Nepean House, Camden.

Nepean House

1–3 Mitchell Street

Camden

Lot 1, DP 782848  

Figure 1 Nepean House Mitchell Street Camden. The house is item 22 on Camden Heritage Walking Tour. (I Willis, 2021)

History and Description

The site of Nepean House was originally part of Camden Park Estate, then an allotment in the sub-division of the town area in 1840. The allotment (83 feet x 83 feet) was purchased in 1855 by storekeeper James Bensley and sold in 1859 to carpenter Thomas Jones.

Construction of the house commenced around 1855 for Camden surgeon John Bleeck, who purchased the property in 1862. Bleeck practised as a medical practitioner in Camden from 1855 to 1865 and sold the house to The Oaks builder William Packenham in 1884.

Packenham built the verandah, installed the iron lacework at the front of the house and replaced the wooden shingled roof with corrugated iron. The Packenham family lived in Nepean House until the death of William Packenham's daughter, Emma Cranfield, in 1944 when the house was sold to Camden engineer Howard Southwell.

In 1971, Camden solicitor Paul Bowring purchased the house, who added a single-storey pavilion in 1973 designed by Sydney architects Fisher Lucas.

At the rear of the house are the 19th-century timber-slab stables with loft.

The house is described as a two-storey brick and stucco early Victorian Gothic style house with picturesque and colonial characteristics. These features are the gabled windows, carved barge boards and high pitched roof, four-panel doors and shuttered French casement windows. (NSWSHI)

Condition and Use

The split timber shingled roof was replaced with corrugated iron in the late 19th century.

The house is in good condition and privately owned. (NSWHI)

Heritage Significance

The house is an excellent example of a Victorian gentleman’s townhouse and residence.

 

Heritage Listing

Camden Local Environmental Plan 2010 Item 169

Macarthur Region Heritage Study Heritage Item ID 1280064

Read more

Camden Historic Places (Camden Historical Society)

Camden Heritage Walking Tour   - Stop No 22  (Camden Visitor Information Centre)

Camden Dreamtime

The Camden Progress Association and a search for a utopia

Camden is like many country towns across Australia. The civic fathers from the town's foundation in 1840 sought progress and development for the community. There was a desire for constant improvement.

The Camden News had numerous references to the town's progress, and the civic fathers founded the Camden Progress Association.  The association held the first meeting in November 1896 with the aim of town improvements. The association was still active in the early 20th century.

The notion of progress assumes that you are going somewhere or working towards some type of endpoint, a goal. What were the Camden's civic fathers working towards in the 1890s? 

One view of the Camden Progress Association was that they searched for a desired or perfect state of their world. It could be argued that they were in search of mythical utopia where everything was in a perfect or desired state.

Nepean River at Camden at a spot called Little Sandy. (CIPP)

This view of the world dates from the time of the Enlightenment and assumes that time is linear and irreversible. Ancients thought differently about the world. The Ancient Greeks and others thought the time was cyclical based around decay and rebirth.

The Camden civic fathers were from a British cultural tradition that viewed time as a linear progression. In what became known as the Whig interpretation of history, especially in the Victorian and Edwardian times,  human history was seen as the progress from savagery and ignorance toward peace, prosperity, and science.

Wikipedia states:

Whig history (or Whig historiography) is an approach to historiography that presents the past as an inevitable progression towards ever greater liberty and enlightenment, culminating in modern forms of liberal democracy and constitutional monarchy. In general, Whig historians emphasize the rise of constitutional government, personal freedoms and scientific progress.

Underpinning these notions was an accompanying cultural tradition that that world was constructed in terms of binary oppositions, for example, good/evil, black/white, big/small, dark/light, on/off, hot/cold, ugly/beautiful, right/wrong, chaos/order, life/death, love/hate, male/female, hero/coward, young/old, confinement/freedom, and others. 

One of the first to argue over life in this fashion was ancient Greek philosopher Plato and much later in the 19th-century German philosopher GWF Hegel. Here is the concept was called dialectics.

All cultures have some version of binary opposition and in Chinese philosophy and religion yin is represented by negative, dark, feminine and yang by positive, bright, masculine. 

American historian Christopher Lasch that the ideological twin of progress was nostalgia. Nostalgia involves 'the pastoral' is an idea dating from the Ancient Greeks and in literature is relates to the idyll of rural life and usually involves shepherds herding flocks of sheep in open paddocks.

In his book Hunters and Collectors, Australian historian Tom Griffiths argues there have been nostalgia wave in Australia in the 1850s, 1890s, 1930s, 1970s prompted by 'loss, depression or disruption'. In each of these waves of nostalgia, people were searching for a past.

characterised by popular yearnings for the intimate world of early colonial beginnings for lost rural places.  (Griffiths: p.197

In the 1930s the Camden community searched for the Englishness of their past, as they were in the 1840s and 1890s. Nostalgia re-appeared in Camden in the 1980s when increased urbanisation sent the Camden community in search of their own lost rural Arcadia. 

 'A Country Town Idyll' at Camden

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. A type of rural Arcadia, which I have called ‘a country town idyll’.

Camden John Street with a view of St John Church in the 1890s. This view was taken by Charles Kerry (CIPP)

 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 fabric.


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.





Curran's Hill housing development in the 1990s (Camden Images)

 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’, or retaining ‘Camden’s country charm’, or ‘country town character’. They describe the town as being ‘picturesque’, or having ‘charming cottages’.


Camden is a working country town’, or is 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 for its existence.



Argyle Street Camden 1938 (Camden Images)

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.


Elements of this rural culture have been variously described as 'countrymindedness', 'rural ideology', 'rural ethos', 'ruralism', and a 'rural idyll'. They have been a preoccupation of many scholars, including contemporary writers, like the Australian poet Les Murray.


Within this tradition, there is an Arcadian notion of a romantic view of rural life. There is a distinction 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 that was suspicious of outsiders, especially those from the city, with life ordered by social rank, personal contacts familial links. It was confined by conservatism, patriarchy and an Anglo-centric view of the world.

Updated 17 January 2021. Originally posted 18 November 2013.

St Johns Church Camden NSW

St John’s Church Camden

6-22 Menangle Road, Camden, NSW 2570
Lot 1 DP 1024949
Lot 1 DP 2399467

St Johns Church Camden 2010 (I Willis)

History and Description

The St Johns Church Precinct includes the church and church grounds, and also includes the

cemetery, the Rectory and Stables, and church hall.

The church is set within a fine group of other ecclesiastical buildings that includes the Rectory

(1859) and church hall (1906), together with the cemetery in a rural landscaped environment

resplendent in native and exotic mature trees, fence lines, paths and memorials. (NSWSHI)

1874 Chancel extension complete.

Rectory built 1859. The rectory and associated lands remained in the ownership of the Macarthur family up to November 1905.

St Johns Parochial School located at the intersection of Hill and Broughton Streets was founded in 1850 as a denominational school.

Original church hall built 1906 and second hall in 1973.

The church cemetery forms part of the original Macarthur family endowment of 1841. The first burial is believed to be that of Thomas Budd of Narellan made in March 1843. (NSWSHI)

Condition and Use

Split timber shingled roof replaced with terracotta shingles in 1929.

Electric motors replaced manual winding mechanism of clock in c1950.

Tower lourves replaced in 1970.

Render of the spire removed and replaced in 1973.

The church, rectory, stables, churchyard and slopes retain good integrity and intactness. (NSWSHI)

Heritage Significance

 St John the Evangelist at Camden was the first 'archaeologically correct' Gothic church to be completed in the colony of New South Wales. It was probably designed in England by Edward Blore under instructions from the Macarthur family.   In its architectural innovation and picturesque placement in a controlled landscape, it is among the most important parish churches in Australia. (Hector Abrahams, Christian church architecture, Dictionary of Sydney, 2010)


St Johns Church is perhaps the finest example of early Picturesque Gothic Revival style church architecture in Australia. The church, with its tower and spire, is a landscape monument in the rural lands and town of Camden. It is also a monument to the pioneering pastoral Macarthur family, who built it, and has become an icon in consideration of these values. (Noel Bell Ridley Smith and Parters Pty Ltd, Conservation Management Plan Addendum 2010, St Johns Anglican Church Precinct, Camden. Sydney, p7)

The church precinct is rare in New South Wales as a complete ensemble. The church building
is complete with tower, spire, clock, stained glass and all its furniture. Its relationship to the
town and landscape are deliberate. It possesses an equally well-treated, though not grand, rectory, graveyard and originally had a church school. It can be said to be one of the most
complete church groups achieved in New South Wales in the nineteenth century. Equivalent
groups are rare. (Clive Lucas, Stapleton and Partners Pty. Ltd., St. John’s Anglican Church Precinct
Menangle Road, Camden, Conservation Management Plan. Sydney, 2004, pp. 43-44)

Heritage Listing

Local Environment Plan                       Item 63
NSW State Heritage Inventory

Australian Heritage Commission        National Estate Database

Read more

Sydney Architecture St Johns Church Camden

Australian Heritage Database Rectory and Stables

Australian Heritage Database St Johns Church

The Cowpastures, just like an English landscape.

The Cowpastures, just like an English landscape.

The Camden Historical Sociey is hosting a talk and slides by University of Wollongong historian Dr Ian Willis at its meeting on Wednesday 8 February 2017.

The colonial settlers in the Cowpastures made the countryside look like a Little England (I Willis)

The topic of the talk is 'The Cowpastures, just like an English landscape' where he will speak about how the early colonial settlers of the Cowpastures re-shaped the Australian countryside into an English-style landscape.

Camden Historical Society

Talk and Slides

Wednesday, 8 February 2017, 7.30pm

Camden Museum, 40 John Street, Camden.

 Speaker

Dr Ian Willis, UOW

Topic

The Cowpastures, just like an English landscape.

Summary of talk

The early colonial European settlers in the Cowpastures were the key players in the story of creating an English-style landscape along the Nepean River. 

The settlers took possession of the countryside  from the Dharawal Aboriginal people and re-made it in their own vision of the world. 

They constructed a cultural landscape made up of an idealised vision of what they had left behind in the ‘Old Country’. 

For the European settlers the new continent, and particularly the bush, had the elements of the Gothic with its grotesque and the demonic, and the English-style landscape aesthetic they created was one attempt to counter these forces.  

Settlers used the aesthetic to assist the creation of a new story on an apparently blank slate and in the process dispossessed and displaced the Indigenous occupants. 

The new landscape was characterised by English placenames, English farming methods and English settlement patterns, with only cursory acknowledgement of Indigenous occupation. 

The early settlers had such a profound impact on the countryside that their legacy is still clearly identifiable today even after 200 years. 

Read more about colonial Camden here

Read more about the history of the Camden District here

More developments at the Camden Milk Depot

Camden Vale Milk Depot Saga

DA/2016/169 Camden Council

The District Reporter 24 June 2016 p3

There have been more developments in the saga of the Camden Vale Milk Depot story.

Sydney identities Mr Alan Jones and Mr Mark Latham have been drawn into the controversy. 

Listen to a conversation between Alan Jones and Mark Latham on Sydney Radio 2GB and read a letter to the editor of the Camden Narellan Advertiser by concerned resident Mr J Wrigley. 

Mr Jones has stated that he has received a stream of emails and phone calls on this matter and other issues related to the town centre development.

Mr Jones and Mr Latham paid a visit to Camden to inspect what the fuss is all about. Lee Abrahams from The District Reporter has published a story about their visit which has appeared in a recent issue of the newspaper. (24 June 2016)

It is advantageous that according to The District Reporter (11 May 2016) and reports in the Macarthur Chronicle (26 April 2016) the mayor's position on these issues seems to have shifted from her earlier statements about the development. 

Camden Vale Milk Depot (Camden Images)

The handling of this development application by Camden Council has been unfortunate. The notification for the original DA was not publicly advertised in the press and then there seemed to be considerable confusion around the publication exhibition period dates. 

The council's approach on this matter has done nothing to narrow the trust deficit that emerged in 2014 with the community consultation process for the town centre re-development.

The council's continued politicisation of these type of development matters is regrettable. The council needs to build confidence within the community.

Read more on the Camden Vale Milk Depot

Development at Camden Milk Depot site

Development at the historic Camden Milk Depot site

DA/2016/169 Camden Council

The District Reporter 29 April 2016

A major development is planned for the historic Camden Vale Milk Depot site at 11 Argyle Street Camden at the entry to the historic town centre
.
The $8.8 million development was lodged in April 2016 by developer C Meitanis for five restaurants and a car park.

Camden mayor, Councillor Symkoviak has stated that it will transform the site into a restaurant precinct. (Macarthur Chronicle 26 April 2016, p13; Camden Narellan Advertiser, 11 May 2016, p7)

Not everyone agrees with the mayor.

A number of community groups including the Camden Residents Action Group, the Camden Community Alliance and the Camden Historical Society  have objected to the development. (Camden Narellan Advertiser, 11 May 2016, p7; Macarthur Chronicle, 26 April 2016, p.13; The District Reporter, 29 April 2016, p. 3)

Former Camden Council Mr K Hart stated in April that the development would completely change the entry to the town area. (The District Reporter, 29 April 2016, p.3)

Historian Dr I Willis maintains that the development does not conform to Burra Charter principles.
The Burra Charter states:

The Burra Charter provides guidance for the conservation and management of places of cultural
significance (cultural heritage places), and is based on the knowledge and experience of Australia
ICOMOS members. Conservation is an integral part of the management of places of cultural significance and is an ongoing responsibility.

Camden Community Alliance vice-president Ms L Idon stated that the development does fit with the historic centre of the town area. (Camden Narellan Advertiser, 11 May 2016, p.7)

The current industrial building on the site was opened in 1926 and was a milk depot of Camden Park's Camden Vale Milk Company. The plant was regarded at the time as one of the most modern for the scientific treatment of milk. The current building replaced a former timber construction that burnt down in 1926 that was originally built in the 1890s.

Read more 

Janice Johnson Back Then The District Reporter 1 April 2016, 8 April 2016,

Camden Vale Milk Depot, NSW State Heritage Inventory, Click here

The Burra Charter  Revised 2013 Click here  More information at the International Council of Monuments and Sites in Australia Click here

Proposed development for Camden Vale Milk Depot, DA/2016/169 Click here

Commercial Bank Camden NSW

Commercial Bank of Sydney

125 Argyle Street, Camden. Lot 1 DP 986203

Commercial Bank, Argyle Street, Camden NSW (Camden Images)

History and Description

It was built in 1877-78 to the design of G.A. Mansfield, who did much of the CBC's architectural work at that time. The contractor was C. Furner of Camden. A one storey extension added 1972-73 by Architects Laurie and Heath, sympathetically following the style and detail of the original building. (State Heritage Inventory)

A fine example of the late Victorian Bank buildings to be found in country towns of New South Wales. It is in an Italianate style with a fine stone entrance porch to the main elevation and a cast iron balustraded verandah and balcony to its two storeys. The wisteria vine which climbs over the verandah is considered part of the Bank's aesthetic contribution. (SHI)

The building has a hipped shingle roof with a tiled ridgecap and painted chimneys. The entrance door is a timber framed glass sliding door with a highlight window. The building has arched two pane double hung windows. There are french doors to the first floor verandah. (State Heritage Inventory)

The entrance doors have been converted to automatic sliding doors. Airconditioners have been installed. Single storey extension. National Estate Database)

Condition and Use

The building is in good condition. The building is currently occupied by the NAB, and other small businesses. (SHI)

Heritage Significance

An important and noticeable building in a key position on the corner of Camden's two main streets. It continues to be used for its original purpose and well kept over the years. The building is representative of a Victorian Italianate building. It is part of the John Street Group. (SHI) The bank retains good integrity and intactness. (SHI)

Heritage Listing

LEP 2010 item no 112.

State Heritage Inventory (NSW). Built Heritage. Click here

National Estate Database Australian Heritage Commission Click here

Jacarandas Removed in Central Camden

Protesters from the Camden Community Alliance express their objection to the removal of jacarandas in Argyle Street Camden on 12 August 2015. Members of the Alliance have ramped up their protests in recent weeks. The protesters are standing on the corner of Oxley and Argyle Streets. This is one of several street protests that the Alliance members have conducted in recent weeks.

Camden Council contractors removing the jacarandas at the intersection of Oxley and Argyle Streets in Camden. These works are part of the Town Centre Improvements that the council approved in 2014. The Camden Community Alliance has requested meetings with council and they have been declined. One of the principle objections mounted by the Alliance is the lack of engagement by council over these matters.

The Camden Community Alliance members protested this week over the removal of Jacaranda trees in Argyle Street to make way for traffic lights at the intersection with Oxley Street. 

Earlier the week Alliance members made their presence felt at the meeting of Camden Council. They were expressing their increasing frustration when council staff took questions on notice at the meeting. Mayor Symkowiak adjourned the meeting for 5 minutes, hoping the meeting could be continued, according to the Macarthur Chronicle report.

Later in the meeting local residents called out from the public gallery and the council meeting was adjourned on two more occasions.

A post of the Camden Community Alliance Facebook page maintained that it was 'impossible' for members 'to contain their voices any longer'. The post said that it was sad that it had all come to this and Alliance members looked quite radical over these matters.

The council meeting ended with cries of 'shame' from the gallery.

See Camden Community Alliance Facebook page

Little Sandy, more than a footbridge and a water view

Public art at Little Sandy

The Little Sandy Bridge has an Aboriginal inspired artwork lining the steps adjacent to the bridge.
Press reports stated that it pays tribute to the Camden Council logo of a platypus and celebrates flora and fauna of the area.

Artist Danielle Mate, who grew up in Camden and has Aboriginal heritage, is pleased with the work.
She consulted, according to reports, the Mygunyah Camden Aboriginal Residents Group before starting the project.

Mayor Symkowiak was reportedly said it was a 'great addition' to the area.

Read more @ Macarthur Chronicle Camden Edition 19 May 2015

New Little Sandy footbridge across Nepean River May 2014 (I Willis)

2014 Opening of Little Sandy Bridge 

The Little Sandy footbridge was officially opened on 4 May 2014 with another community event.

The weather gods were kind, and while there were a cool breeze and an overcast start, the sun came out, and the crowd turned up with families of mums and dads and the kids.

Camden Council organised a family fun day in Chellaston Reserve where there were stalls, a free train ride along the bike track and information stands.

The day opened at 11.00am and wound up in the afternoon at 3.00pm. Camden Rotary provided a sausage sizzle which sold out early in the day. An information stand was provided by Camden Historical Society which was staffed by volunteers John and Julie Wrigley, Bob Lester and Rene Rem, while others turned up later.

This was another community event that has been typical of the popularity of the site for the Camden community.

Little Sandy Footbridge across the Nepean River at Camden c.1950. Diving board in the foreground. (Camden Images)

Little Sandy Footbridge

The new pre-cast concrete 43-metre footbridge at Little Sandy on the Nepean River was completed in April 2014.

Camden Council let contracts for the completion of a new footbridge in September 2013.

The new structure replaced a wooden footbridge that was damaged in flood in 2012. The new footbridge was jointly funded by the council and the state government.

The finished footbridge is part of the Nepean River cycleway that joins Camden with Elderslie, South Camden and Narellan. Local resident Kevin Browne stated in  2012 (Camden Narellan Advertiser 31 July) that:

the bridge was part of the unique attraction of living in a rural area [and] the availability of serene, natural beauty.

After the 2012 damage to the footbridge and its closure, local residents started to campaign for its replacement. This culminated in a community meeting in the mayor's office in August 2013 when 19 local residents attended an information session with the mayor, the Member for Camden,  and the council's general manager and engineering staff.

The original footbridge was constructed in 1943 as a military training exercise by the AMF Engineering Corps stationed at Narellan Military Camp. Camden Council agreed to fund the cost of the materials while the engineers provided the labour (40 men), supervision and vehicles. The original footbridge was 120 feet long and 4 feet wide.

Read more in The District Reporter 17 August 2012.

Little Sandy footbridge over Nepean River at Camden in 1943 (Camden Images)

Little Sandy on the Nepean River at Camden

Little Sandy on the Nepean River at Camden has been concerned local residents in recent times over the re-construction of the footbridge by Camden Council. Little Sandy has been a popular spot with locals for many decades for swimming, picnicking, boating and fishing. It is rich in the memories of local folk played out their childhoods, experienced the pangs of youth and enjoyed time with their families. Today thousands of local residents enjoy the same rituals at Little Sandy on their jaunts along the Nepean River bike path with the friends and family.

 

Nepean River swimming carnival 1917 Little Sandy (Camden Images)

Little Sandy swimming carnivals

In the early 20th century Little Sandy was a favourite swimming spot. In the 1920s the Camden Swimming Club built galvanised iron dressing sheds painted green in an area now known at Kings Bush Reserve.

Swimming became one of Elderslie's earliest organised sporting activities after the Nepean River was dammed in 1908 with the construction of the Camden Weir. Water backed up behind the weir for four kilometres through the Elderslie area and provided relatively deep water suitable for swimming. The Camden Aquatic Sports carnival was organised in 1909 and attracted over 1000 spectators and was the location of the Camden Swimming Club in the 1920s.

The area was divided into Big Sandy, which was a deep hole, near Kings Bush Reserve. About 100 metres upstream was Little Sandy, where the water was shallower. Learn to swim classes were held for a short time and Boy Scouts would go swimming there, according to Milton Ray.

"In the 1950s the area was used for swimming by pupils from Camden Public School', said Len English. 'The girls went with the female teachers to Little Sandy, while the male teachers and boys went downstream to Camden Weir.'

Olive McAleer says 'Little Sandy was a popular spot for family picnics between the 1920s and 1940s'.


The river stopped being a swimming spot when it was condemned because of pollution by medical authorities in the early 1960s. It was replaced by Camden Memorial Swimming Pool in 1964. (P Mylrea, 'Swimming in the Nepean River at Camden', Camden History, March 2006)

Read more @ Ian Willis, 'Elderslie', Dictionary of Sydney, 2008,

Little Sandy footbridge 1943

Little Sandy footbridge over Nepean River Camden in 1943 (Camden Images)

In  1943 military authorities from the Narellan Military Camp were anxious to undertake a practical training exercise for engineers. In September they sought the view of Camden Municipal Council on erecting a footbridge and the council immediately agreed with the proposal.

The council covered the cost of some of the timber so that the bridge remained the property of the council.

The  Australian Military Forces Engineers supplied the labour, supervision, transport vehicles and operators for the transport of stores and construction material.  

The site at the bottom Chellaston Street connected two reserves on either side of the Nepean River. One on the Chellaston Street side and the other at River Road Elderslie.

In late September 1943, 40 troops started building a wooden footbridge 120 feet long and 4 feet wide. Construction took around four weeks and was finished by 28 October.

Observers commented on a 'fine piece of workmanship...that would be much appreciated' by the local community.  (Camden News, 16 September 1943, 23 September 1943, 28 October 1943).

Camden Weir and the aesthetic of a water view

The Camden Weir pondage created an aesthetic water feature that runs through the Camden township. The aesthetic has moral, experiential, spiritual and well-being aspects to it.



The picturesque scene at the Camden Weir on the Nepean River c.1917 (Camden Images)

The Camden Weir was constructed by New South Wales Public Works Department after the completion of the Cataract Dam from 1907. The compensation weir was one of number been built along the Nepean River to safeguard the 'riparian rights' of landowners affected by the interruption of flow to the river, according to John Wrigley.

A riparian right is the ability to take water from the river. The water supply dams of the Upper Nepean  Scheme reduced the flow of the tributaries of the Nepean River, and the weirs were to 'compensate' for the loss of water flow.

The other weirs near Camden were Menangle, Bergins, Thurns, Camden Sharpes and Cobbitty. The weirs were eventually transferred to the management to the Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board as part of the Sydney Water Supply system.  

Read more @ John Wrigley,' Nepean River Weirs', The District Reporter 3 August 2001



 Water has a calming effect on the mind and takes the account to a quiet, tranquil and peaceful place. Some say it can dim our internal chatter and calm some people. Water provides a degree of serenity and the purifying effect it can have on the soul.

Water can have a soothing meditative effect on some people. People need to re-charge and re-vitalise in the tranquillity of the environment provided by the calm and serenity of the pool provided by the weir. For others, a visually attractive water feature can also be a source of healing and relaxing in a man-mad environment.

Those that went swimming at Little Sandy had an experiential relationship with the water. Water is used to nourish and replenish man after exertion. Swimming carnivals were a time of community celebration and strengthening community resilience.

The pondage at Littles Sandy also has a scientific value for the marine ecosystem it supports. It supports a range of life from eels, to perch, birds, reptiles and other life. The Little Sandy pondage creates an attractive water feature that circles the township.

The beauty of the scene attracts visitors. The trees along the water's edge provide a frame for the quiet pond. People doing simple tasks like fishing, picnicking, walking and re-engaging with nature on the water's edge.    

The surface of the water is a mirror that reflects the images of the trees and bushes on the water's edge. At dawn on a cold frosty morning, the vapours of the steam rise of the water's surface as the walker's feet crackle under the frozen grass on the water's edge.  

There is a splash as a kingfisher dives into the water after a fish, that breaks the silence of the space. The world disappears momentarily as you sit on the water's edge taking in the serene quiet surroundings of the pond.

Nepean River before the Camden Weir 1900 





Nepean River below Cowpasture Bridge 1900  (Camden Images/CA Poole)





This image of the Nepean River is taken in the vicinity of the Camden Weir. It gives an indication of the degraded state of the river around 1900. Sedimentation, streambank erosion caused by hard hooved animals trampling river banks were evident. These issues were typical of Australia's inland waterways in the late 19th century after extensive clearing of the catchments for forestry, farming and other activities.

Sue Rosen, in her book on the environmental history of the Nepean River, quotes from James Atkinson's 1826  An Account of the State of Agriculture and Grazing in New South Wales. Atkinson states that even by the mid-1820s, the river banks were undermined and collapsing into the stream.

There were deposits of sand in the river channel, and clearing practices had caused increased run-off,  accelerated the degradation of the river channel and increased obstruction in the river bed. All evident in the 1900  photograph of the river channel at Camden.

Atkinson felt that the original European settlers had failed to 'improve' the land for farming and that its farming potential had been compromised. The colonists had in Atkinson's terms was unable to fulfil the original objectives of opening up the land and favoured, according to Rosen, 'the cultivation of a landscape reminiscent of British romantic pastoral scenes'.

The earliest reports of the Nepean River date from 1795 and Alan Atkinson's Camden reports that after a wet spring-early Europeans,

David Collins's impression in his An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales (London, 1798) was a picture of

'large ponds, covered with ducks and the black swan, the margins of which were fringed with shrubs of the most delightful tints'. 

After a dry spell, the river at Menangle was reported by George Caley in his 'Report of a Journey to the Cowpastures' (1804, ML) to be 'reduced to a small compass' and the water having 'the foul appearance of a pond in a farmyard'. 

Read more @ Sue Rosen Losing Ground An Environmental History of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment, Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1995.

Alan Atkinson, Camden, Farm and Village Life in Early New South Wales, Melbourne, OUP, 1988.

Kings Bush

King's Bush is the reserve adjacent the river's edge and is named after Cecil J King, the rector of St John's Church between 1893 and 1927. According to John Wrigley, King kept his horse in the paddock next to the river and swam at the same spot in the river.

Reverend King was a keen sports fan and played for the Camden Cricket Club and was the team's wicketkeeper for several years. In 1927 he was the patron of the Camden Golf Club and president of the Union and St John's tennis club. King was ordained at St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney in 1887 by the Bishop Barry of the Sydney Archdiocese. (Camden Advertiser 2 June 1949)



Read more  @ John Wrigley, Place Names on the Camden Area, Camden, CHS, 2005.

Chellaston Street and Reserve

Chellaston was a single storey brick residence at 38 Menangle Road built by Camden builder John Peat and used as his family home. Chellaston Street was part of land releases on the south side of the township in the 1920s.

There were several land releases in the area during the Inter-war period including Victory Ave and Gilbulla Ave that run off Menangle Road.

Read more  @ John Wrigley, Place Names on the Camden Area, Camden, CHS, 2005.

Originally posted 29 May 2015. Updated 29 July 2020



Camden Park springs into bloom

2015  Open Day

Camden Park Garden

Camden Park Garden Open Day 2011 in the Cool House with Garden Group volunteers. (Picasa/Leahwyn)

Camden Park Garden historian Colin Mills stated in 2011 that the 'historic value of the Camden Park gardens is almost inestimable' and 'the basic framework of the gardens remains with many historically significant trees and shrubs surviving'. 

The principle founder of the garden was William Macarthur around 1840 as a nursery. According to Mills 'he certainly sought to create a pleasant gentleman's garden at Camden'. Although Macarthur's 'real interest was in growing useful, unusual, exotic and beautiful plants for their own sake as well as for their utility'. He established the first garden in 1820 and up to 1961 grew 'more then 3000 species, hybrids and cultivars'.  

Mills has stated that Macarthur grew many more species in the decades following the 1860s. Macarthur was an 'innovator' and experimented with acclimatisation and sought the knowledge of groups like the Queensland Acclimatisation Society (1862).

The post-war period was not kind to the garden. The estate was under financial pressure and the garden suffered from lack of attention. The present owners John and Edwina Macarthur Stanham have done much to arrest the decline of the garden, with the assistance of the Garden Group volunteers.

Read more about the history of the garden and  its botanical details @  http://hortuscamden.com/ . Inspect the gardens in September 2014. 

This webpost is dedicated to the memory of Colin Mills.

Colin Mills inspects the garden needs in 2012 (L Seed)

Colin Mills investigates the needs of the Bidwell Garden near the Bush House. Colin was the founder of the Camden Park Nursery Group in 2005 which aims to propagate and re-introduce plants that have been lost from gardens of William Macarthur between the 1840s and 1860s.

Camellia Garden at Camden Park (Camden Park)

The magnificence of the lower garden is clearly shown in this early 20th century image of the Camellia garden below the main house. The Camellia garden is one of the areas that the Camden Park Nursery Group has been restoring in recent years. There are a number of early plantings that show promise for the future. It is anticipated that more work is required in the garden to bring it back to the state shown in this image. The Orchid House is shown below with a number visitors in this early 20th century image.

Orchid House in the Camden Park Garden (Camden Park) 

In the early 20th century Camden Park employed a number of garden staff to look after the extensive gardens. During the time of Sibella Macarthur Onslow and Enid Macarthur Onslow the gardens were regularly used as the site of community fundraisers for the Red Cross and other charities. Visitors always spoke glowingly of the magnificence of the gardens, especially in spring. The gardens were always compared to the English style estate gardens.

Clivias in the garden at Camden Park open day 2013 (I Willis)

Open Day 21 September 2013

Visitors today enjoyed a wonderful day at Camden Park with beautiful sunny weather with a temperature of 22 degrees. The mild conditions gave the many people who visited the historic property pleasant conditions to walk around the garden or inspect the colonial mansion. Visitors lined up to inspect the house of James and William Macarthur that was built between 1831 and 1835 and designed by architect John Verge. The house is Palladian style flanked by symmetrical pavilions. Other occupants of the house have included Elizabeth Macarthur Onslow in the late 1800s, her daughter Sibella Macarthur Onslow in the early 20th century and son James and his wife Enid in 1932.

Garden tour open day 2013 (I Willis)

The current occupants of the house John and Edwina  offered the visitors the opportunity to enjoy an atmosphere of an English-style country fair on the lawn with sausage sandwiches, devonshire teas, plant stalls, souvenir stalls, and other stalls. With the backdrop of the colonial mansion. A tour of garden of was led in the afternoon by horticulturalist Euan  who spoke to a large group of visitors who inspected the clivias and a host of the plants in the historic garden. Enthusiastic gardeners could buy a souvenir of a rare plant that had been struck by members of the garden group. Members of the garden group had worked hard to prepare the garden for a wonderful show of colour and charm.





Camden Park Nursery Group

The nursery group has undertaken the restoration, conservation and preservation  of the  19th century garden of colonial identity and horticulturalist William Macarthur. This is  a significant heritage project in the historically important Australian  colonial property of Camden Park.   

Heritage Importance

The New South Wales heritage branch inventory states that parts of the garden are of unusual industrial and historical archaeological significance and have the potential to reveal much about the 19^th century practice of nursery gardening and horticulture on a large scale.

The Nursery Group

The group was established in 2005 with a grant from the Camden Park Preservation Committee. The work of the group and its volunteers is supplemented through the sale of heritage plants propagated on site.

Colin Mills leading garden tour on Camden Park Open Day 2009 (IWillis)

The group was led by Colin Mills, until his untimely death in late 2012, and has regular monthly working bees of volunteers who undertake a variety of projects in the garden.

The nursery group won the 2011 NSW Government Heritage Volunteers Award for their ground-breaking effort in the restoration of this important colonial garden. 

Camden Park Open day
The work of this voluntary group has meant that in recent years the colonial gardens have become an important part of the Camden Park open days where the members of the general public can gain an understanding and appreciation of this historic asset. 

Members of the nursery group lead tours of the colonial garden on open days and other occasions and explain their work and the historic, social, economic, technological and archaeological importance of the conservation and restoration work of the garden.

Colin Mills leading a garden tour on Camden Park Open Day 2010 (IWillis)

Hortus Camdensus, A web-based catalogue
The work of the Camden Park Nursery Group has been  supported by Colin Mills’s  ground breaking work in  developing the website Hortus Camdensus, An illustrated catalogue of plants grown by Sir William Macarthur at Camden Park NSW Australia between 1820 and 1861. http://hortuscamden.com/

Reference
Ian Willis, Reference Supporting Nomination for NSW Government Heritage Volunteer Awards 2011, Submission, Camden, 2011