For quite some time, Roy has been overwhelmingly curious about a house and park he discovered over a year ago, not far from Windsor. One of his friends had suggested he visit Merriville Park and have a look at the glorious old house, and he was not disappointed by what he found. He was however very surprised to realise that there was almost no information available about the area - not even enough to easily write a post! He kept his eyes and ears peeled for information though and thinks it is finally time to share this marvelous place.
If you would like to visit Merriville House and the park, Merriville Rise Reserve, which is just next door, they are located in Kellyville Rise, not far from the relatively new suburb 'The Ponds' outside Windsor. The park when Roy visited was a lovely open space with play equipment as well as sculptures commemorating the history of the property. It would be a lovely place to have a picnic. You can walk around the exterior of the house, but it is private property now, so look from a distance!
The original owners of the area around Merriville House where the Darug Aborigines, who were custodians of not only the immediate area, but the whole of the Kellyville area. The first European settler to take control of the Merriville Farm area was Jonas Bradley, who took up a grant of 250 acres here in 1818. He was an excellent farmer and he and his family built Bradley House on the land where Merriville House stands today. The thing which made Bradley famous though was what he grew. He raised conventional things, like sheep and cattle, but his property was also the first place in the colony where Tobacco was successfully grown. Not only did he grow tobacco, he also made a successful sheep dip from it to treat scabies in sheep, another thing which made him well known amongst the colonists.
In 1853, only one of Bradley's sons was surviving, and he lived in Goulburn. He chose to sell the farm to Elias Pearson Laycock,who had leased the farm for the previous 10 years. We don't know a lot about Laycock, but the name Merriville appears to date from this period, and the house we see today was probably also built at this time. In 1866 though, the property changed hands again, being purchased by Robert Pearce. The Pearce family were one of the most important in the district, and they retained ownership of the property until 1955. They were renowned as orchardists, and it is likely some of the property was given over to orchards, but they also had animals. One of the things which appears to have been a constant for the property was sheep grazing, and the sculpture pictured above, and located in the adjoining Merriville Rise Reserve commemorates this.