At the Water’s Edge: Reminiscences of Castlereagh
On 30 November 1810 Governor Lachlan Macquarie passed through a long extensive chain of farms along the Nepean belonging to Appledore, Westmore, Collet… Field… Harris… Stockfish… being the front line of farms on this river. These farms are all good farms, good soil, and well cultivated, but they are liable to be flooded…the houses of the settlers are very mean and paltry – Lachlan Macquarie 1810
Macquarie inspected ‘the ground intended to be laid out shortly for a township and place of security and retreat for the settlers’. He was well pleased with his choice of land being three miles from the river and on high ground. Castlereagh, the first official town planned in the district, was one of five towns planned by Macquarie. He recorded in his journal, ‘The township for the Evan or Nepean District I have named Castlereagh in honour of Lord Viscount Castlereagh’. Unfortunately, Macquarie’s vision of the peasantry wending their way home from their farms on the river up to the town on the hill, did not eventuate. With the crossing of the Blue Mountains and the construction of the Western Road from Emu Ford to Parramatta in 1815, the infant village of Penrith became the natural centre of the district and Castlereagh just faded away.
A glebe house, church and cemetery was established near the town of Castlereagh. In 1814, Macquarie appointed Irish rebel, Rev Henry Fulton as the first Chaplain. Fulton’s Classical Academy for Young Gentlemen, the first secondary school in Australia, was also opened in 1814. It provided a classical education for young men like Charles Tompson, Australia’s first published Australian-born poet. The old cemetery is the only remaining visible evidence of Macquarie’s planned township.
John Lees, a hard drinking gambler and former soldier obtained a land grant at Upper Castlereagh in 1804. The story goes that Lees had been drinking a bottle of rum when a monstrous snake emerged from it and at that point Lees decided it was time to turn his life around and ask for salvation. By 1815 Lees had built a small chapel, the first Methodist place of worship in Australia. In October 1817, the first Methodist Church in the Southern Hemisphere, was opened on Castlereagh Road. In 1921, at the 104th anniversary of Methodism in Australia, Lees’ body and that of his wife were exhumed from Castlereagh Cemetery and removed to the Methodist Cemetery adjoining the Church at Castlereagh. Those present found ‘The mortal remains of John Lees, however, had wilted considerably with the lapse of all those years’.
By the 1850s, Castlereagh was a mixed grazing and agricultural district. In 1923 the first cotton grown in Australia was at Castlereagh by G. A. Bond & Co. on the corner of Church Lane and Castlereagh Road. Like Emu Plains, Castlereagh was a centre for large orchards. In February 1928, Mary Willett of Woodside on Castlereagh Road, displayed in the window of Judges’ Pharmacy in Penrith, peaches weighing over half a kilogram each. In recent years Castlereagh has developed horse studs including the more famous Bart Cummings’ Princes Farm.
On 25 April 1895, 110 residents of Castlereagh, Berkshire Park, Agnes Banks, Cranebrook and Llandilo, petitioned the government to form a Municipality. By 1921, the population of the district was just 600 people, doubling in the next decade. The council chambers was built as part of the Council's depression relief during the early 1930s. This small rural municipality lasted just over 50 years before its amalgamation with Penrith and St Marys in 1949.
In 1892, Castlereagh farmer, William Peter (Bill) Howell represented the Nepean district against the touring English cricket team led by Dr. W. G. Grace. Howell took five wickets. In January 1898, he played in his first test match. He made two trips to England in 1899 and 1902 and to South Africa in 1902. Locally, in one match he took 10 wickets for 10 runs, and in another match hit seven sixes from a seven ball over. In 1956, Howell Oval in Penrith was dedicated to the cricketing achievements of William Peter Howell.
The first gravel company in the area began operations around 1883. The Emu Gravel and Road Metal Company, located across from Bird’s Eye Corner, quarried gravel from the bend in the river. Mining has played an important role in the historical development of the region because of the unique geological formation of the Nepean River with its beds of quartzite and high quality building sand. The expansion of the Sydney building market, increasing use of concrete in construction, the need for stone for railway ballast brought about commercial quarrying at Castlereagh. In the 1950s an aerial ropeway transported gravel from McCanns Island to the Warragamba dam site. Since 1979 the quarries have operated as part of the Penrith Lakes Development Corporation. The first of the several lakes were developed for the Sydney International Regatta Centre and Penrith Whitewater Stadium which hosted the Sydney Olympic rowing, kayaking and canoeing events for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.