Home ] [ Our History ] Attractions ] Accommodation & Activities ] [Surfways] Rates] Contact ]

 

Our History

Historic Lansdowne Park established in 1825 is Goulburn's oldest homestead and earliest farming complex.  This was long before Robert Hoddle produced plans for the new town of Goulburn.  A travelling medical man stayed at a scenically situated dwelling house called "Lansdowne Park".  Not long after, the Mulwaree Chain of Ponds which stretches along below the hill where Lansdowne homestead stands, is where Jonas Bradley's son, William, found a site on the lower level for his Flour Mill and Brewery (now the Goulburn Brewery) and Malt House.  William Bradley married Emily Hovell, the daughter of one of the famous explorers, William Hovell, of Hume and Hovell at Lansdowne Park in 1834.  William Bradley introduced coarse wool sheep to Australia about the same period.  William Hovell died in 1875, 90 years of age and is buried in Old St Saviours Cemetery Goulburn.
Lansdowne Park was the termination point of the Great South Road (now Hume Highway), the last contact with civilisation for those waiting to venture into the country which lay beyond.  As settlement spread and the South Road became more busy, the stables at Lansdowne were used by Cobb & Co.  These lovely old stables and coach house were fashioned from random rubble stone quarried from the nearby hills.  The gables on the stables and coach house are embellished by the elaborately carved barge boards of the gothic revival and the horse stalls are marked by posts finished with carved capitals beneath an arcade of timber.  Much of the timber in the stables is cedar including the feed trough and beams.