Bonnyrigg House

About

Bonnyrigg House is a heritage-listed homestead complex at Cartwright Street, Bonnyrigg, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. It was designed by possibly Francis Greenway and built from 1825 to 1826 by A. Kinghorne and Thomas Moore. It is also known as Male Orphan School, The Homestead and Schoolmaster's residence. The property is owned by Department of Planning and Environment (General). It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

1804 Governor King granted 12,300 acres (5,000 hectares) in Cabramatta to the Female Orphan School, which had outgrown its city site on George and Bridge Streets, after lobbying from Reverend Samuel Marsden. This land was rented out in portions to provide an income for the school.

Marsden convinced King to build a permanent Female Orphan House at Parramatta (now Rydalmere ), and this was built under Governor Macquarie from 1813 to 1818. When this opened the George Street residence was repaired and reopened as a Male Orphan House.

Commissioner Bigge was not satisfied with the city site and recommended establishment of a new male orphanage on the Orphan School estate close to Liverpool. The estate (grant) had been declared invalid due to failure of the School's Committee to pay quit rent of 12 pounds 6 shillings after 5 years. Governor Brisbane rededicated the land to its original purpose in 1823. Meanwhile, the grant had been used as a small stock farm on which a small house and several farm buildings had been built.

Bigge proposed that the Male Orphan School be established on the land and that the new institution would serve as a farm school in an attempt to increase the level of farming knowledge and practice in New South Wales. It would also lower costs because the occupants could grow and harvest some of their own food.

In early 1824 the move was complete and the original George Street residence ceased operating as an orphanage. James Busby, appointed farm manager, taught the boys viticulture, having planted a vineyard here in 1825. The "New Farm" near Liverpool as the male orphanage became known, briefly ceased operation in 1826.

In April 1826 the administration of orphans changed from the Orphan Committee to the Church and Schools Corporation and a new site was selected. The orphanage was again relocated, this time to a nearby site only one and 1/4 miles from Liverpool and construction of the school began at Bull's Hill, also located within the existing Orphan School estate.

The Schoolmaster's residence, otherwise known as the Homestead, was built at Bull's Hill within the Orphan School estate sometime in c.1826. The site was selected by Government engineer Alexander Kinghorne.

Work began on Bull's Farm in June 1826. The land had already been partially cleared and by July 1826 tenders were called to begin works on the Master's Residence (now Bonnyrigg House) and dormitories. Construction works on various buildings continued at the Orphanage until 1848, just two years prior to its closure in March 1850.

The large complex included the Master's House, dormitories, a dining room, school rooms, a probationary school, an infant school room and nursery, staff bedroom and kitchen, watch house, a hospital, stable and yard, coach house, offices, tailor's shop, bakehouse, storekeeper's house, clothing store and privies. Most of these were sited close to Bonnyrigg House on the top of the hill. No detailed plants were found of the institution showing their exact location.

Bonnyrigg House stood on top of a rise with views across the district. It was designed by Colonial Architect Francis Greenway in 1821–5. Thomas Moore was eventually engaged as its builder. A succession of Masters occupied the residence, the first being William Walker. Reverend Robert Cartwright was second master of the school for four years. Then Lieutenant Richard Sadlier (R.N.) who held the position until the school's closure. The upper floor of the residence was used as a Court House for the meeting of Magistrates.

The area covering the Orphan School estate was less densely covered by trees and was ideal for agriculture, containing excellent land for farming. Boys were employed both on the New Farm, linked to the Orphan School by a track, and in the vineyard and paddocks containing cotton crops. As identified on an 1863 survey, the paddocks and vineyard surrounded the school. The same survey shows a large garden at the front of the Master's House, though the school had closed in 1850.

The agricultural potential of the land around the homestead was recognised by James Busby, appointed Farm Manager for the orphanage in 1825. Busby was one of the first in the colony to attempt commercial grape growing for wine production, and dug a number of fresh water bores to the north east of the Master's House. Wine produced from the grapes grown on the estate was first exported from the colony in 1831. His pioneering viticulture laid the foundations of the Australian wine industry. Busby published a book on growing grapes for wine-making in 1825 and also donated various (over 400) European grape varieties to the Botanic Gardens in Sydney in 1833 (which supplied a number of colonists and early viticulturists with plants for some years).

In 1850 the boys were relocated to Parramatta. For many years the buildings remained vacant, eventually falling into disrepair. At the same time the land around the complex was leased to various local families.

In the late 1870s and early 1880s the church decided to subdivide the estate for sale. A large section of land was purchased along Orphan School Creek by William Simpson (Stimson) for two pounds an acre. With this acquisition William Simpson became the largest landowner and one of the most successful farmers in the Fairfield district. The pioneering Simpson family occupied Bonnyrigg House for many years.

Simpson also led the area's growing timber industry, installing steam-powered saw mills at present day King's Park and in the Fairfield township. He leased or sold large tracts of his land to his five sons who cultivated grapes and market gardens in the fertile soil along the edges of the waterway. One of these, Joseph, grew grapes in the Bonnyrigg area.

Simpson's land was again subdivided after 1912 and much of it was taken up by poultry farmers, becoming one of the state's most intensive poultry farming areas. Part of the remaining Orphan School estate was again subdivided into smaller holdings suitable for family farm allotments, particularly the case around Bonnyrigg.

A single storey front addition was added c.1914 and a timber verandah and two-storey extension were added to the rear of the building in 1914.

Photographs from c.1950 show a large bunya pine ( Araucaria bidwillii ) - far taller than the house, and probably dating from at least the 1870s (discovered and popularised from the 1840s onwards). Also shown in these photographs was a picket fence northwest of the house, and a star picket fence separating the vacant Orphan School site. Oleanders (Nerium oleander) had been planted by the 1950s, and remain on site today. In the 1950s the house was surrounded by vacant paddocks, market gardens and distant produce sheds.

Bonnyrigg House is the last standing structure of the colony's first orphanage for boys, which existed from 1826 to 1840. The Heritage Council of NSW funded an archaeological survey of the site (in 1977), which may be dedicated for an open space reserve within a residential release area, to identify historic remains of the orphanage.