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This area was once part of the Rooty Hill Government farm.
The Government farm was an initiative of Governor King and
was one of 4 government depots and stock farms, used to control
livestock prices and prevent graziers from exploiting the market.
It was closed in 1828. By the time Governor Macquarie
arrived in 1810 private landowners and settlers were demanding more
land and Macquarie began subdividing the government farms. He
granted 2000 acres to John Campbell in 1822. Campbell, a retired
military officer from Scotland, named the 2000 acre grant
“Bungarribee Estate”. An article in the Sydney Gazette
in 1828 reads:
“The Valuable Estate of Bungarribee, the Property of the
late John Campbell, Esq., situated on the Great Western Road, about
10 miles beyond Parramatta; it contains 2,000 acres of very
excellent land, fenced all round, has 250 acres cleared, four large
enclosed paddocks, various stockyards and piggery, a garden
consisting of 8 acres, with a great number and variety of young
fruit trees well watered, and two creeks always supplied with water
running through the farm. The house, built of the very best
materials, and scarcely completed at Mr Campbell's death, consists
of a dining room, drawing room and five bedrooms on the ground
floor, and four small rooms in the upper storey. Attached, is a
most excellent kitchen or Servants' Room (the residence of the
Family for some years before the building of the new house), with
store, ham house, stable, barn, carpenter and blacksmiths' shops,
superior barracks for the men, &c. The Dairy is considered to
be, in design, the most complete in the Colony. It is not quite
finished but a trifle will complete it.”
This photo is of a painting of Bungarribee House in the
1850’s
In 1941 the Commonwealth resumed the property, excepting the
house, for military use. The military built an airfield
consisting of a compressed gravel runway of 1800 metres along with
taxi ways and aircraft hides. I read somewhere that the
Americans laid bitumen on the airstrip. The fabric shows evidence
of this in some places.
After the war ended the property remained in government hands
and was acquired by OTC in October 1949 for development as an
International transmitting station. OTC built staff houses and
buildings to house the transmitters and erected antenna. During
their stewardship Bungarribee house fell into such disrepair it was
demolished in 1957.
OTC transmitters were active until the 1990’s, when the HF
station closed, although OTC remained on the estate until 2001, by
which time the station buildings and antenna masts had been
removed.
This 1956 air photo shows the OTC installation and the
runway.
Some of the land has been returned to the public as part of
Western Sydney Parklands.
There is an enclosed off lease area for exercising dogs and some
nature walks.
The rest will be subdivided and sold off as house lots.
The car park gates are open between 8am and 7pm, vehicles there
after 7pm will be locked in for the night.
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