Rooty Hill

About

Rooty Hill is a heritage-listed historic site and now parkland at Eastern Road, Rooty Hill, City of Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1802 to 1828. It is also known as The Rooty Hill and Morreau Reserve. The property is owned by the Presbyterian Church (NSW) Property Trust. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 13 June 2007.

Prior to European settlement the area was occupied by the Dharug people. A significant stone artefact scatter relating to pre-contact Aboriginal use has been identified on the site indicating the potential importance of the site for research. According to oral testimony, the significance of the site for Aboriginal people continued in post contact years as it provided an important unofficial or hidden gathering and camping site for people moving between Sydney Parramatta and the rest of the State.

A close examination of the documentation of Governor Phillip 's first exploration of Parramatta's western hinterland in April 1788 reveals that the orthodox view that he went only as far as Prospect Hill or a little beyond is deeply flawed. His party is much more likely to have traversed Toongabbie, Seven Hills and Blacktown to climb Bungarribee Hill, Doonside and reaching Eastern Creek and Rooty Hill.

The hill was named the Rooty Hill by Governor King and was included in one of the four reserves of land for government stock runs. It is most likely that it was named after a hill of similar geological form on Norfolk Island where the Governor had been posted ten years prior to his appointment to New South Wales.

In order to build up the colony's stock reserves and as a failsafe against food shortages, Governor King reserved 15,672.72 hectares of land in the Prospect area. This reserve included the Hill and was known as the Rooty Hill Run.

There is much speculation about the source of the name Rooty Hill. Mr William Freame wandered much in these parts collecting information from old residents. In 1931 in an article in a country newspaper on place names he wrote regarding the name: "Old hands assure me that the hill received its name from the roots and other debris left around its bare fields when the Eastern Creek was in flood, and this appears to be a very reasonable deduction." Mrs Hawkins' description quoted later in the derivation does not appear reasonable. Captain J H Watson 's version, he having been in India as a young man, derives the name from "ruti", the Hindustani word for bread. Governor Macquarie as a young man had also been in India, and if the settlement at the hill had been devoted to agriculture there would have been a connection, but it was a stock yard. A third and anonymous writer puts forward a Captain Thomas Rooty as a resident in the locality. Unfortunately no information can be found on him.

The district was used as a government stockyard, and in a lengthy list which Governor Macquarie prepared of the buildings and works erected during his regime between January 1810 and November 1821, we find the following:

"At Rooty Hill: 1. a brick built house of two stories high for the residence and accommodation of the superintendent and principal overseer of the Government stock at the station, reserving one room for the use of the Governor, when occasionally there, with kitchen, stables and other necessary out-offices and kitchen garden enclosed; 2. four paddocks of 50 acres, each enclosed for the grazing of young cattle and raising of wheat and maize for the use of the stock men; 3. temporary log huts or barracks for the accommodation of 20 stockkeepers, with small kitchen garden attached thereto. NB: The station at Rooty Hill is the next principal one to Camden for the grazing of the Government horned cattle and horses, and consists of about 2428 hectares of land of a very superior description, and, as this grazing ground is centrally situated, being on the Great Western Road and only 10 miles distant from Parramatta, it ought not to be on any account alienated from the Crown. Macquarie seems to have forgotten that he had already carved a large slice off the reservation by giving Major Druitt in October 1821 a grant of 404 hectares 'out of the Rooty Hill Government allotment on Ross's Creek'. Mount Druitt is a permanent reminder of this grant.

In 1824 Captain P. P. King, son of Governor King, was given a grant of 607 hectares, also part of the Rooty Hill establishment.

The "brick built house of two stories" still stands (1935), with galvanised iron roof (seen in a photo) where once it was shingle-rooved. The oak tree (also shown in a photo) would have been small in Macquarie's time, but is now a veteran,... a sturdy sample of the genus' (sic).

On January 11, 1822 T. H. Hawkins arrived in Sydney with wife and 8 children and mother in law. A few months later he received an appointment as commissariat store keeper at Bathurst, and on April 5 set out from Sydney, at the head of a cavalcade of bullock wagons, carts, drays and belongings over the Blue Mountains to their new home. Late that night the party reached Rooty Hill, a distance of 42 kilometres from Sydney, the Government House was ready to receive them....Hawkins described the place "I could have been contented to remain there for ever - the house was good, and the land around like a fine wooded park in England". Under Macquarie's governance the colony's stock farms were expanded and reorganised and were still seen as an important reserve of food for times of shortage and an effective means of wresting the stranglehold on food /meat prices from a "cartel of officers and wealthy settlers". In 1813 Macquarie instigated a system of government employed overseers and stock keepers to manage four government stock farms in the colony. He also ordered the construction of farm buildings, enclosures and accommodations.

Rooty Hill became the second-most important of the government stock farms and was allocated an overseer's residence with accommodation for the Governor and other visitors. The overseer's cottage was built in 1815 on the northern slopes of The Rooty Hill (now across Eastern Road from The Rooty Hill). This site was possibly chosen as the Hill would have as surely offered protection from the elements. The Rooty Hill remained a part of the stock farm at this stage.

An inquiry into the colony's agricultural development in 1822 criticised the expense of the government stock farms and resulted in the reduction of the size of the Rooty Hill farm through grants of land on the perimeter of the reserve. Under Governor Brisbane the Rooty Hill stock farm was reduced further and in 1828 Governor Darling closed the Rooty Hill station giving over ownership of the remaining lands, including the Hill to the Church and Schools Corporation. When the Corporation failed in 1832 the land reverted to government ownership and was leased for grazing until 1865 when 134.87 hectares including The Rooty Hill was sold into the private ownership of Charles McKay. McKay donated a parcel of land on the south west edge of the Hill to the Baptist Church. This was later came into the ownership of the Presbyterian Church which retains ownership to this day.

The Hill remained in private ownership from the time of McKay's purchase up until 1975 when the land was resumed by the Planning Department as part of the Eastern Creek Open Space Corridor. In the early 1980s a planting and landscaping project was initiated on the Hill and the sporting fields, Morreau reserve were established. In 1992 ownership of the Hill was given to Blacktown City Council in order to establish an historic park there.

The Rooty Hill was grazed right up until the 1960s. It has also had a continuous history of community usage from the 1890s when the then owners, the Angus family sponsored regular community events such as the Queen Victoria 's Jubilee celebrations. It has been the site of "unofficial community activity" - a popular courting spot, a patch of bush for children's adventures, Empire night celebrations. Recently it has become a venue for more official uses such as Council-organised Australia Day celebrations and Carols by Candlelight. The Rooty Hill has had an important function as a meeting place and camping site for post contact Aboriginal people travelling between Penrith and Parramatta.

In post-contact years Aboriginal people continued to use Rooty Hill. During the years when Aboriginal movement away from missions and Aboriginal reserves was restricted and closely monitored, Rooty Hill remained an unofficial or hidden gather place and camping site for people moving between Sydney and the Blue Mountains and the rest of the State. One Dharug elder indicated that the " South Creek mob" and the "Toongabbie mob" camped at Rooty Hill about three times a year, adding that they were not supposed to be travelling and were meant to stay on the Hargreave Mission at Warwick Farm. The last gathering of this person's family at Rooty Hill was in about 1962 when they met and made a temporary camp in the vegetation at the foot of Rooty Hill.

- 1802- reservation of 15672.8 hectares of land including the Rooty Hill for use as a stockrun

- 1815 - clearing of the Rooty Hill and surrounds for grazing and cropping

- 1865 - 1869 Establishment of Eastern road on the northern slope of the Hill

- c. 1890 - donation of a small lot of land on the South West edge to the Baptist Church and subsequent establishment of the Baptist church building