of the river acting as a moat around the town. (Inglis 2019)

Secondly, the geography of the Nepean River floodplain creates a sense of openness around the town or ruralness that engenders a ‘country’ mindset of those who live or would like to live in the local area. The landscape creates a physical and psychological separation from the city. The rural landscape symbolised traditional values embraced by the local community and used in local tourist promotions and by the developers of the new land releases to voice the difference between the local and the metropolitan. This imagery uses nostalgia to connect with Camden’s earlier days when the town was a small rural community and promotes Camden’s ruralness as a positive difference for newcomers to the area. The inundation of the floodplain by the waters of the Nepean River provides a physical and psychological barrier to Sydney’s urbanisation. The floodplain around Camden has been seen as a buffer zone against the onslaught of the city. A moat surrounds the metaphorical castle, that is, the country town. The floodplain provides the moat around the castle.

The Nepean River floodplain and the St John’s Church were invoked within the idyll to defeat a proposal to build a multi-storey carpark in central Camden in 2006. The supporters of the carpark, principally the Camden Chamber of Commerce, wanted additional car parking places in central Camden as early as 1995 because they felt that their financial viability was threatened by competition from Narellan Town Centre, a shopping mall. They thought that a multi-storey carpark would solve their problems. The council considered three possible sites. Two sites were between St John’s church on the hill in central Camden and Camden’s main street (Argyle Street), the third on the floodplain. Camden Council approved a site near St John’s Church in early 2006. The project was eventually defeated because it was felt that any development on the elevated southern sites compromised the vista of St John’s Church from the Nepean River floodplain. The church was located on the hill behind the proposed John Street sites. This vista was part of Camden’s iconic imagery, an important part of the town’s cultural landscape and identity from colonial times.[38] The carpark supporters, the Camden Chamber of Commerce, did not contest this position but felt that the final design of the carpark did not compromise these values; needless to say, Camden Residents Action Group, the historical society and a council-commissioned heritage architect disagreed. The heritage architects felt the proposal compromised the integrity of the ‘most intact country town on the Cumberland Plain’.[39]

The cover of Ian Willis’s Pictorial History Camden & District invokes the town’s history in an important local publication telling the Camden story. (Kingsclear, 2015)

Tourist promotions of Camden have drawn on the historic nature of central Camden, including St Johns church, the vistas of the floodplain and the values of the idyll. This has occurred in brochures, promotions, and a recent webpage, which is part of heritage tourism and allows visitors to experience places and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present.[40] The website states that,

Camden’s heritage precinct is dominated by the church on the hill, St John’s Church (1840) and the adjacent rectory (1859). Across the road is Macarthur Park (1905), arguably one of the best Victorian-style urban parks in the country. In the neighbouring streets, there are a number of charming Federation and Californian bungalows.[41]

The webpage continues in a similar vein

The picturesque rural landscapes that surround Camden were once part of the large estates of the landed gentry and their grand houses. A number of these privately owned houses are still dotted throughout the local area. Some examples are Camden Park (1835), Brownlow Hill (1828), Denbigh (1822), Oran Park (c1850), Camelot (1888), Studley Park (c1870s), Wivenhoe (c1837) and Kirkham Stables (1816). The rural vistas are enhanced by the Nepean River floodplain that surrounds the town and provides the visitor with a sense of the town’s farming heritage. [42]

Camden Council, in partnership with Camden Historical Society, produced a brochure for a walking tour of Camden and under the heading ‘Camden Town, A Place in History’ states that,

The historic township of Camden, on the southwestern outskirts of Sydney, is the cultural heart of a region that enjoys a unique place in our nation’s history…This rich rural heritage is evidenced around the town in the presence of livestock sale yards, vineyards, equestrian park and dairy facilities, giving Camden a unique ‘working country town’ atmosphere and flavour.[43]

Over the years, St John’s Church has been used on cups, saucers, mugs, and other ephemera.

The same imagery within the idyll is used to promote local businesses. One stockfeed supplier claims to be ‘Keeping Camden Country’.[44] Another business has released a DVD with a slide show and a backing track that uses the values of the idyll in the lyrics of a song written by a local Camden singer/songwriter. The song is called Still My Country Home and is the backing track for a DVD called Camden, Still My Country Home. It has been developed to promote a local business and has all the characteristics of the country town idyll.

Is the idyll still relevant?

Despite the apparent strength of the idyll in Camden, cracks are starting to appear. For example, using the idyll as a political weapon has disappeared, at least in the recent state election in March 2007. Both local candidates from the major political parties, Chris Patterson, Liberal, and Geoff Corrigan, ALP, one the present mayor and one a former mayor of Camden, dropped references to the retention of Camden’s country town atmosphere. Unlike earlier election campaigns involving Liz Kernohan, those values were central to her campaigns for state parliament. This change may be partly reflected by changes to the boundaries of the state seat of Camden and the inclusion of new suburbs in the northern part of the local government area that result from Sydney’s urban growth. In addition, Stockland removed references to ‘contemporary country living’ from promotional literature early in 2007, and the latest land release at East Camden, Elderslie, called Vantage Point, does not mention the idyll.

Yet a recent development application, in May 2007, by McDonalds for a new restaurant in South Camden has seen the idyll used as a potent political weapon yet again and involving the values of the country town. Protesters evoked the values of the idyll against a proposed McDonald’s restaurant in South Camden. The flood of objections from the community centred around concerns that were evocative of the evils of the city coming to invade the country town and revolved around crime, litter, traffic congestion and boorish behaviour. One resident complained that he had witnessed drunkenness, throwing bottles, boorish behaviour and burnouts in the carpark by McDonald’s customers at an outlet in Narellan. He further claimed that all incidents went unchecked by McDonald’s staff, security or police.[45] Helen Stockheim, a resident, claimed that she moved to the area because she liked the ‘country town atmosphere’ and the area was ‘McDonalds free’.[46] The Camden Advertiser ran an editorial titled ‘Let’s treasure our beautiful area’.[47] The giant conglomerate McDonald’s is the ‘outsider’ and brings the evils of the city in the form of globalisation, cultural integration and market domination to Camden. They directly challenge the community’s identity and the values represented by the idyll, such as honesty, simplicity, and authenticity of family-run businesses. The global corporation represents everything that the country town idyll is not.

The future relevance of the idyll to the Camden community is still an open question. The encroachment of Sydney’s urban sprawl is reshaping Camden’s identity in ways which are not yet clearly discernible. Yet many want the rural vistas and the historic buildings that create the separateness of Camden from Sydney’s urbanisation. They are the ones who are trying to hold on to the values of the small town in the form of the country town idyll.

[1] Macarthur Chronicle (Camden Edition) 15 May 2007, p.1.

[2] Kerrie-Elizabeth Allen, ‘The Social Space(s) of Rural Women’, Rural Society, v.12, no.1, 2002, pp31-32.

[3]. Waller, Town, City and Nation, p. 213. This division was based on nostalgia and romance and is still evident in popular contemporary British magazines like Country Origins, This England and The Best of British.

[4].Countrymindedness was ‘Physiocratic, populist and decentralist’. Rural pursuits were seen as ‘virtuous, ennobling and co-operative; they bring out the best in people’, while ‘city life is competitive and nasty, as well as parasitical’. The city was seen as immoral and parasitic, while the country was decent, honest and industrious. Aitkin, ‘Countrymindedness’, pp. 35-36.

[5].Poiner, The Good Old Rule, pp. 30-52; Alston, Women on the Land, pp. 142-147.

[6].Teather, ‘Mandate of the Country Women’s Association’, p. 85.

[7].Neutze, ‘City, Country, Town’, p. 15.

[8].Ward & Smith, The Vanishing Village, p. 7; Davidoff, World’s Between, pp. 46-50; Kerrie-Elizabeth Allen, ‘The Social Space(s) of Rural Women’, Rural Society, v.12, no.1, 2002

[9]. The town/country divide is based on the relationships between people, and Tonnies’s gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft is often considered ‘the classic statement in this tradition ‘Tonnies’s work described gemeinschaft relations as social relations based on ‘blood ties and geographical proximity’, while Gesellschaft relations is a contractual relationship found in the city. Other social philosophers who have seen a rural-urban dichotomy include Weber, Simmel, Durkheim, Marx and Engels, and Park. Ward & Smith, The Vanishing Village, pp. 1-12.

[10] Murray’s Boeotia and Athens (city and the bush).Helen Lambert, ‘A Draft Preamble: Les Murray and the Politics of Poetry’. APINetwork.Online. < http://www.api-network.com/main/index.php?apply=scholars&webpage=default&flexedit=&flex_password=&menu_label=&menuID=homely&menubox=&scholar=58> Accessed 14 May 2007.

[11] Bunker Raymond and Darren Holloway, ‘More than fringe benefits: the values, policies, issues and expectations embedded in Sydney’s rural-urban fringe’, Australian Planner, Vol. 39, No. 2, 2002, p. 68

[12] In 1936, The University of Sydney purchased a dairy farm at Badgery’s Creek and, in 1954, Corstorphine and May Farms at Cobbitty. In 1962, more farms were donated at Bringelly L Copeland (ed), 1910-1985 Celebrating 75 Years of Agriculture at the University of Sydney, Sydney: University of Sydney, 1985, p.46.

[13] NSWLAPD, 16 October 1991, pp.2293

[14] NSWLAPD, 16 October 1991, pp.2293-2294

[15] Janice Newton, ’Rejecting Suburban Identity on the Fringes of Melbourne’, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 1999, 10:3, pp. 322-329

[16] NSWLAPD, 16 October 1991, pp.2293-2294

[17] Tom Foreman, ‘Exurb growth challenges US cities’, CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2005/us/03/27/urban.sprawl/ . Online. [Accessed 25 May 2007]

[18] Jane Cadzow, ‘Do Fence Me In’, Good Weekend, 5 May 2007, pp33-38.

[19] Brendan Gleeson, ‘What’s Driving Suburban Australia?’, in Griffith Review, special edition ‘Dreams of Land’, Summer 2003-2004.pp. 57-65.

[20] Macarthur Advertiser 16 August 1995; Camden News 22 August 1973.

[21] Macarthur Advertiser 16 August 1995.

[22] The Crier 18 March 1981.

[23] Brendan Gleeson, ‘What’s Driving Suburban Australia?’, in Griffith Review, special edition ‘Dreams of Land’, Summer 2003-2004.pp. 57-65.

[24].The meeting took place at the Camden Valley Inn on 16 July 1994. Camden Crier 17 August 1994.

[25] Camden and Wollondilly Times 14 September 1994; ‘Mini City Proposal Stopped’, Pamphlet, August 1994, Kernohan File, Camden Historical Society Archives.

[26] Macarthur Advertiser 11 September 2002.

[27] Stockland, Upgrade Your Lifestyle, (Stockland Sales and Information Centre, 2006, Advertising Brochure)

[28] Stockland, ‘Bridgewater, Contemporary Country Living’, Aspect NSW, Spring/Summer 2005, pp. 36-37. (Advertising Literature).

[29] Camden Council, Statement of Affairs, Camden: The Council of Camden, 2007, p.3.

[30] Camden Council, Camden 2025, A Strategic Plan For Camden, (Camden: Camden Council 1999).p. 2. Online. http://www.camden.nsw.gov.au (Accessed 14 December 2006)

[31] Camden Council, Camden 2025, A Strategic Plan For Camden, (Camden: Camden Council 1999).p. 2. Online. http://www.camden.nsw.gov.au (Accessed 14 December 2006)

[32] Camden Council, Camden 2025, A Strategic Plan For Camden, (Camden: Camden Council 1999).p. 18. Online. http://www.camden.nsw.gov.au (Accessed 14 December 2006)

[33] Camden Council, Camden 2025, A Strategic Plan For Camden, (Camden: Camden Council 1999).p. 18. Online. http://www.camden.nsw.gov.au (Accessed 14 December 2006)

[34] Camden Council adopted the Camden Draft Heritage Report in December 2006.

[35] Atkinson, Camden; Willis, ‘The Gentry and the Village’;

[36] RE Nixon & PC Hayward (eds), The Anglican Church of St John the Evangelist Camden, New South Wales, Camden: Anglican Parish of Camden, 1999, pp. 8-21.

[37] District Reporter, 24 August 2007, p. 4.

[38] For example, this vista is on the front cover of Paul Power’s A Century of Change, One Hundred Years of Local Government in Camden (Camden: Macarthur Independent Promotions, 1989).

[39] Camden Advertiser 28 June 2006, p. 1.

[40] National Trust for Historic Preservation, ‘Heritage Tourism’. http://www.nationaltrust.org/heritage_tourism/index.html Online. [Accessed 4 April 2007]

[41]Ian Willis, ‘Camden, the best-preserved country town on the Cumberland Plain’, Heritage Tourism <http://www.heritagetourism.com.au/discover/camden.html> Online. Accessed 23 May 2007.

[42]Ian Willis, ‘Camden, the best-preserved country town on the Cumberland Plain’, Heritage Tourism <http://www.heritagetourism.com.au/discover/camden.html> Online. Accessed 23 May 2007.

[43] Camden Council, Heritage Walking Tour of Camden Town, (Camden: Camden Council, 2001)

[44] Advertisement: ‘Regal Stockfeeds’, District Reporter 24 August 2007, p. 6.

[45] ‘Traffic with that ?’, Camden Advertiser, 27 June 2007, Online. http://www.camdenadvertiser.com.au/2007/06/traffic_with_that.php [Accessed 27 June 2007]

[46] ‘Ready for a bun fight’, District Reporter 1 June 2007, p. 3.

[47] Camden Advertiser 27 June 2007, p. 4.

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Camden Material and Colour Guide, a heritage building guide

December 15, 2023 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Camden Material and Colour Guide

In 2023, Camden Council published the Camden Material and Colour Guide.

The guide was the initiative of the Camden Council Heritage Advisory Committee.

The aim of the guide

The Material and Colour Guide aims to provide a handy guide for owners of heritage buildings with practical tips on working with specific materials and colour schemes traditionally used in the local area. (CC, Press release, 21 August 2023)

Specifically, the guide advises heritage property owners on colours and materials for specific residential housing styles, particularly in the Camden Heritage Conservation Area. (CC, Press release, 21 August 2023)

The guide is welcome

It is pleasing to see the council publish the guide after I first raised this issue in 2017 when I wrote a blog post that Camden needed a residential style guide.

On the launch of the guide, I wrote complementing the council on their initiative, stating:

The guide provides valuable information that is reliable and relevant to specific architectural periods and domestic housing styles. I commend the council on its interest in assisting local property owners in retaining and enhancing the town and LGA’s historic fabric and built heritage. The guide assists in building community identity and the area’s sense of place. Both assist the local tourist industry and job creation.
(Letter to Mayor, 29 June 2023)

Camden Mayor Ashleigh Cagney said,

‘I know from conversations with homeowners that when someone owns a heritage building in the Camden area, they are incredibly passionate about preserving its character.’

‘I hope the Camden Material and Colour Guide makes it a little bit simpler for those people to be able to identify what kinds of works would best suit their properties, allowing them to retain their charm.’
(CC, Press release, 21 August 2023)

Kerime Danis, Director at City Plan Heritage, ICOMOS Advisory Committee, and Past President of Australia ICOMOS, posted that she was ‘proud to share’ the guide on Linkedin. Her post attracted Likes from various heritage and industry professionals across Australia, including architects, planners, archaeologists, project managers, historians, heritage conservationists and academics.

Camden Council commissioned City Plan Heritage to prepare the guide.

Camden Material and Colour Guide

The guide is a full-colour 42-page A4 landscape easily downloaded pdf file.

The guide is divided into different housing styles, and within each style, there is a style description and colour schemes for building exterior, interior and landscaping.

In addition, there are paint tips, a colour matrix and a material guide for brick, render, floor and paving, metal, roofing, stone and timber, and windows.

There is specific advice for property owners in the Argyle and John Streets heritage precincts.

There is also an illustrated guide to architectural terms.

Each page has clear, concise explanatory text supported by colour plates drawn from the local area.

Camden housing styles

The guide has identified eight Camden housing styles:

Victorian Filigree c.1840-1890
Federation Queen Anne c.1890-1915
Federation Weatherboard c.1890-1915
Federation Arts and Crafts c.1890-1915
Federation Bungalow c.1890-1915
California Bungalow c.1915-1940
Interwar Art Deco c.1915-1940
Interwar Weatherboard c.1915-1940

Any future revision to the guide Camden Council should consider including,

Mid-Century Moderne 1940-1960.
Late Twentieth Century c. 1960 – c. 2000
Twenty–First Century c. 2000 – present.

I have written

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 reflect the times in which they were built.

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).
https://camdenhistorynotes.com/2017/02/11/camden-needs-a-residential-heritage-style-guide/

Residential housing styles partly determine community identity and a sense of place.

The Camden Cottage

I have written about a generic Camden housing style on this blog a number of times. I have called the style the Camden Cottage.

The housing style incorporates blog posts on the Federation Weatherboard Cottage, the Edwardian Cottage and the Camden Fibro Cottage.

These residential housing styles add to the Camden story and the layers of history within the narrative.

Other heritage guides

Camden Council is not alone in providing this type of advice. Toowoomba Regional Council provides similar advice, as do a number of heritage authorities across the country, including New South Wales and Victoria.

The Guide and the Camden Heritage Conservation Area

The council has done a good job commissioning the Camden Material and Colour Guide.

Local property owners within the Camden Heritage Conservation Area should do themselves a favour and use it to their advantage.

The Camden Heritage Conservation Area is responsible for many tourist day-trippers who visit the Camden Town Centre.

Cultural and heritage tourism, of which architectural styles are part, generates many jobs within the Camden LGA.

The Camden Material and Colour Guide contributes to the conservation and preservation of tangible built heritage and intangible heritage within the Camden town area.

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Airds Shopping Mall: The retail centre hope forgot

April 10, 2020April 26, 2024 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

The sad side of mid-century Modernism

Recently I came across an article about the future of the Airds shopping mall in the Macarthur Chronicle headed ‘Dilapidated centre set to be transformed’. It stated:

A wrecking ball could be swinging towards a dilapidated shopping village. The grand plans propose to demolish Airds Village shopping centre, on Riverside Drive, and replace it with a $21 million centre.

Airds Shopping Centre redevelopment Macarthur Chroncile 2020Apr1

A story of decay and neglect

The imminent demolition of the decaying and neglected Airds shopping mall is a sad indictment of the dreams of many and the ultimate demise of the 1970s Macarthur Growth Centre.

The shopping mall is an example of urban decay in the middle of our local suburbia. It is a failure of modernism and the town-planning utopia of city-based decision-makers.

The decay at Airds is not unusual and symbolic of more significant trends in global retail where shopping malls are declining.

The current dismal state of affairs hides the issue that in the mid-20^th century, Campbelltown’s civic leaders had great hope and optimism for the area’s development and progress.

Airds Shopping Centre Frontage from Walkway underpass 2020 IW lowres — The front view of the Airds Shopping Centre framed by the underpass at Riverside Drive Airds (I Willis, 2020)

Progress, development, and Modernism

There were grand plans for Campbelltown as a satellite city within the New South Wales state government’s County of Cumberland Plan.

Local confidence saw the construction of the 1964 modernist council chambers and, in 1968, the declaration of city status, electrification of the railway and the announcement of the Sydney Region Outline Plan by the state government.

Influenced by the British New Town movement, the city was incorporated in the State Planning Authority of NSW’s 1973 New Cities of Campbelltown Camden Appin Structure Plan. This later became the Macarthur Growth Centre, administered by the Macarthur Development Board.

Airds Shopping Centre Front from footpath with grass 2020 IW lowres — The unkempt state of the surrounds at the Airds Shopping Centre in Riverside Drive Airds (I Willis 2020)

Radburn – a ‘foreign country’

Airds was one of several ‘corridor’ public housing suburbs following the American Radburn principles. The Airds shopping centre was built as part of the 1975 Housing Commission of New South Wales subdivision of ‘Kentlyn’, renamed Airds in 1976.

The Radburn principles were applied to five public housing estates developed by the Housing Commission of New South Wales in the Campbelltown area between 1972 and 1989. The other four estates were Macquarie Fields, Claymore, Minto and Ambervale.

The design concept originated from Radburn in New Jersey in 1928 and reflected the optimism of American modernism around the motor car and consumerism.

Houses were developed ‘back-to-front’ with a front-facing walkway or green open space and the back door facing the street. This meant a separation of pedestrians and cars, with a large communal open area centred on the walkways between the rows of houses. This resulted in a streetscape with rows of high blank fences enclosing backyards.

Travis Collins from the University of New South Wales argues that the Radburn principles were initially designed for aspirational upper-middle-class areas and their desire for a garden suburb where pedestrian walkways and common areas linked across the estate. These areas were expected to be the centre of neighbourhood life without needing a car.

Airds Shopping Centre Interior Signage 2020 IW lowres — The interior walkway into the middle of the Airds Shopping Centre (I Willis 2020)

Radburn watered down

The suburb of Airds, and other Campbelltown public housing estates, started off with grand plans that evaporated over time due to: changes of government; cost-cutting; abolition of government instrumentalities; and neglect. This resulted in a ‘watered down’ Radburn vision.

The public housing estates did have extensive open space, which was true to Radburn principles. Yet there were compromises, and the Housing Commission built townhouses, that were counter to the Radburn concept.

The tracts of open space became wastelands of neglect and vandalism that were poorly provisioned and maintained by the Housing Commission, with a lack of privacy and security. The back lanes and streets were isolated, lacked security and resident surveillance and were sites characterised by dumped rubbish and graffiti.

The estates were populated with single-parent families, who suffered from high levels of social exclusion, unemployment, and low incomes.

Airds Shopping Centre Interior2 2020 IW lowres — The interior space of the Airds Shopping Centre (I Willis 2020)

Radburn failures

Collins argues that the Radburn principles were a failure, and contributing factors included: poor surveillance of the street by residents because of high rear fences fronting the street, anti-social behaviour along the walkways and open space areas, and the low socio-economic status of residents.

The failure of the Radburn scheme was finally recognised by the authorities in the early 2000s. They acknowledged that: the design was unsuitable for concentrated public housing estates; they created confusing neighbourhoods with unsafe walkways, poor car access, and poor surveillance of open space; the poorly constructed housing stock became run down and dilapidated; the housing stock was infested with termites. These issues were reflected in Airds and the shopping mall from the mid-1970s.

Airds Shopping Centre Frontage from Walkway 2020 IW lowres — Approaching the front of the Airds Shopping Centre from the underpass at Riverside Drive Airds (I Willis 2020)

Memories of hope

In the 1970s, I taught at Airds High School, adjacent to the shopping mall, and my memories are mixed. Young people, who came from dysfunctional backgrounds, yet their resilience allowed them to rise above it, grow and mature into sensible young adults. This process is supported by the life experience of former Airds resident Fiona Woods (Facebook, April 2020), who grew up in Airds in the 1970s and 1980s. She says:

I have the best memories of Airds, especially that shopping centre. Riding our bikes to buy lollies. Growing up in Airds in the 70s was very communal. I loved it. I arrived at Airds in 1977 when I was 3 and lived there until 1984. I went to John Warby [Public School]. There was such a strong sense of community. My mum met her best friend when they moved into their new houses in Airds. They have been friends for over 40 years and still speak daily.

Fiona tells the story of her sister, who taught at Airds High School in the 1990s. She found the teaching experience challenging, as I did 20 years earlier, yet the youngsters were confident, grounded and without airs and graces.

Similarly, I found Airds’ school children had a refreshing unsophisticated innocence generated by difficult circumstances. They were unpretentious, and you quickly knew where you stood with them teaching in a classroom that was always full of unconfined energy. You always had classroom ‘war stories’, and this is where I did my ‘missionary work’.

Bogans galore and more

The Airds shopping mall is a metaphor for what happened to Campbelltown between the 1970s and the present. It represents the collision of modernism and neoliberalism in place. The optimism of the 1960s contrasted with the despair of the 1980s.

The shopping mall is a metaphor for the stereotypes linked with the geographical term ‘Western Sydney’ and the use of terms like ‘bogan’ and ‘westie’. Typified by Sydney’s latte line where city-based decision-makers dealt with suburbs west of the latte line as a foreign country. In 2013 Campbelltown journalist Jeff McGill took exception to the ‘bogan’ characterisation of the Campbelltown area by the Sydney media.

Gabrielle Gwyther put it this way:

Derogatory labeling of residents of western Sydney was aided by the social problems and cheap aesthetic of large-scale, public housing estates developed in the 1950s at Seven Hills, followed by Green Valley and Mount Druitt in the 1960s, and the Radburn estates of Bonnyrigg, Villawood, Claymore, Minto, Airds and Macquarie Fields in the 1970s.

Airds Shopping Centre Gate Entry 2020 IW lowres — The side security gates at the Airds Shopping Centre Riverside Drive Airds (I Willis 2020)

De-Radburnisation

These failures were acknowledged in 1995 with the state government’s public housing renewal projects and their de-Radburnisation through the Neighbourhood Improvement Program.

At Airds, this is partly responsible for the re-development of the shopping centre as outlined in the Macarthur Chronicle.

Sources

Nathan Collins, Renewing Minto, An Analysis of the Minto Renewal Project. Undergraduate Thesis, Bachelor of Planning, UNSW, 2006. Online at https://www.be.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/upload/pdf/schools_and_engagement/resources/_notes/5A3_1.pdf

Kristian Ruming, MOSAIC urban renewal evaluation project: urban renewal policy, program and evaluation review. City Futures Research Centre UNSW, Research Paper No.4 May 2006. Online at https://cityfutures.ada.unsw.edu.au/documents/29/researchpaper4.pdf

Gwyther, Gabrielle, Western Sydney, Dictionary of Sydney, 2008, https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/western_sydney

Updated 26 April 2024; Originally posted 11 April 2020

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Oran Park Raceway: the finishing line as new horizons open up

February 21, 2018May 10, 2023 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

A new community at Oran Park

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.

Oran Park DSC_oranparktown — 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 1997 CIPP — 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.

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 Garage 1936 — 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.

Oran Park Raceway 2008 PMylrea CIPP — 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 DSC_opdisplayhomes — 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.

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.

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 2014 [2] (OPPS) — 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.

OranParkTownCentre — 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.

The Macarthur Chronicle has developed a time-lapse to illustrate some of the changes at Oran Park.
https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FMacarthurchronicle%2Fvideos%2F10155207700341135%2F&show_text=1&width=560

Updated on 10 May 2023. Originally posted on 21 February 2018.

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The White House Farm, a lost Camden mid-20th century icon

September 15, 2017March 4, 2024 camdenhistorynotes

At South Camden, there was once a favourite restaurant and venue for local weddings and receptions. It was the White House Farm at 451 Hume Highway South Camden.

The restaurant was demolished in the 1990s and replaced by a service station. The site of the White House Farm is the location of many fond memories of family and community celebrations and anniversaries.

Camden White House Farm Chroncle19Feb1986_0001 — White House Farm Restaurant and Reception Centre Camden about to go auction in 1986 (Camden Museum)

Mid-20^th century modernism

The White House Farm is a local example of mid-20th-century modernism influenced by a ranch style from West Coast America. It was timber construction, with a tile roof and shutters to the windows. Camden had a number of ranch-style houses, a style of domestic architecture that was popular in Australia in the 1960s.

A number have since been demolished, like the White House Farm. The ranch-style architecture is described for its long, close-to-the-ground profile and wide open layout. The style fused modernist ideas with the wide open spaces of the American West to create an informal and casual approach.

One characteristic of many ranch-style buildings was extensive landscaped grounds. The unpretentious nature of the style was particularly popular between the 1940s and 1970s. The style lost popularity with a return to more formal and traditional styles of architecture.

Located on the Hume Highway to capture the passing traffic the White House Farm was built in 1966 and run as a restaurant function centre by the owners, Mr and Mrs Henry Hart, until it sold in 1985 to Alfred and Jennifer Milan.

The complex had a large commercial kitchen and could hold two wedding receptions at the same time. It had a seating capacity of 220 in two dining rooms, one 75 and the other 130.

Restaurant menu

In 1984, the restaurant advertised ‘Chicken in the Basket’ for $12.50. Patrons could have a ‘whole tender, spring chicken, old fashioned stuffing, baked to perfection. Served in a basket surrounded with special fries, crumbed onion rings, homemade corn, and banana fritters.

This delicacy was accompanied by the ability of patrons to select their ‘sweets’ from a self-service area. Complimented with tea and coffee of choice. This ‘tradition’ was proudly introduced by the Hart family,.

White House Farm Menu 1984_lowres — Flyer for White House Farm Restaurant Camden in 1984 (Camden Museum)

The restaurant traded five days a week from Tuesday to Saturday, lunches from 12 to 2.30pm, and dinner from 6pm. Sunday was reserved for private functions. There was the attraction of a half-price children’s menu. Bottles of wine averaged between $5 and $6.

The restaurant menu had a number of delicacies that are not very common these days. Entrees of prawn cocktail, fruit cocktail, and melon with ham, while the main dishes specialised in steaks and included carpetbag steak and steak diane.

There were the poultry specials of chicken southern style and chicken in the basket (whole) and salads, which included ham, chicken, cheese, and pineapple. On Facebook, Susan Vale recalls that as a child, ‘I remember sleeping in the car parked in front while mum and dad enjoyed a rowdy dinner with friends. It was the place for a nice meal’.

Weddings

Weddings were catered for with formal or informal reception rooms from two available menus at the exorbitant price of $13.00 and $14.50 per head.

The grounds provided award-winning ‘beautiful garden style settings’, and the owners could organise music, photography and cars for the bride and groom. The motel was a two-minute walk from a local motel, the Camden Country Club Motel (now also demolished).

The wedding party could bring their own drinks, and there was no time limit. In 1990, the Camden press claimed that ‘newlyweds are promised a relaxed and special day’. The garden had a ‘relaxed and friendly atmosphere’, and it was like having a ‘home garden wedding’. The restaurant owners could organise a Scottish Piper ‘in full regalia’ or a ‘Sweep-a-gram’ for those who wanted something a little different.

The restaurant had its own DJ, master of ceremonies and musicians. The brides and grooms were promised ‘romantic weddings in a colonial home atmosphere’ catering for groups between 30 and 130 guests. One of those brides was Marie Larnach, who recalls on Facebook that she had her ‘wedding reception there in 1973’. Similarly, Brenda Egan had her wedding there as well.

Camden White House Farm Wedding 1980s_0001 — Wedding at White House Farm Reception Centre Camden in the 1980s (Camden Museum)

The owners lived in a two-bedroom flatette above the main building. The auction notice for February 1986 said that it was ideal as staff quarters. The notice boasted that the White House Farm was a local ‘landmark’. The restaurant was sold with an adjacent two-bedroom cottage.

The White House Farm had lots of parking space on a lot of 6872 m² and was an ideal venue for local weddings and large family functions.

Development proposal

The Shell Company of Australia lodged a development application for a service station on the site in April 1992, which proposed the demolition of the White House Farm restaurant.

Shell had been prompted to go ahead with the development on the basis that there would be increased local traffic from the Cawdor Resident Release, which never did proceed.

The Camden press noted that the site’s development was always possible after 1989 when Camden Council changed the zoning of land on the fringes of the township. (Camden Crier, 6 May 1992)

Resident opposition

The Camden press reported that residents had campaigned against the Shell proposal for three months. An initial public meeting was held near the site at Easter 1992 with 60 residents. This was followed by a public meeting at the Camden Downs Retirement Village in April, which was attended by 115 residents. Deputy Town Planner Graham Pascoe outlined the council’s legal responsibility towards the proposal.

Local resident John Wrigley for the Camden Residents Action Group called for a show of hands for the no position, with resounding support. Alderman Geoff Corrigan supported the residents’ viewpoint, labelled the development proposal ‘architectural vandalism’, and claimed that the service station had ‘no heart or soul’. (Camden Crier, 6 May 1992)

Camden White House Farm Garden3 1990 MacAdv — White House Farm Camden with a view from the front Garden in 1990 (Camden Museum)

Over 90 objections were sent to Camden Council from local residents and a petition of over 200 signatures. Individual submissions against the service station proposal centred on

Incompatibility of the development
Loss of residential amenities
Local landscape quality
Social and economic effects
Noise and traffic impact
the adjoining residential area and adverse impact from 6am to 12 midnight from proposed trading hours. (Camden Crier, 5 August 1992)

Council decision

The development proposal was raised at a Camden Council meeting in July 1992. Shell Company of Australia was represented by Mr Graham Rollingson of Martin, Morris and Jones real estate developers, who spoke in favour of the development application.

Several aldermen, including Aldermen McMahon, Hart, Corrigan, and Feld, spoke against the proposal. The residents’ interests were represented by spokesman Phil Kosta. The meeting was conducted by Deputy Mayor Frank Booking in the absence of Mayor Theresa Testoni.

The council rejected the proposal on the grounds that the development application was not in the public interest. (Camden Crier, 5 August 1992)

Court decision

In 1993, the Shell Company of Australia won a Land and Environment Court case to allow the construction of a service station on the site, ensuring the demolition of the restaurant and function centre.

The local press reported that residents were appalled with the decision, and Camden Council initially rejected the proposal after resident objections in July 1992.

Shell appealed the decision in the Land and Environment Court in December 1992. Council deputy town planner Graham Pascoe expressed disappointment at the decision. (The Chronicle, 12 January 1993)

White House Farm MacAdvert6June1990 — This promotion for the White House Farm Wedding Reception Centre in Camden was part of a newspaper wedding special in 1990 (Camden Museum)

Today, the White House Farm site is occupied by a service station.

Comments on Facebook:

Marie Lanarch:

Marie Larnach Had our wedding reception there in 1973.

Manage

I only know that my husband and I had our reception at the White House Farm on 15th September, 1973. It was a lovely place, little bridge out the front for photos etc. The meal was lovely. Not sure what else you need, but I hope this helps. Marie (Larnach) (18 Sept 2017)

Charlene Lindsay

Charlene Lindsay My grand parents bought the place in 1965/66. I was around 2 years old. My mum, dad, aunty Angela and uncle Tino run the restaurant between them for over 25+ years. The original building had the living area upstairs. The original kitchen of the restaurant was where the bar area in later years was situated. Before the Sydney/Melbourne freeway was completed greyhound buses used to stop by for lunches. The party room was built by my dad and uncle Tino. The kitchen addition at the rearvof building was built years later with the final extension to the a rea built in the 1970’s. We could have a wedding of 150 odd people in the party room a wedding of 80 or so in the dinning room extension and the restaurant of another 50 odd people going all at once. Seriously busy. Most popular table was ‘lovers corner’. Back in its heyday drivers like Peter Brock Alan Moffitt Colin Bond would dine there after racing at Oran Park. My grand parents also lived in the next to the White House Farm. That house was previously owned by an old lady by name of Mrs May. She used to sell her fruit n veg by the side of road Hume Highway. I miss those days

😊. After my aunty Angela died my grand father didnt have his heart in it anymore – pardon the pun! Later my uncle Tino and his second wife Nelly bought out the rest of the family.

Ian Willis: What was your grandparents last name?

CL: Harry and Sitska Hart they came over from Holland in about 1950. They had identical twin daughters Angela and my mum Charmaine and a son Henri.

Ian Willis: Did your grandparents build the restaurant?

CL: No they built the wedding reception dance floor room and the restaurant addition on north side of the original building also the commercial kitchen and the fish pond.

Katrina Woods I had the privilege of being neighbors of Charlene Lindsayparents Paul & Charmaine – I worked in the local store at Douglas Park & one day Paul asked me if wanted to work at The White House Farm ? In about 1979 ? I took up his offer – had many enjoyable Saturday & Friday nights – worked the weddings in the restaurant also kitchen – i was blessed to have had my engagement & wedding at this venue .
Fred Borg was also working there in my time & he also was our MC at our reception – Thankyou to Paul Charmaine , Tino & Mr Mrs Hart letting me be a part of Camden History

Susan Vale I remember sleeping in the car parked in front while mum and dad enjoyed a rowdy dinner with friends. It was the place for a nice meal.

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· 15 September at 06:44

Sheila Caris Our wedding reception was there on the 8th of February 1975 – must have been one of the hottest days of the year & no air conditioning!

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· Reply · Message · 15 September at 22:23

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Chris Robinson We had our wedding reception here in 1990. Very happy memories. The owners and staff were wonderful.

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· Reply · Message · 15 September at 17:13

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Julie Coulter What a flashback! We were married in the gardens 1982 and the had our wedding reception here!

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· 16 September at 08:56

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Sue Kalmar- Grono Anne Kalmar-Poli
Liz Kalmar-Carroll is this where we were asked to leave cause we were too loud???

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· 15 September at 13:47

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3 Replies

Annie Austin Our wedding in 71 it was the place at that time.Beautiful.

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· 15 September at 17:50

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1 Reply

Jeanne Skinner Hahaha wow flashback alright

😊

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· Reply · Message · 16 September at 09:06

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Ryan Punch Did that burn down or am I thinking of something else?

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· Reply · Message · 14 September at 20:50

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Sean Couley Can’t believe it made way for a petrol station.

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· Reply · Message · 15 September at 21:58

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Tracey Kennedy We had our wedding reception there 23rd March 1985.

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· 15 September at 20:43

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1 Reply

Christie Williams Can’t believe they knocked it down and put servo there

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· 16 September at 08:02

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Phyllis Moloney I had all our work xmas parties there

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· 15 September at 21:04

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Chris Terry Had our wedding reception 1976

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· 15 September at 18:36

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Julie Ralphs Wow, that was another lifetime ago. Had my wedding reception there in May 1988. Charming venue.

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· Reply · Message · 17 hrs

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Megan Murdoch My parents held my Christening there in 1965!!

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· Reply · Message · 15 September at 19:08

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Michelle Maree Where is White House Farm?

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· Reply · Message · 16 September at 13:18

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Sharon Stewart Very interesting history read Char, the good old days are in our hearts

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· Reply · Message · 16 September at 14:47

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Brenda Egan Had my wedding reception at the White Hours Farm

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· Reply · See response · 14 September at 21:25

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Denise Taranto Sandy Evans….was this your venue?

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· Reply · Message · 16 September at 10:29

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Sueanne Gray Yes Cheryl Gray and Malcom

💞

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· Reply · Message · 15 September at 22:37

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Jennifer Hazlewood Another memory for you Alison Donohoe

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· Reply · Message · 15 September at 13:25

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Louise Skinner Yep had our wedding reception there in 1979.

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· 16 September at 09:24

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Kate Solomons Had a great 21st birthday there in 87

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· 15 September at 21:23

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Cindy Cox We had our wedding reception there in 1987

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· 15 September at 21:07

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Jane Mary Darling We stayed there on our wedding night. !

Craige Cole Anna & I had our wedding reception at White House Farm on a windy October evening. It was a fantastic venue and the best party I have ever been to.
Such a pity that the state government got involved in a local decision.

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· 16 September at 05:20

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Grant Herne Guess what I proposed to ann rather nervously on a sat night a long time ago at white house farm

· Reply · Message · 16 September at 07:27

Updated 4 March 2024. Originally posted on 15 September 2017 as ‘A lost Camden mid-20th century icon, The White House Farm’.

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Sydney’s urban fringe: a transition zone of hope and loss

September 24, 2015May 10, 2023 camdenhistorynotes6 Comments

Winners and losers on the urban fringe

Sydney’s rural-urban fringe is a site of winners and losers.

It is a landscape where dreams are fulfilled and memories are lost. The promises of land developers in master-planned suburban utopias meet the hope and expectations of newcomers.

At the same time, locals grasp at lost memories as the rural countryside is covered in a sea of tiled roofs and concrete driveways.

Conflict over a dream

As Sydney’s rural-urban fringe moves across the countryside, it becomes a contested site between locals and outsiders over their aspirations and dreams. The conflict revolves around displacement and dispossession.

Sydney’s rural-urban fringe is similar to the urban frontier of large cities in Australia and other countries. It is a dynamic landscape that makes and re-makes familiar places.

More than this the rural-urban fringe is a zone of transition where invasion and succession are constant themes for locals and newcomers alike.

Searching for the security of a lost past

As Sydney’s urban sprawl invades fringe communities, locals yearn for a lost past and hope for some safekeeping of their memories. They use nostalgia as a fortress and immerse themselves in community rituals and traditions drawn from their past. They are drawn to ever-popular festivals like the Camden Show and Campbelltown’s Fishers Ghost Festival, which celebrate the rural heritage of Sydney’s fringe.

Local communities respond by creating imaginary barriers to ward off the evils of Sydney’s urban growth that is about to run them over. One of the most important is the metaphorical moat created by the Hawkesbury-Nepean River floodplain around some of the fringe communities of Camden, Richmond and Windsor.

Fringe communities use their rural heritage to ward off the Sydney octopus’s tentacles that are about to strangle them. In one example, the Camden community has created an imaginary country town idyll. A cultural myth where rural traditions are supported by the church on the hill, the village green and the Englishness of the gentry’s colonial estates.

Hope and the creation of an illusion

Outsiders and ex-urbanites come to the new fringe suburbs looking for a new life in a semi-rural environment. As they escape the evils of their own suburbia, they seek to immerse themselves in the rurality of the fringe. They want to retreat to an authentic past when times were simpler. It is a perception that land developers are eager to exploit.

Ex-urbanites are drawn to the urban frontier by developer promises of their own piece of utopia and the hope of a better lifestyle. They seek a place where “the country still looks like the country”. These seek what the local fringe communities already possess – open spaces and rural countryside.

The imagination of new arrivals is set running by developer promises of suburban dreams in master-planned estates. They are drawn in by glossy brochures, pollie speak, media hype and recent subsidies on landscaping and other material benefits.

Manicured parks, picturesque vistas and restful water features add to the illusion of a paradise on the urban frontier. Developers commodify a dream in an idyllic semi-rural setting that new arrivals hope will protect their life savings in a house and land package.

Destruction of the dream

CHS2436 — Oran Park Development 2010 (Camden Image/P Mylrea)

Dreams are also destroyed on Sydney’s urban frontier for many newcomers. Once developers of master-planned estates have made their profit, they withdraw. They no longer support the idyllic features that created the illusion of a suburban utopia.

The dreams of a generation of ex-urbanites have come crashing down in the suburbs like Harrington Park and Mount Annan. The absence of developer rent-seeking has meant that their dreams have evaporated and gone to dust. Manicured parks have become overgrown. Restful water features have turned into dried-up cesspools inhabited by vermin.

Paradoxically, the ex-urbanite invasion has displaced and dispossessed an earlier generation of diehard motor racing fans of their dreams. The destruction of the Oran Park Raceway created its own landscape of lost memories. Ironically new arrivals at Oran Park bask in the reflected glory of streets named after Australian motor racing legends and sculptures that pay tribute to the long-gone raceway.

The latest threat to the dreams of all fringe dwellers is the invasion of Sydney’s southwest urban frontier by the exploratory drilling of coal seam gas wells. Locals and new arrivals alike see their idyllic surroundings disappearing before their eyes. They are fearful of their semi-rural lifestyle.

So what of the dreams?

Sydney’s rural-urban fringe will continue to be a frontier where conflict is an ever-present theme in the story of the place. Invasion, dispossession, opportunity and hope are all part of the ongoing story of this zone of constant change.

Front Cover of Ian Willis’s *Pictorial History of Camden and District* (Kingsclear, 2015)

Learn more

Ian Willis 2012, Townies, ex-urbanites and aesthetics: issues of identity on Sydney’s rural-urban fringe.

Ian Willis 2013, Imaginings on Sydney’s Edge: Myth, Mourning and Memory in a Fringe Community (Sydney Journal)

Updated 10 May 2023. Originally posted 24 September 2015

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Sydney’s urban sprawl invades the Macarthur region

September 21, 2015May 16, 2023 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Urban development on Sydney’s rural-urban fringe

Sydney’s urban growth is about to invade the Macarthur region yet again. This is a re-run of the planning disasters in Campbelltown of the late 1970s. These planning decisions were originally part of the 1968 Sydney Region Outline Plan and the 1973 New Cities of Campbelltown, Camden, Appin Structure Plan.

These urban plans were grossly over-optimistic then and only appeared in the Camden LGA in the 1980s at Mount Annan and Currans Hill. Tracts of land were sold off for housing in 1973, including part of Camden Park Estate, while historic buildings in Camden were demolished – Royal Hotel.

The areas in the current proposal are: Appin & West Appin, Wilton Junction, South Campbelltown, Menangle Park, Mount Gilead and Menangle areas.

and more on the Department Planning website for Sydney’s south west region.

Read about the land release at Menangle Park here (Urban Growth NSW)

Sydney’s metropolitan fringe is a theatre for the creation and loss of collective memories, cultural myths and community grieving around cultural icons, traditions and rituals. European settlement took the Aboriginal dreaming and then had its own dream removed by an east invasion in the form of Sydney’s urban growth.

The re-making of place in and around the fringe community of Camden and Campbelltown illustrates the destruction and reconstruction of cultural landscapes. Locals dream of retaining the aesthetics of inter-war country towns and have created an illusion of a historical myth of a ‘country town idyll’.

In the new suburbs of Oran Park, Mt Annan and Harrington Park, urbanites have invaded the area drawn by developer spin, which promised to fulfil hopes and dreams and never really lived up to the hype. Unfulfilled expectations mean that Sydney’s rural-urban fringe is a transition zone where waves of invasion and succession have created perceptions of reality, and all that is left is imagination.

Australian Historical Association 2007 Regional Conference

Engaging Histories

University of New England, Armidale

23-26 September 2007

Yearning, Longing and The Remaking of Camden’s Identity: the myths and reality of ‘a country town idyll’

Abstract

Article

What is the country town idyll?

The origins of the idyll.

The historical development of the country town idyll and its contemporary use by its supporters

Formalisation of the idyll

Is the idyll still relevant?

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Camden Material and Colour Guide

The aim of the guide

The guide is welcome

Camden Material and Colour Guide

Camden housing styles

The Camden Cottage

Other heritage guides

The Guide and the Camden Heritage Conservation Area

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The sad side of mid-century Modernism

A story of decay and neglect

Progress, development, and Modernism

Radburn – a ‘foreign country’

Radburn watered down

Radburn failures

Memories of hope

Bogans galore and more

De-Radburnisation

Sources

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A new community at Oran Park

Oran Park Raceway was a glorious thing

Oran Park Raceway Control Tower

Dreams and development on the raceway site

Oran Park 2008 planned housing development

The colonial history of Oran Park

Oran Park House

Oran Park House was renamed Catherine Park House

Oran Park, in recent times

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Mid-20th century modernism

Restaurant menu

Weddings

Development proposal

Resident opposition

Council decision

Court decision

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Winners and losers on the urban fringe

Conflict over a dream

Searching for the security of a lost past

Hope and the creation of an illusion

Destruction of the dream

So what of the dreams?

Learn more

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Urban development on Sydney’s rural-urban fringe

Learn more about urban development in the Macarthur region.

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Mid-20^th century modernism