Elizabeth Farm

Yesterday we went to Elizabeth Farm after taking MacDonald breakfast. Boys been there with the school and they liked the place so we decided to visit it. It is actually an old building that has been restored and the furnishings were reconstucted. As the video shows, everything is fake but everything is what it will be during the early settlement.

Write up of Elizabeth Farm
Commenced in 1793, Elizabeth Farm is Australia's oldest European building. With its deep shady verandahs, it became the prototype for the Australian homestead. It was built as the home of John and Elizabeth Macarthur and was the birthplace of the Australian wool industry. The interiors contain reproductions of furnishings and objects belonging to the Macarthurs, giving visitors an authentic glimpse of early l9th century life. Elizabeth Farm is situated in a gloriously recreated 1830s garden. There is a tearoom that serves Devonshire teas and lunch.

The house comprises two parts; the servants quarters of eight rooms and the main house of aound 15 rooms. The home, although large for the time, is a relatively modest dwelling compared to other historic homes such as Vaucluse House and Elizabeth Bay House

The gardens at Elizabeth Farm reflects over 200 years of European tradition and includes some of the oldest exotic plants in Australia.

Want to experience history rather than just read about it? At Elizabeth Farm – Australia’s oldest surviving homestead – you can wander freely through the old house and garden as if you were its original occupants. There are no barriers, locked doors, fragile furniture or untouchable ornaments in this unique, ‘access all areas’ house museum.

Built in 1793 for John Macarthur, known as the father of the wool industry, and his wife Elizabeth, tales of passion and anguish, early colonial political skulduggery and the genesis of Australia’s wool trade are cemented into these walls. So come by, run your hand along the sofa, or simply sit on the shady verandah and enjoy the garden, experience the history and make yourself at home.

At 23, John Macarthur’s military career was in trouble. He arrived in Sydney with a wife and sick child and through speculation and cunning, his wealth and influence grew over a few decades and he became one of the most prosperous colonists in New South Wales.

His ambition and abrasive personality brought him into conflict with successive Governors. On two occasions he travelled to London to defend his name: in 1801 for his part in a duel with Lieutenant-Governor Paterson and in 1808 for his role in deposing Governor Bligh. Exiled in England until 1817 Macarthur pursued commercial opportunities, in particular the promotion of the colony’s fine wool.

Ever an enemy of ‘emancipists’, or freed convicts, who challenged the dominance of landowning ‘exclusives’, Macarthur’s story is coloured with turmoil and conflict. When poor health forced him away from public life in 1832, few were sad to see him go. "He is now a wayward child and remains at home brooding,” said Governor Darling, “but I expect is not altogether idle.”
John Macarthur bought his first sheep in 1794, mostly to eat.

By 1801, the year he was sent to London to face charges of shooting his commanding officer, his flock of over 2000 was the largest in Sydney. With the support of Lord Camden, the promise of 5000 acres of prime grazing land and six of the King’s Spanish Merinos, Macarthur returned to Sydney in 1805 to commence wool production on a large scale. The breeding merinos were kept at Elizabeth Farm while their offspring increased greatly in value, number and reputation on the fertile sheep runs at Camden.

As British industry sought more and more wool, colonial graziers grew rich and powerful. By the 1820s Macarthur’s wool was prized for its quality and abundance – the groundwork laid for Australia’s richest primary industry.

More pictures will be uploaded in my facebook.