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THE ROSE AND CROWN, BAKERY, GRANARY, RACECOURSE
Copy of pages from
The Memoirs of Obed West – A Portrait of Early Sydney,
by Edward West Marriott (mentions Thomas Rose & The Rose and Crown.)
THE STREETS OF OLD SYDNEY page 25-30
On the eastern side of this block from Hunter to King streets most of the properties ran back to Elizabeth Street and had fine fruit gardens. One of these houses, later rented by the Government for the Audit Office, had been built over fifty years ago by an American merchant, Mr Pittman, who had also built and owned a wharf nearly opposite Billy Blue’s Point. At the corner of King Street there was a small brick public house known as "The Fox and Hounds", an unpretentious structure compared with the hotels of today which are designed by architects. The principal corners in the city in those days were occupied by small public houses, which have now been adorned with buildings equalling more than ten or fifty times in value the buildings they supplanted.
One of the occupants in Chapel Row was a baker, John Whittier, better known as "Jacky Muslin", or "Jacky Dough". It might be mentioned here that all the well-known persons of the town were better known by their nicknames; in fact, in some cases the persons were known only by their sobriquets.
Mr Taber, clerk of St James Church, had his school in Chapel Row within reach of St James, as also was Thomas Rose’s inn "The Rose and Crown", with its adjoining bakery and large brick granary fronting on to King Street. In fact Mr Rose’s land went through to Elizabeth Street and he later gave the land for St James’ School in exhcnage for a farm near Appin, where he subsequently died. Another occupant of a small weatherboard cottage on that land was Mr Handshaw, a silver smith and gun smith. I recollect him making one of the silver cups which was to be run for on the old Sydney Racecourse.
The "Rose and Crown" used to be the scene of much activity and bustle, for it was here that the stage coaches used to start for the "interior", circumscribed as it was in those days. The "Rose and Crown" was also one of the principal rendezvous for the patrons of the turf when race meetings were held in Hyde Park.
Between King and Park streets there was a number of scattered cottages and houses including "Kiss’s Bazaar" and the inevitable public houses. One occupant was Mr Limeburner who was a "First Fleeter" and could relate some curious incidents connected with the adventures and hardships of the pioneer colonists. I have often heard him boast that he was the first person, out of those who landed with Governor Phillip, who killed a kangaroo. It was shot in Farm Cove on what is now the Botanical Gardens. The land from the Gardens across the Domain and away towards the Railway Station, whin in its primitive state, was all forest ground, covered with tall trees and quite unlike the sand hills surrounding it and covered with scrub.
Nearby lived Mr Belcher, a nailer, who lived and worked on his premises, charging only 1 shilling and 6 pence per 100 for nails, and 1 shilling and 3 pence per 100 for shingles – different prices from those today.
At the south-east corner of Market Street and Chapel Row was a public house kept by Mr Hazard, in completion with the "Rose and Crown" but kept by one of the best-known and most genial bonifaces of the old days. Here, most of the frequenters of the old Sydney Racecourse would adjourn to talk and argue about the events of the stirring day.
Turning from Chapel Row, or as I should call it, Castlereagh Street, into Elizabeth Street, the property was very little built upon and it is unnecessary that I should particularise it. However, it may be of interest to the reader if I furnish a short report on the old Sydney Racecourse, now called Hyde Park, which was inaugurated by Governor Macquarie.
The course commenced from a point opposite Market Street, went round St James Road, passed the front of the Prince Consort’s statue*; thence along College Street to about Stanley Street where it took a semi-circular turn towards Liverpool Street, and continued the turn until it reached the "Obelisk".** There in began (in racing parlance) the straight running. At about the corner of Park Street – which at that time had not yet been cut through – stood the "distance stand", and from there to the judges’s box at the corner of Market Street, was the struggling ground. This ground was roped off from the excited spectators, just as the saddling paddock with the weighing scales adjourning the judges’s box, which in fact was a semi-circular brick structure, about ten yards from Elizabeth Street, was roped in. On the other side of the judges’s box was the wooden grand stand which, when packed to its utmost limit, was capable of accommodating 50 or 60 people.
What a sorry sight this old erection would present if put against the grandstand which now graces our racecourse at Randwick, or attempt to cater for the multitude which now throngs every racecourse. It will be observed that everything about the races was most rudimentary, with legs being there to stand upon, and ropes serving as fences. Indeed, at the time no racecourse was fenced in, and Mr William’s ropewalk from his shop in Elizabeth Street, where even ships’ cables were made, was borrowed for the occasion.
*The Prince Consort was the husband of Queen Victoria, and was popularly and deservably known as Albert the Good. He died in 1861, leaving Victoria as widow at 42. The statue was originally placed at the northern entrance to Hyde Park and unveiled in 1866. For Sydney’s Centenary it was planned to have a similar statue of Queen Victoria and to place them both in what was known then as Chancery Square, now Queen’s Square. This was done in 1888 but in due course Albert was deemed to be inappropriate and related to the Royal Botanic Gardens.
**The so-called obelisk ornamented with Egyptian motifs stands in Elizabeth Street opposite Bathurst Street. The inscription says that it was erected by the Sydney Municipal Council in 1857 but fails to say what it commemorates or marks. It is commonly though to be an imitation of Cleopatra’s Needle but is obviously a sewer vent, such worked being authorized in Sydney in 1853.
The Carnival, as it was called, used to be held once a year, generally in August and lasting for a week. No charge was made for admittance and the good conduct prisoners were always allowed some recreation at this festival time to attend the races. The town was very busy, parties were held late into the night, and the military band played at the races.
The settlers used to come in from all parts of "the interior" which in those days meant the Hawkesbuury and as far south as Campbelltown. The great interior was then practically a "terra incognita" about which the people had the most absurd and erroneous ideas, numbers of them thinking that if only they were able to get over the mountain ridges they could walk to China.*
*Both Governor Phillip and Governor Hunter were plagued with desertions from the ranks of the convicts. Many of them died of hunger in the bush and others were speared to death by the Aborigines. Eventually Hunter invited the convicts to select four of their number to accompany a party of experienced bushmen and four soldiers, guided by JohnWilson, to explore the country to the souoth. That was in January 1798. The party had gone only as far as about Bargo when the convicts decided they had had enough and retraced their steps, still accompanied by the four soldiers, guided by John Wilson, to explore the country to the south. That was in January 1798. The party had gone only as far as about Bargo when the convicts decided they had had enough and retraced their steps, still accompanied by the four soldiers. Wilson and his two companions continue their exploration as far as Mount Towrang near Marulan before running out of provisions and being forced to return. One of them, a youth called John Price, fortunately had kept a diary recording the first exploration of the southern Highlands, and this blazed a trail for Hume, Throsby and Meehan.
To furnish sufficient sport for the races, the contests were generally three miles in length, and in nearly every case they were run in heats, the course being one mile round. The horses were not exactly high bred, and it was not uncommon to see regular cart horses engaged in the contest; indeed they were often taken out of the carts on the ground, saddled up there and then, and started off in a race, creating;rale ould fun’.
The animals, too, did not bear the classical and historical names that are now given to them, the owners of the time being content with such familiar and homely titles as Tom Rose’s Mulberry, Emmett’s Rob Roy (a Tasmanian horse and a crack of the time), Mr Robert Campbell’s Speedy, then Scratch, Criiping Jenny, Boshy, etc. Captain Piper used to run two horses which he imported, but strange to say, they could not compete with the :Stringbarks" or colonial ones.
Among the best riders were Fisher, Kearns, Phil Thorley and Will Kiss. No public booths were allowed upon the ground, but the sporting sparks of the day used to adjourn, when the races were over, either to Hazard’s Hotel in Castlereagh Street, Rose’s at the corner of King Street, or Wild’s, which was kept in a house now standing in Macquarie Street, opposite the old Infirmary.
The last races were held. I believe in 1819 or ’20, as immediately after that date Macquarie Street was cut through to Liverpool Street. The street would have been where the centre walk is now, but the inhabitants had it closed up afterwards. I recollect that it was when the street had been cut and a bank thrown up on each side of it that Governor Macquarie handed over the reins of government to his successor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, and I was present when the latter read his commission at the same time.
In the old days the principle of racing for cups was not unrecognized, and at the present time there is in the possession of Mr J.T. Roberts of Braidwood, one of those which were won on the old course. It was 63 years ago by a horse named Rob Roy, bred by and then the property of Mr James Badgery of South Creek, and it was ridden by Fisher. The quaint insciption of it smacks of the olden days, when anything of any note was sure to be embellished by a little of the poetic art, and even in an event of this kind the poet’s genius was brought into requisition. The inscription is as follows:
Fortidune et Celeritas
Pledge from the cup this first Australian price;
May each revolving year the races bring,
That training horses from these sports may rise;
Health to the patron, and long life the King!
Sydney, 31 May 1819. Given by the inhabitants to the proprietor of the winning horse.
In the old colonial days, loyalty to the King was a predominating feature in every movement, and in such an event as the presentation of a sulver cup, it would not be allowed to pass without giving expression to the colonists’ loyalty to "Good old King George."
At the time the races were held the park was all unfenced and across it were cart tracks in all directions. The only outlet eastwards was by the South Head Road (Oxford Street); William, Park and the other streets being unformed. Subsequently the ground was enclosed with a three-rail fence of sawn timber and planted with a single row of ornamental trees. Intersecting walks were laid out and a proclamation issued at the same time prohibiting wood carts from crossing over it. It was where these old cart tracks crossed each other they they used to bury suicides, and I could point out spots now where some of those who did away with their lives were buried, and, in accordance with the custom of the times, had a stake driven through their bodies.
BALMAIN, William (1762-1803)
Information from Mollie Gillen’s
The Founders of Australia – A Biographical Dictionary of the First Fleet,
(which mentions William Balmain, Margaret Dawson and John William Henderson.)
William Balmain, born 2 February 1762 at Balhepburn, Rhynd, Perthshire, son of Alexander Balmain, tenant farmer and Jane Henderson, joined the navy as surgeon’s mate around 1780. In November 1784 he want on Nautilus as surgeon’s mate when that ship was engaged in a survey of the Das Voltas region of West Africa (today Namibia), the government hopeful if might provide a satisfactory destination for the convicts then overcrowding British prisons. On 21 October 1786 he made an application to join the NSW venture, an application supported by his former captain, Thomas Boulden Thompson, but Admiral Lord Howe returned it with a tart reminder that he would be considered in his turn.
Balmain was, however, appointed assistant surgeon, and made the voyage to NSW on Alexander, serving at Port Jackson under Surgeon John White (qv), with whom he fought a duel on 4 June 1788 on the spur of the moment, going out at midnight after king’s birthday festivities, and without seconds. "Balmain received a Small flesh wound in the Right thigh," wrote Ralph Clark "…It would not have rested there had not the Govr. Convinced the two Sons of Escalipious that it was much better to draw Blood with the point of there lance from the Arm of there patients than to doe it with pistol Balls from each other."
In October 1791 Balmain was sent to Norfolk island as assist surgeon by Atlantic, by which vessel went also Margaret Dawson (qv), the young convict with whom he was living. There her signature appeared for grain
p.22
sold to stores in January 1793 from the land assigned to Balmain. Both left Norfolk Island by Fancy in August 1795 for Port Jackson. Much of the stock he left on the island was destroyed in a gale the following month. Balmain had received a grant of 100 acres at Field of Mars on 11 December 1794 and took a small lease at Sydney after his return.
Balmain had had considerable disagreement with White, an uneasy relationship that continued, with White apparently trying to interfere in Balmain’s succession to the post of principal surgeon in the colony. He had been appointed to act as principal surgeon in John White’s place when the latter left for England in December 1794, and appointment confirmed in 1796 when White decided not to return. He was also appointed as magistrate for the town of Sydney and supported Governor Hunter’s attempts to curb the power of John Macarthur and NSW Corps (see John Baughan, qv).
A daughter Jane was born on 29 March 1797 and a son, John William on 20 August 1800. The mid 1800 muster of landholders records Balmain with nearly six acres held by lease at Parramatta, two grants and two purchased farms at Field of Mars totalling 325 acres with 12 cultivated acres at Mulgrave Place, both held by purchase. In April 1800 he had been granted 550 acres in the Petersham district (now the suburb of Balmain); here, with another purchased acres, he cultivated 50 acres of land. He grazed 94 sheep, ten oxen, 4 goats, 55 hogs and three horses.
By 1802 Balmain was recorded holding 1480 acres by grant and purchase. He also became a trader and dealer in spirits. He left the colony with his family in August 1801 on the Albion to settle his private affairs, intending to return, but decided to ask permission to retire with a pension. He died on 17 November 1803, on the point of taking up a post as surgeon to the forces.
His will dated 13 November 1803 left a yearly annuity of £50 to his "dear friend" Margaret Dawson otherwise Henderson of Ormskirk, Lancs, "whose tenderness to me while in ill health claims my warmest gratitude…and who is now ensient". The bulk of his estate was to be held in trust for "my two natural or reputed but dearly beloved children by Margaret Dawson". Balmain was then living at King Street, Holborn, in London. A few days after his death, Margaret bore him a daughter. Balmain was buried in the churchyard of St Andrew’s Holborn.
p. 102
DAWSON, Margaret (c1770-)
Margaret Dawson, aged 15, collected a large quantity of clothing, jewellery and money in the absence of her master and mistress in London, and took the coack for Chester that evening. Her master, aware that she came from the Liverpool area, went after her overtook the coach at St Alban, Herts. Without argument, she emptied her pockets of the various items.
At her trial at the Old Bailry on 22 February 1786, Margaret's master asked for mercy after she was sentenced to death, and she was reprieved to transportation for seven years to NSW on 4 January "1787. On' te 26th she was delivered from Newgate to ‘Lady Penryhn’, aged 17.
In the colony Margarert attacted the interest of William Balmain (q) by whom she had three children in the following years. On 4 November 1791 she accompanied Balmain to Norfolk Island by Atlantic. In January 1793 she_signed. Maget Dawson on the receipt for t51.5s. in payment for five bushels of grain sold to stores.
The couple left Norfolk Island in August 1795 by Fancy. Their first child, Jane, was born at Port Jackson on 29 March 1797. A son John was born on 20 August 1800. Margaret sailed for England with Balmain and their two children on the Albion in August 1801. She was described in Balmain's will as his "dear friend Margaret Dawson alias Henderson" of Ormskirk, Lancs. She was about to give birth again when Balmain died in London on t7 November 1803. Their daughter was born on the 25th,
said to be the day of Balmain's burial. He left her a yearly annuity of 50 pounds with full support for their children.
From the Journal and Proceedings from the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol.
XXVII p. 359-366, Mount Gilead Estate and Windmill, Campbelltown by John F. Morris. The copy is not very good.
On August 25, 1812, Reuben Uther received a grant of 400 acres in the district of Appin at a quit rent of eight shillings per annum, which was to become payable after five years. This property he named "Mount Gilead."
Thomas Rose, the next owner of Mount Gilead, purchased the property from Reuben Uther on October 7, 1818. Several well-known writers have stated that Rose purchased the property from one Colonel Christmas in 1829, but a perusal of the title deeds of the property shows this statement to be fallacious, and that, though Rose did purchase 400 acres of land from Christmas in 1829, this was not the original Mount Gilead.
Thomas Rose arrived in New South Wales as a convict on the ship Barwell in 1798, and soon afterwards started a bakery in Oxford Street, Sydney. Later he became the proprietor of the Rose and Crown Hotel in King Street, and eventually came to own the greater part of the block bounded by King, Castlereagh, Market and Elizabeth Streets.
After purchasing Mound Gilead, Rose made large additions to the property by purchasing several of the adjoining farms, and in 1819 he received a further 400-acre grant south-west of and adjoining Uther’s grant in exchange for part of his city block, upon which Governor Macquarie built the Georgian School, and upon which St James’ Theatre and part of David Jones’ emporium now stands.
Thomas Rose was one of the early advocates of water conservation, and in 1825 he backed up his opinion by building the artificial lake which is still to be seen just below the homestead. This lake, which has a depth of up to eighteen feet, and which in 1888 was advertised as being suitable for swimming or boating, was a source of supply in times of drought to all the settlers of the surrounding district. Rose’s efforts, made in 1835, to obtain a reward for the service which he claimed he had rendered the community by demonstrating the advantages of water conservation, met with no success.
The windmill, the tower of which is now the most picturesque feature of the estate, was built in 1812. In this regard it is at least significant that James Backhouse, who wrote a detailed description of the Campbelltown-Appin Road in 1835, makes no mention of a mill at Mount Gilead, and the the New South Wales Calendar and Post Office Directory for 1837 refer to the mill as having been recently built. The mill tower, which is built from sandstone quarried on the property, is sixty feet in height, comprises four stories, and is reputed to have contained the finest millstones in the colony. A rather remarkable feature of the mill is that no metal was used in its construction, the sails, driving shaft, gearwheels, flooring etc., being made from ironbark timber cut on the property, and parts of the original woodwork may still be seen. Close to the mill there were two water troughs six feet long, two feet wide and nine inches deep, cut from solid blocks of stand-stone, one of which is now owned by Thomas Rose’s granddaughter, Miss R. Payten, of Campbelltown, who uses it for watering her show ponies.
The rise upon which the mill stands is 500 feet above sea level, and from the top of the tower one may seen Saddleback Mountain which overlooks Kiama, Mount Gibraltar at Bowral, the Carrington Hotel at Katoomba, and Hunter’s Hill, Sydney.
It is claimed that the mill was struck by lightning on the night of August 20, 1857, the night the the Dunbar was wrecked at South Head, though very little damage seems to have been done to the mill.
The charge for grinding wheat at Mount Gilead was one shilling and sixpence per bushel, with an extra charge of threepence per bushal for dressed flour, and thus the settlers of the district were able to have their wheat ground without paying the exorbitant prices which for many years had been so sorely felt. The distinction of being the first to have wheat ground at Mount Gilead was claimed by John Vardy, of "Springfields," Menangle, who was one of the early grantees in the Airds district. The mill remained in active operation until about 1877, when rust caused the failure of the local wheat crops.
The hills around Mount Gilead yielded as much as 47 bushels of wheat to the acre prior to 1856, when the first rust in the district was noticed in the Mount Gilead crop. The disease was intermitted for many years, but, as there was no William Farrar to give us then a rust-resistant wheat, the crops of the district finally failed after 1877. This was of course, a very severe blow to the district, which for many years had been regarded as the granary of the colony.
In 1837 a notice on the Mount Gilead gateway read, "To Mill and Ferry." Prior to 1856 there was no bridge across the Nepean River at Menangle, and the main Southern Road, which had been surveyed by James Meehan in 1817, passed through Mount Gilead to Bird’s-Eye Corner, close to the junction of Menangle Creek and the Nepean River, where a ferry conveyed travellers across the stream. It is interesting to note that the Hume and Hovell expedition forded the river at this point on October 2, 1824.
Thomas Rose, who had done so much to improve the property, died on March 3, 1837, at the age of sixty-four years, and was buried on the estate at a point between the mill and the lake of which he was so proud, but some years later, at the instigation of Mrs E.H. Woodhouse, his remains were removed to St Peter’s Cemetery, Campbelltown.
After the death of Thomas Rose the estate was managed by his trustees, who in 1838 advertised that self-contained estate of 2000 acres to be sold at the Royal Hotel, George Street, Sydney. The estate however, was not sold, and in 1858 the trustees, with the concurrence of the beneficiaries, made over the property to Thomas Rose’s eldest son, Charles Henry Jacob Rose, the condition that he should pay his mother a life annuity of £30 per annum.
C.H.J. Rose was not the enterprising farmer that his father had been, and he seems to have raised nothing but mortgages on the property. Thus on September 28, 1859, he mortgaged to Sydney Insurance company for £1000, and then on March 23, 1860, he increased his mortgage by a further £500. It was not long before his crop bore fruit, and the Sydney Insurance Company foreclosed. Then on September 9, 1864, this company took out a land title for Mount Gilead on behalf of Walter Friend, a Sydney ironmonger, though Friend'’ receipt for the purchase price of £1547/14/11 is dated November 24, 1864.
Walter Friend does not seem to have made much use of the property, and on September 16, 1867, he sold the estate to Edmund Hume Woodhouse.
E.H. Woodhouse, a son of George Marriot Woodhouse, was born at Schuldam Farm, adjoining Mount Gilead, on November 4, 1823, and has the distinction of being the first child baptized in St Peter’s Church of England, Campbelltown. He married the daughter of Henry Bingham, Commissioner of Crown Lands, at Cassilis, and prior to purchasing Mount Gilead is reported to have been managing a bank at Ashfield.
While at Mount Gilead, E.H. Woodhouse proved himself a most enterprising farmer, and he did much to improve the methods of agriculture throoughout the district. In fact, the milk and butter industry, which is the back-bone of the district today, probably had its genesis at Mount Gilead when E.H. Woodhouse and his overseer, A.J. Chauval, introduced a pedigreed strain of milkers. E.H. Woodhouse also experimented with sheep bought from the Camden Park flock, and imported various species of deer, alpacas and llamas, but without any measure of success.
As a magistrate, E.H. Woodhouse was much respected throughout the district, and it was during this time that Mount Gilead became one of the social centres of the colony. Balls held at the homestead were attended by Vice-Royalty, and a visitor’s book of the period would contain many of those names which loom large in the history of our country.
E.H. Woodhouse died at Mount Gilead on October 21, 1875, at the age of fifty-one, and is buried in St Peter’s Cemetery, Campbelltown. In 1876, the trustees transferred the estate to E.H. Woodhouse’s eldest son, Edmund Bingham Woodhouse, who mortgaged back to the trustees in 1877, and discharged the mortgage in 1881. In the same year he mortgaged the property to Peter Nicol Russell, whose bronze bust may be seen within the University, for which he did so much, this mortgage was discharged in 1886. Four years later he mortgaged to the Australian Investment Company, who foreclosed on February 12, 1891.
E.B. Wood house had varying success as a farmer. In his early years of Mount Gilead he concentrated on the breeding of store cattle, keeping a small herd of pure Devons to provide milk for his Hereford calves, a venture in which he was quite successful. Then in 1886 he disposed of his cattle, and turned his attention to sheep, a change which caused his ultimate failure.
The property was advertised to be sold on behalf of E.B. Woodhouse on April 12, 1888, and the following extracts taken from the advertisement, which is to be seen in the Mitchell Library, give some idea of this magnificent property as it was in its prime:-
Mount Gilead Estate is situated forty miles from Sydney, four miles from Campbelltown, and two miles from Menangle. Its area is 2,063 acres, 1 rood, with a frontage of two miles to the Nepean River, and one mile to the George’s River, the property being held under Torren’s Title.
The Sydney Water Supply Canal runs through the property for nearly three miles, and it would be possible to irrigate upwards of 100 acres of land from this source. The stone for this portion of the canal was quarried on the property.
The deer-park which lies between the carriage drive and the lake is about 12 acres in extent, and contains some fallow deer, alpacas, angoras, etc.
The homestead is of stone and has a double roof, iron over shingle, for the sake of coolness and in order to conserve purer water. The homestead contains a drawing room, five bedrooms, two dressing rooms, hall, library, office, passages, pantry, store room etc.
The woodwork throughout is of cedar. The verandah is 100 ft. long and is continued round both ends of the house. A verandah at the back of the house gives good shelter to the kitchen, which is of brick, and contains one large room or servant’s hall, and a smaller room for cooking. The bathroom has a plunge bath and a shower, and is supplied by a 10,000 gallon tank. The laundry has a copper and a bake oven, and is supplied by three 400 gallon tanks.
The stable contains five stalls, harness room, saddle room, and coach-man’s room, and there is a loft over the entire building which has a shingle roof. At the back of the stable is a milking yard with six bails, calf pens, etc.
The granary near the house is built of dressed stone, and has walls eighteen inches thick. On the ground floor is a coach house for three vehicles, a three-stall stable, a harness room, and a farrier’s shop. On the upper floor is a billiard room, complete with table and fittings, also two rooms used as store-rooms.
The large granary is built of dressed stone with wall’s two feet thick, and is three stories high. It was originally built as a steam mill, and now contains a four-horse power, circular saw. The ground floor has been used as a shearing shed.
The cattle steading is 180 ft. long by 56 ft. wide in part, and 16 ft. wide over the remainder, and accommodates 100 head of stock. In the centre is a cooking house with a 75 gallon and two 50 gallon boilers. There are also men’s rooms, loose boxes, store-room, etc., and an underground tank of 15,000 gallon capacity. This steading is probably unequalled in the colony.
Such was Mount Gilead estate in its heyday, but little now remains to remind us of its former glory, and cannot even trace the site of many of the buildings mentioned above.
As has been already stated, the Australian Investment Company took over the property from E.B. Woodhouse on February 12, 1891. This company held the property until March 17, 1910, when they sold to Dr William Henry Harris, who in turn sold to John Thomas Barnett on July 20, 1920. Barnett sold to Patrick Michael McGirr on July 7, 1927.
The old mill tower, still a district landmark, and a favourite study for artists and photographers, forms a romantic link with the spacious days of last century. Built in the days of convict labour, it now seems a most fitting memorial to those who, by foresight, toil and enterprise, built a nation out of a penal settlement.
REFERENCES
Sydney Morning Herald:July 30, 1932; August 20, 1932
Centenary of Campbelltown: J.P. McGuanne (Mitchell Library).
Mt Gilead, 1888: Mills and Pile (Mitchell Library).
History of Menangle: J.J. Moloney.
Title Deeds of Mount Gilead.
Diaries, scrap books, and personal reminiscences of old Campbelltown residents.
[Since this M.S. was written, the Mount Gilead estate has been sold to Andrew Macarthur Onslow, great-great-grandson of John Macarthur, who is at present serving with the R.A.A.F. as Flying Officer.-EDITOR]
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