The Camden story

The Camden story

The Camden story is a story of place.

The town was founded in 1840 as a private venture by the Macarthur brothers, James and William. They were the sons of colonial patriarch John Macarthur, at the Nepean River crossing on the northern edge of the family’s pastoral property of Camden Park. The town’s site was enclosed on three sides by a sweeping bend in the Nepean River, which has regularly flooded the surrounding farmland and lower parts of the town.

Camden, a Macarthur family venture (CHS, 2022)

Yearning, Longing and The Remaking of Camden’s Identity: the myths and reality of ‘a country town idyll’. (CHN, 2024)

Camden, the making and re-making of familiar places (CHN, 2024)

The Commercial Bank is at the centre of the Camden township and is at the centre of many of Camden’s stories. (2023 MyNewCamden)

Storytelling

The Camden story is storytelling at its finest.

The Camden story is an anthology of tales of the daily lives of the fascinating characters from the Camden district of NSW. Many were larger than life, while others have fallen between the cracks of history.

Making Camden History: local history and untold stories in a small community (ISAA Review, 19(1), 23-38, ISSN: 2203-1367, 2023.)

Camden, the best preserved country town on the Cumberland Plain (CHN, 2021)

All of Camden’s characters have an interesting story to tell, which is composed of shades of light and dark, hope and despair, glee and sadness, and many other human emotions.

The storyteller will peel back the layers of the past and reveal the complex interactions and nuances of this small country town from pre-European times to the present.

The Camden area has been the setting for many movies over the decades from the earliest 20th century.

Movie making Camden style (CHN, 2019)

If walls could talk, this banking chamber would tell many stories. The former Westpac and Bank of New South Wales building. Built in 1938, the interwar period of growth in Camden is located at the centre of the town and is featured in many local stories along Argyle Street. The Marsden solicitor’s office is the former State Bank of NSW, an interwar icon. (I Willis 2023)

The historiography of the Camden story

The historiography of the making of the history of Camden outlines how the Camden story has been told over the generations from the town’s foundation in 1840.

Making Camden History (CHN, 2022)

The cells of the former Camden Police Barracks are haunted by the ghosts of many of its former inmates and the stories they could tell. The former Camden Police Station, a single-storey brick building at 35 John Street, was constructed in 1878 and served the NSW Police Service until 2011. Designed by James Barnet, it features historical architectural elements, including a paved verandah and brick chimneys. (2023 I Willis)