Tocal Homestead, Heritage-listed homestead in Paterson, New South Wales, Australia
Tocal Homestead is a two-storey stone homestead designed by Scottish architect William Moir, with verandahs facing the Paterson River. The main house stands among agricultural outbuildings, stockyards and a timber barn designed by Edmund Blacket and built in the late 1860s.
In 1822 the site was a 1,600-hectare land grant to J. P. Webber, who made it a productive farm; convict labour cleared the fertile flats along Webber's Creek in the 1820s. Webber sold Tocal to Caleb and Felix Wilson in 1834, and the Wilson family built the homestead in 1840–41 to William Moir's design. Charles Reynolds leased the property from 1844 and his family ran it as a noted stud farm until 1926, when the Alexander siblings bought it.
Tocal takes its name from a Koori word meaning "Ducks Aplenty", referring to the large lagoon that drew both Gringai campers and later settlers. The Gringai Clan of the Wonnerau people used the site as a camp before 1822, harvesting plants and animals from the river rainforest and surrounding paperbark forest. The Reynolds family, tenants from 1844, made the homestead a social hub, hosting tennis parties on the front lawn between the fig trees.
Tocal Homestead stands on Tocal Road at Paterson, in Dungog Shire, New South Wales, on the flats beside Webber's Creek near the Paterson River. The property is held by the C. B. Alexander Foundation, and the Tocal College complex built on the former homestead grounds from the 1960s is separately heritage-listed. The homestead was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
Bushranger Captain Thunderbolt stole the imported racehorse "Free Trader" from Tocal; he had previously worked on the property as a horsebreaker. The 1886 Melbourne Cup winner "The Barb" also stood at Tocal as a stud horse. The Blacket Barn was added during the Reynolds family's occupation, which lasted from 1844 to 1926.
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