Elizabeth Farm: the old and the new
This film was digitised as part of a special project to preserve 'at risk' audio-visual archives. It was produced in 1987 for the Heritage Council of NSW Copyright NSW Film Corporation. It is a Promotional film from the Department of Environment and Planning.
Film ID: NRS16375 A000022723
Elizabeth Farm was built in 1793 by John and Elizabeth Macarthur. It is described as:
a simple rectangular cottage, resembling a typical rural English farmhouse. It had four box-like rooms with a steeply pitched shale roof and was whitewashed with small sashed-windows on either side of the door. As with most of the early Colonial architecture it made few concessions to the Australian climate....Elizabeth Farm, which was both a family home and a farm, was the site for the first experiments with Merino wool in Australia.
In the 1820s John Macarthur undertook extensive renovations "extending and improving the cottage to make it more suited to his wealth and prominence in the Colony. He altered the entire profile of the house..."
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Dr Scott Hill
Curator
Formal studies in architecture, along with travels through Asia and Europe, furthered Scott’s interest in colonial building, domestic design, and the intrinsic relationship between architecture and landscape. This culminated in his PhD ‘Paper Houses’, which examines the significant colonial identity John Macarthur’s interest in architecture, and the design of the Macarthur houses Elizabeth Farm (1793) and Camden Park (1834). In Scott’s words: ‘understanding a historic house, an interior or landscape is for me a process of 'reverse‐designing', about taking the finished product and digging down to find the 'why': the reasons, the decisions and the myriad hidden influences that led to its creation’. He has been curator at Elizabeth Bay House and Vaucluse House and most recently at Elizabeth Farm, Rouse Hill Estate, and Meroogal; ‘The Curator’ in the award-winning SLM blog The Cook and the Curator; co-curated the Eat Your History: A Shared Table exhibition; and in 2023-24 he was senior curator of the exhibition ‘The People’s House: Sydney Opera House at 50’ at the Museum of Sydney.
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12 Feb 1793 - John Macarthur granted land at Parramatta
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