Windmill Hill is a heritage-listed former farm and now water catchment area located at Wilton Road in the outer south-western Sydney settlement of Appin in the Wollondilly Shire local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1820 to 1950. It is also known as Windmill Hill Group, including Ruins, North Farm, Middle Farm aka Larkin Farm and Windmill Hill, South Farm and Steven's Homestead. The property is owned by Water NSW (State Government). It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 27 June 2014.
History Appin Appin town's name came about, despite that most local settlers came from Irish stock, due to Governor Macquarie's arrival in the colony in 1810. At the time, Government House was in Parramatta and one of Macquarie's first intentions was to travel into the nearby country to discover the best land from which the colony could be provided with food. It was already known that the most productive area for that purpose was the Hawkesbury River country, but these districts had proven precarious because of severe flooding which caused great losses in crops and stock.Percival, 1992, 7.
The land Macquarie intended to study lay between the Nepean and Georges Rivers. There had been no identification of the land which ran as far south as the Cataract River and was bounded on the west by the Nepean River and on the east by the Georges River. On completion of his survey, this area reminded him so much of his own (home) district in Scotland that he called it the Airds district. Some time later he named the section south, including Mount Gilead, Appin.
One of the earliest buildings in the town, still standing, is the Anglican school, where the first generation of children born in Appin received their education. This was erected about 1815.
Macquarie gave many grants of land in order to develop the land. The first was granted to Sydney magistrate and acting commissary-general, William Broughton. There were several other grants of smaller amounts, made on condition that after five years, unless sufficient progress had been made in cropping and stocking, the land would revert to the Crown. The district became a great supplier of wheat, corn and barley, carried to Sydney by wagons pulled by teams of bullocks or horses.Percival, 1992, 8.
The northern boundary of the Appin district is the property known as Mount Gilead, which was granted to Reuben Uther. Some years later it was purchased by a Sydney businessman, Thomas Rose, who was credited with building the first dam for water conservation in the colony (here). This was carried out very thoroughly and with great expense. He was generous with the water conserved and allowed his neighbours to water their stock in very dry times.
He applied to the Governor for some reimbursement, but was refused. This dam was built in 1824. In 1836 Rose built the huge stone windmill, one of the largest of its kind which gave great service for many years grinding wheat of the surrounding areas. In those early years, in a good season, yields in some areas were as high as 45 bushels to the acre. The windmill is still standing; that is the four storey tower which has long been converted to a water tank; but the top hammer and sails have long-since disappeared.Percival, 1992, 27.
On the southern side, Mount Gilead was joined by the Hume (family) properties, Beulan and Meadowvale (formerly Rockwood). These and others such as Fairview, Blossom Lodge, Mount Carlon and the big poultry farm conducted by Ingham enterprises are all on the western side of the Appin Road. Opposite the last property is one known as Kildare, one of the pioneer homes of the Irish Dwyer family.
Further west was Lesson's Green, an grant to William Crowe, the northern boundary of which joined a grant to John Dwyer, which in turn joined Macquarie Dale, a second grant of made to William Broughton in 1816, which ran as far (west) as the Nepean River. South of this is the property of Elladale, of granted to Alexander Riley in 1812, the boundary to Macquarie Dale (of which) is Elladale Creek. This was later greatly reduced in size by subdivisions and sales. By about 1840, when purchased by Rev. Sparling, the first incumbent at St. Mark's Anglican Church in Appin, it had shrunk to .Percival, 1992, 9.
On its southern boundary, it was joined by Broughton's Lachlan Vale, the first land grant in the area.Percival, 1992, 12. That property in turn joined John Kennedy's original grant, that he named Teston. In later years, different owners added to it, growing the property to over . This acreage on the south side joined the area known as Mount Brittain of 180 acres, a grant to William Sykes. With further grants it became over .Percival, 1992, 10.
Further south, Mount Brittain joined a grant to James Jordan, the southern boundary being the Cataract River and here was the place known as Jordan's Crossing, where the road from Mount Keira (now Picton Road) crossed the river. There were a number of small grants on the way back to Appin such as those of John Firth, Edward McGee, John Trotter, Nicholas Bryan and Matthew Pearce () and several others. Laurence D'Arcy was also granted joining Jordan's and named it Spring Valley.
Other grantees were James Byrne, and Andrew Byrne who had a grant between what is now Ingham enterprises and John Anderson's property that he named Ousedale, the creek that ran through it still bearing this name. A number of the small grants were brought together by purchase and the well-known property of Windmill Hill came into being, owned by William Larkin. This name was given to it because Larkin built a timber windmill on the highest part of it (about the mid-1840s) and it gave great service for many years. The farm later became the property of the Winton family who ran it as a dairy farm until recent years.Percival, 1992, 10-11.
Windmill Hill North Farm was granted to Moses and Michael Brennan in 1816. The small size of the grant indicates that the land was suitable for grain production. A notice appears in the Sydney Gazette of January 1822 requesting Moses and Michael Brennan of Appin to supply wheat for the NSW Government stores. Members of the Brennan family owned the property up until 1907, during which time the property was adapted for a variety of agricultural activities.
By the 1850s wheat was one of the main agricultural products of the district and a number of mills were constructed in the district. The mill that gave Windmill Hill its name was erected in 1846 by Edward Larkin, a Sussex miller who came to Australia with his wife Jane in 1837. Larkin's mill operated for almost 25 years. The mill's life was ended as a result of the rust virus that had begun to attack the colony's wheat crop east of the dividing range by the 1850s. By the 1870s, the rust virus had all but destroyed wheat production in areas east of the dividing range, where climatic conditions helped the disease to flourish.
South Farm is situated within the boundaries of a grant made to Richard Tress in 1819. It is likely that the land was more suited to grazing than grain production, as it was much larger than that granted to the Brennans. He sold 190 acres to his neighbour on the eastern side, Daniel Miller in 1829. In 1831 Tress sold the rest of his land to WR Tress. Tress in turn sold the land to Matthew and Catherine Healey in 1838. In 1842, after the death of Matthew Healey the property was sold to John Bray.
The property remained in the Bray family until it was sold to Harry Winton in 1884. The Wintons retained the property with only minor changes for 85 years, adding Larkin's to it in 1903.
Harry Winton died in 1921 and the property was left to be run by his sons William and Charles. In 1969 the property was sold to the Windmill Hill Pastoral Company. It is unclear when the property was incorporated into the Metropolitan Catchment Area, although it appears farming ceased in the 1970s. The original land grant was subdivided in the 1990s when the western slope of the site was developed as a water treatment facility.
The Stevens Property is situated on of land originally granted to Daniel Millar on 17 August 1819. It appears that the property was initially used mainly for dairying and has followed a similar land-use patter to that of South Farm. In 1829, Millar purchased a further 190 acres from his neighbour R Tress (South Farm/Windmill Hill). This purchase increased the size of Millar's property to the south and made the creek, previously running through Tress's property the new boundary between the two farms. Little else is known about the property as there is no significant documentary evidence pertaining to the site. It seems the site is locally known after the last occupiers of the site, the Stevens around the mid 20th century.
Description The Windmill Hill Group, including Ruins, consists of early to mid nineteenth century farm buildings, mostly in ruins, with associated cultural plantings and archaeological remains, in a relatively intact rural setting. Three of the clusters of buildings (North, Middle and South farms) run north–south along a ridgeline running parallel to Winton Road on its eastern side. To the east the land slopes down to a small creek and has been cleared to create paddocks for cropping and grazing. At the southern end of the valley formed by the creek there is an area of remnant native bushland and a stone dam. Steven's Homestead is on the up-slope of the small valley on its eastern side. There are a range of building types represented in the group including stone ashlar, stone rubble, timber slab and weatherboard.
North Farm (Brennan's Farm) North Farm is granted to Moses and Michael Brennan in 1816. The farm buildings consist of two structures: a former sandstone farm building, which is in ruins and a dilapidated timber slab homestead. It sits in an immediate landscape that retains a nineteenth century character of cleared pasture with the view to the east remaining substantially cleared paddocks and bushland as it would have been in the earliest days of European settlement on the property. It also retains a relationship with the other three farms in the group.
The timber slab building remains in fair condition and recent works have been undertaken to "mothball" the structure (including new roof gutters and downpipes). The structure consists of a main cottage and the remains of a former rear kitchen and laundry. The cottage has a mix of weatherboard, timber slab and corrugated iron clad walls. The gabled roof remains and has been over-sheeted with corrugated iron over timber shingles. Only the brick chimneys of the rear kitchen and laundry remain.
The granary building to the north of the North Farm house is random-coursed, split faced ashlar sandstone construction with dressed quoins and sills. Walls consist of an inner and outer skin, with rubble infill and some through stones to bind both skins. Only the northern and western walls remain partially standing above head height. The western wall has an unusual V-shaped slit halfway up the wall. While this may be a ventilation slit, its position and width has led to local suggestion that it was a fortified structure and the opening is a loophole. There is no evidence of the timber dairy addition, noted in the 2002 CMP (GML). The building is now a ruin.
Middle Farm (Larkin's Farm) The Middle Farm sits in an immediate landscape that retains a nineteenth century character of cleared pasture with the view to the east over substantially cleared paddocks and bushland as it would have been in the earliest days of European settlement on the property. It also retains a visual relationship with the other three farms in the group.