Brownlow Hill Estate is a heritage-listed former residence and working farm and now residence and dairy farm located at Brownlow Hill Loop Road in the outer south-western Sydney settlement of Brownlow Hill, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed and established by Alexander Macleay and built from 1827 by George Macleay, his son). It is also known as Lowe's Hill and Glendaruel (Glendaurel). The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 25 January 2001.
History
Colonial history When Governor Lachlan Macquarie toured the Cow Pastures in 1815 he traversed the area from the foot of in a north-west direction toward Mount Hunter Creek (Rivulet) and then in a northern direction towards the Nepean River. At the close of the day he wrote that "it is my intention to form an establishment here for at least three separate herds of the Government horned cattle, at three distinct stations". The main farm and Government Cottage was established at Cawdor which Macquarie made his base on his return tour in 1822.
On Friday 11 January 1815 Macquarie inspected another of the stations from Cawdor along Mount Hunter Creek to Brownlow. Originally called Lowe's Hill, Governor Macquarie renamed it to Brownlow Hill in 1820 at the request of Commissioner Bigge, in honour of his friend Lord Brownlow.Kingston, 1990
Peter Murdock, who accompanied Macquarie, was later (in the mid-1820s)Carlin, 2008 granted to the north-west of Mount Hunter rivulet in the parish of Werombi. A small cottage now referred to as "the roundhouse" is situated on this grant, which was known locally as Glendaruel (Glendaurel), and it is believed that this cottage may have been associated with the Government station established by Macquarie. Although it is similar in form to the former gatehouse at Winbourne, Mulgoa and a residence at Molong (late 1830s), both of these are now demolished.National Trust, 2000
Macleay family The , later surveyed as , of land to its north, Brownlow Hill, the former Government stock farm was a grant by purchase to Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay in May 1827. Macleay purchased Murdock's adjacent grant, known as Glenderual (or Glendaruel, Glendaurel) in November 1828 for A£3,000. The amalgamated Brownlow Hill and Glenderual estates were managed by Macleay's sons George (1805-1891) and James Robert (1811-1892) from 1828 and by George following James Macleay's departure for England in 1837.
Once stocked, the property was left in the care of an overseer.
In May 1828 Alexander's son, George Macleay, who had arrived in November 1827, was managing the farm at Brownlow Hill, where he had erected a cottage by early 1829. Farming duties were to be shared with his brother James.
In February 1828 Fanny Macleay described Brownlow Hill, a description that is also relevant to Glenderual:
On 21 November 1829 Fanny Macleay reported on her brother George's departure on Sturt's expedition along the Murray and Darling Rivers (a blazed tree near the Round House commemorates the starting point for this expedition), adding:
In November 1833 she wrote "farming affairs look very ill for there has been no rain for many a day" and on 12 December 1833:
Within George Macleay's period of residency (1828-1859) until recent times Brownlow Hill was to be tenant farmed with the Glenderual river flats designated Farm no. 4.
Sidman's account of the history of the area, written in the 1930s, claims that the first home was on the flat above Mt Hunter Creek and that a stone quarry was opened on the estate, although this is not corroborated by other authors. Despite a lack of detail, there are references to her brothers` improvements on the farm in letters sent by Fanny Macleay to William, another brother in Cuba, and when Baron von Hugel who visited the "charming house" in 1834 as it was nearing completion. Von Hugel considered the farm (Glendaurel), two miles away from the new house, as having no equal of any he had seen in NSW for its 'cleanliness and orderliness`, and differing considerably from others such as Regentville, possessed paddocks cleared of stumps. A large garden and a small pond with many platypus adjoined the farm which von Hugel commented "would certainly be better located near the homestead, when this is completed".National Trust (NSW), 2000.
The Round House is popularly believed to have been one of the government herdsmen's' huts built by Macquarie in the 1810s. However, the Picturesque taste evident in its design (and also the design of Brownlow Hill and its landscape) suggests the hand of the Macleay family. Its octagonal form is unusual in Australia although similar designs (typically for gate lodges) were adapted for the gate lodge at the Cox property, Winbourne, Mulgoa (sketched by Hardy Wilson in 1916 for his Old Colonial Architecture in New South Wales and Tasmania (the lodge has since been demolished), the Betts property, the Round House, Vale Head, Molong (demolished) and an 1830s house associated with St Patrick's Church, Singleton. A comparable and contemporary house is Chief Justice Francis Forbes' Edinglassie, Emu Plains (c. 1826, demolished). James Broadbent, in "The Australian Colonial House" writes that 'Edinglassie was a simplified, antipodean version of the rustic cottage ornes popularised by Papworth in Ackermann's Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions & c., or his own Rural Residences '.
About south of the Round House is a quarry in the Flaggy Creek bed, a tributary of the Mount Hunter Rivulet. The quarry was a source of Wiannamatta stone (advertised in the press of the 1820s - '30s as Cowpastures stone), a highly-figured mudstone used for paving (i.e. flagstones) at Brownlow Hill (the console table base, veranda and entrance hall flagging) and Elizabeth Bay House (the entrance hall and flagging, saloon stair and upper floor chimneypieces). The Camden Park portico columns are reputedly from this quarry. The quarry provides a rare instance of a surviving connection between early houses and the source of their materials and is an important archaeological site.
Records held by the Botanic Gardens indicate that G. Macleay Esquire was sent a number of plants during this period. In June 1832 he was sent 12 olive Plants and 6 ornamental shrubs and in July 1834: 50 vine cuttings, 1 Evergreen Oak, 2 White Broom and 12 ornamental shrubs. As one of the Colony's prominent farmers, George Macleay received two sets of cuttings, 40 from Mr Busby's vines, one set being for Captain Dumaresq in June 1836.
Conrad Martens drew Brownlow Hill homestead in 1836 showing that it was sited on a flattened hill which was not completely cleared of its native vegetation. Adjacent land to the west was added to the property through a grant to George Macleay. In 1836 George Macleay wrote to his sister requesting Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Gardening. Macleay's ornamental additions of a sundial bearing the inscription "George Macleay 1836" and a Maldon sandstone vase on a pedestal situated in the centre of flower beds cut in the lawn are clear indications of the sophistication with which the garden was planned and developed. Other additions such as the aviary in the flower garden appear to have been inspired by Thomas Shepherd's lectures and modelled on illustrations and ideas, especially Mrs Lawrence's garden Drayton Green, from Loudon's Gardener's Magazine, many illustrations and articles from which appeared in his 1838 publication" The Suburban Gardener and Villa Companion". Although not substantiated, it is likely that George Macleay had assistance in implementing ideas gleaned from his reading. The 1865 obituary in the Horticultural Magazine and Gardeners' and Amateurs' Calendar, for Robert Henderson, the gardener at Alexander Macleay's Elizabeth Bay at the time of von Hugel's Sydney visit, stated that he "had severally superintended the laying out of the gardens appertaining to the late residence of George Macleay, Esq ".
More plants were sent from the Botanic Gardens to George Macleay in 1844 - the most unusual inclusion for the time was Eucalypts and Melaleuca - trees not usually planted by the colonists, especially in the country. By February L'Avergne was "very busy with grapes", preparing enough for 30 gallons of wine. Journal entries in March mention figs, a new white grape named "Cornoshant" and walnuts growing in the garden. Both the von Hugel and Boswell accounts indicate clear connections between William Macarthur at Camden Park and the Macleays at Brownlow Hill. Sales of plants noted in William Macarthur's notebooks indicate that during the early 1850s a number of significant additions were made to the garden, some of which are a feature of the property today.
Samuel Mossman and Thomas Banister visited Brownlow Hill at this time, approaching the estate from Vanderville, the property of John Wild(e), which encompassed the village now known as The Oaks. They passed over a range of hills, likely the area now known as Glenmore.
On an 1848 visit George Macleay's niece (daughter of his sister Margaret) Annabella Boswell commented:Boswell, A., (1848, in) 1992, 5.
Sidman's account of Brownlow Hill states that in the 1850s 'the property was leased for pig raising - when much damage was done to the beautiful growth surrounding.
Downes family management When George and Barbara Macleay returned to England in 1859, the property was leased by Jeremiah Downes. Brownlow Hill was sold to Severin K Salting in 1862 and again leased to Downes who purchased the property from Salting in 1875. In the intervening period it was managed as a series of tenant farms, a practice also adopted by the Macarthur family on the part of their nearby Camden Park Estate known as Cawdor Farms. Martens sketched "the well-established garden at Brownlow Hill in 1871 and species depicted then are still clearly recognisable in the garden. The Martens sketch also shows, some 30 odd years after his initial rendition of the place, the relationship between the homestead with the river flats below and the juxtaposition of the gardened hill top with the lightly vegetated distant hills.
The property, which was inherited by Jeremiah's son Frederick Downes in 1887, and also sketched by architect, writer and promoter of colonial heritage, William Hardy Wilson, is still owned by the Downes family and managed as a dairy.
The Round House was known as Monk's Cottage by c.1900, having been home to one or two generations of tenant dairy farmers, who also gave their name to Monks Lane, which runs north from Burragorang Road, Mount Hunter.
Hardy Wilson sketched the Round House and overshadowed by a large Angophora tree for the plate "Great Apple-Oak at Cobbitty" for his book, "The Cowpasture Road" (1920). In the text he noted that the angophora had recently fallen. Its stump was evident to c.1960.
Glendon, another 19th century dwelling, is situated at the north of the property. When John Fairfax wrote his account of the early properties around Sydney, he remarked that Brownlow Hill was "as beautiful now as it was then" and that J.B. Martin (fl.1831 -1908) reminisced that Mr Macleay was the `best man in the district for mixed farming and dairying and Brownlow Hill was used as a 'receiving place for the wool and fat stock from the large Murrumbidgee stations.'
Trevor Allen, James Broadbent and Howard Tanner mapped the garden c.1969 as part of their joint architectural thesis at the University of Sydney. This thesis was on colonial gardens.