Cecil Hills Farm, Heritage farm site in Cecil Hills, Australia
Cecil Hills Farm is a heritage estate in western Sydney containing a main house and several outbuildings designed for farm operations. The complex includes stables, shearing sheds, and cow bails that together demonstrate how rural properties functioned during the 19th century.
John Wylde received his grant in 1817 and named the property after Cecil Lodge in Hertfordshire. Convict carpenter James Gough built the farmhouse, and by 1818 Wylde was contracted to supply 6,000 lbs of meat to government stores. The government compulsorily purchased the property in 1972, and it was added to the State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
John Wylde named the property after Cecil Lodge at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, his family home in England. The farm supplied 6,000 lbs of meat to government stores by July 1818, making Wylde the largest recorded supplier at the time. Convict carpenter James Gough, transported on the Earl Spencer in 1813, built the farmhouse.
The homestead stands on Sandringham Drive in Cecil Hills, about 8 km west of Liverpool; the Cowpasture Road grant frontage is now Camden Valley Way. The property is owned by the Government of New South Wales and has been in public ownership since 1972. The former farmland around it is being developed as the 1000-home Elizabeth Hills estate, so expect construction traffic and changed local roads.
The farmhouse was built by James Gough, a convicted London joiner and carpenter transported on the Earl Spencer in 1813, who received the private commission from John Wylde. The main homestead is single-storey brick nog construction under a hipped iron roof, dated to the 1820s.
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