Australiana Pioneer Village

About

Australiana Pioneer Village is a heritage-listed open-air museum at Rose Street, Wilberforce, New South Wales, an outer suburb of Sydney, Australia. It was built from 1969 to 1970. The property is owned by the Hawkesbury City Council.

The land on which Australiana Pioneer Village is situated was farmland recognised as essential to the survival of colonial New South Wales, being one of the earliest grants made in Australia. Located in the District of Mulgrave Place, the third mainland settlement of the colony, the 30 acre grant was registered to William MacKay on 1 May 1797, but by 1809 at least part of it was in the possession of Joshua Rose. John Rose, the final Rose descendant to live on the rich farmland after continuous occupation by the family for over 150 years, died only in 1961.

Upon John Rose's death, Dugald Andrew (Bill) McLachlan, a friend of Rose and an industrial chemist, bought the property. A man who relished challenges, whether competing in gruelling Australian car trials or being part of the 1940s group who pioneered water-skiing, Bill McLachlan fashioned a vision: to save part of the Hawkesbury's historical legacy, and to demonstrate its pioneering accomplishments

In an era before New South Wales heritage legislation such an enterprise had to be carried out privately, and resiting endangered buildings was one of few options open. It was a very natural option in the Hawkesbury district where there was, and still is, a long tradition of adaptation of buildings, both public and private, often involving reuse of materials or transfer complete to another site. By 1967 McLachlan had begun to plan a "Pioneer Village" of two streets, a water based leisure centre on his 250-metre water frontage to the Hawkesbury River and picnic facilities. Ready response from the owners of many buildings endangered in the district, meant that from the end of 1969 and throughout 1970 he engaged Silvio Biancotti of Kurrajong to bring by low loader to his "Village" twelve of the resited buildings together with the glasshouse. Many local families helped with the removals, which were all undertaken keeping the buildings structurally intact, and with their relocation on their planned sites. Brian Bushell of Wilberforce brought the small Bee House shop from McGraths Hill and others transported the Riverstone General Store and Jack Greentree's garage which became the " Bank of Australasia ". On 29 November 1970 the Village was officially declared open by the Minister for Education, Eric Willis.

Bill McLachlan's early death at the age of 54 years in 1971, and the interment of his ashes near the church on the Village site, rallied continued support.

The last three buildings to be resited were the Riverstone Police Station (1972–73), Mangold Cottage (1985) and Aiken Hut (1984–85).

Arthur and Jean Mawson who ran a hotel on site, had joined Bill McLachlan to help finance the original village and continued to do so, bringing the Riverstone Police Station to the Village through Silvio Biancotti around 1972. The Village changed hands three times in quick succession, the first buyer a syndicate headed by Sydney solicitor Mr. Anthony Gye.

Hawkesbury City Council decided to buy Rose Cottage and the Australiana Pioneer Village (excluding the hotel/motel) in December 1984, paying $450,000 the following year, and subsequently the council did conservation work on the buildings. During council's ownership towards the end of the 1980s Mangold Cottage and Aiken Hut were added to the Village.

On 30 March 1989 a "Friends" Society was formed, the inaugural meeting attracting 24 members, increasing to almost 100 friends and workers by 1991. The Village was widely used by schools, local and overseas visitors, film crews, the community and businesses during the 1980s and 1990s. In April 1985 Grace Bros retailers hired the Village for their firm's 100 year celebrations. Nearly 10,000 employees and their families attended, hundreds of them being bussed from country centres as far flung as Tamworth and Dubbo. Australia Day celebrations, and Annual Bush Fire Brigade Field Days were held there (16). An award-winning heritage video made by Hawkesbury City Council was partly shot at the Village in 1994 and it was featured on Telstra 's telephone book cover in 1998. In 1987 visitor numbers for that year reached 27, 572 with 164 school visits included. Articles praising Australiana Pioneer Village have been regularly published, including those in Woman's Day (16 June 1969), the Sun-Herald (30 August 1970 and 19 October 1986), Open Road (August 1988) and the Daily Telegraph (12 February 1997). Documentaries, films and advertisements have used Australiana Pioneer village, and the community have conducted market days there).

A name modification took place in 1993, the Village becoming the Australian Pioneer Village Recreation and Animal Park, with a management committee formed from a public meeting undertaking control of the Village. Additional initiatives included the planting of over 10,000 trees on the land by community groups.

From 4 January 1997 Council leased the property to Chris Wells, resulting in another name change to Heritage Farm. When the lease expired in 2002, Hawkesbury City Council agreed at its 11 February 2002 meeting to sell Australiana Pioneer Village to James Kelly, making no mention of its listing on the Hawkesbury Local Environment Plan or the heritage constraints necessary to the property. This decision was invalidated because the land on which the Australian Pioneer Village stands is zoned "community" and cannot be sold without being reclassified, which it then was. Subsequently, a third community group was formed to ensure the Australiana Pioneer Village remained a community asset and that its heritage and environmental integrity is retained.

The Australiana Pioneer Village was closed from 2002 until January 2011. In 2010, it was leased to The Australiana Pioneer Village Ltd, an organisation which had been set up to in 2002 to preserve the site as a community asset. The organisation were granted $100,000 towards the cost of repairs and it formally reopened on 26 January 2011.

Main article: Rose Cottage, Wilberforce This cottage and its curtilage were originally part of the land parcel Bill McLachlan purchased from John Rose and on which he constructed the Australiana Pioneer Village. It is an integral part of the Australiana Pioneer Village concept, but is now separately owned to the remainder of the village.

"Salter" Barn (formerly part of 498 Wilberforce Road, Wilberforce)

This barn is one of the three buildings still on their original site. It is known as the "Salter" barn after its early twentieth-century owners, but is of nineteenth-century style and was almost certainly built in the mid-Victorian period by the then owner, Richard William Cobcroft prior to his death in 1866, or by his widow and family in the period 1866 to c. 1890.

The Cobcrofts owned 6a 2r 19p, part of the 30 acres granted to William MacKay in 1797, until 1905 when Thomas J. Salter, a local man, bought the allotment. A Cobcroft building of the nineteenth century was close to the existing barn and its archaeological remains can be seen at 496 Wilberforce Road (on an empty paddock that today is part of the Australian Pioneer Village). Salter in 1905 bought a developed property which included Cobcroft's barn, and locals believe he almost at once built his own house, now 486 Wilberforce Road; while in 1909 Salter's son William built a second new house at 498 Wilberforce Road when he married a local Buttsworth girl, Minnie Christabel.

As a result, the Cobcroft barn became part of 498 Wilberforce Road and was closely associated with the Salter family from 1905 onwards. When 498 Wilberforce Road, like the Australiana Pioneer Village site was purchased by Bill McLachlan, founder of the Village, the barn became part of the Australiana Pioneer Village and remained so when 498 Wilberforce Road was sold independently.

The Quilty Stables were built sometime before the early 1980s for the 100 mile endurance horse race which started at the Village and went out through Colo and ended at the Village. The race attracted entrants from all over Australia was held in the district for some 10 years until tar roads became too hard for horses and its location was moved interstate. People like RM Williams were regular riders. Local State Emergency Services personnel were actively involved in operating the far flung check points and co-ordinating the incoming radio reports from each one.

Stable from the Black Horse Inn, Richmond

Paul Randall became licensee of the Black Horse Inn on the SE corner of Windsor and Bosworth Streets, Richmond in 1819. Part of the Inn still stands on its original location, one of a select group of buildings erected in the Macquarie period that remain in the Hawkesbury. The date of construction for the stables is not known, but is certainly no later than the 1860s, since prior to the 1870s the Black Horse Inn was popular with honeymooners as a pre- Blue Mountains resort destination, reached by horse and carriage or train and sulky ride. During this period the Inn was also the finishing point of an early horse race track down the main street of Richmond. Indeed, it is said that the room on the end of the stables was supposed to have been used to lock up the jockeys before other such races to prevent bribing or interference.