A LOOK AT THE PONDS HISTORY

EARLY HISTORY

For countless generations before colonization the woodlands rolling between the coast and mountains had been home to bands or clans of Dharug-speaking bush-dwelling people, each ranging in its own territory in accord with seasonal food availability, hunting, gleaning, digging and camping for extended periods at particularly productive spots along creek banks and about the chains of ponds stung out along the valley bottoms.  Stands of ironbark trees covered the crests and shoulders of the hills, but these gave way to grey box and forest red gums as the soil deepened down slope and across the valley floor.  The ground between the trees was covered in grass but very little undergrowth, for the Dharug regularly fired it to encourage fresh grass growth and so attract kangaroos and other grazing animals.

All that changed very quickly with colonization, and especially from 1810-1814, when Governor Lachlan Macquarie had a turnpike road built between Parramatta and Windsor on the Hawkesbury and began making land grants along the length of it. 

THE FIRST LAND GRANTS

At 1500 acres Hambledon, which was granted to John Palmer, was one of Macquarie's larger grants, but it was set back from Windsor Road behind a 250 acre grant that he made to ex-marine Jonas Bradley, and adjoining grants of 70 and 60 acres awarded to his sons Thomas and William, both Currency lads, in 1818.  The Bradleys took up their farms and worked them well - so much so that in 1823 that ‘meritorious marine settler' Jonas was lauded for this successful cultivation of tobacco. 

JOHN PALMER 

John Palmer was a handsome, navy educated Englishman who, with his American born wife, Susan, arrived in Sydney with the First Fleet aboard the ship "Sirius" as the ship's purser in 1788.  He was Commissary-General of New South Wales from 1791-1796 and 1800-1811, in charge of the government sores.  His first land grant was 100 acres near Garden Cove, given to him by Major General Grose.  He also managed the first bakery and flour mill in Sydney.  His life accomplishments in Sydney also included careers as a farmer, magistrate and ship-owner and he had other land holdings.  He had a reputation for discreet benevolence, enhanced by a friendly manner and cheerful hature.  He was an adherent of the Church of England and died in 1833.

The Ponds is within what was then known as Hambledon.  The only buildings would have most likely been workers cottages.  The land was used as holding ground for stock, growing pasture along with corn and wheat.  An onsite flour mill was used by the workers to grind their own grain.  John Palmer himself settled at Waddon, near Parramatta.

MERRIVILLE HOUSE

Merriville House, located in present day Kellyville Ridge and adjacent to The Ponds, stands on what was Jonas Bradley's land.  The house, however, has long been associated with the Hambledon name.  Certainly in describing landmarks along Windsor Road, the NSW Calendar and General Post Office Directory of 1832 refers to "Hambledon the Estate of J. Paler, Esq Senior, now tenanted by the Reverend Mr. Wilkinson, who established a very excellent academy for the education of young pupils".  But the Palmer holdings were masked from the roadway by Bradley's hill, so any dwelling visible from the road must have been on the Bradley block, more or less where Merriville stands today.  It is notable, however, that in August 1844 Palmer's solicitors entered a rental advertisement in the Sydney morning Herald for a 1700 acre farm called Hambledon, which, besides ‘store, dairy, stable and granary, and a flour mill' contained a ‘superior Cottage of eleven rooms' - a substantial building that sounds very much like today's Merriville House.

The Bradley block was bought by Elias Pearson Laycock in 1952.  Laycock in turn sold it to Robert Pearce in 1966.  Elias Pearce purchased the adjoining Palmer land in 1973.  The Pearce family cultivated orchards in the area and owned Mungerie House in Rouse Hill.  The first sign of the name Merriville appeared in the death notice of Robert Pearce's wife, Euphemia Jessie Pearce, in 1922 in the Windsor and Richmond Gazette, which mentions her dying at Maryville.

The house became Merriville when the property was bought by the Sharkies in 1953.  The Sharkie family owned Merriville until Landcom purchased it in the 1980's.  The house is presently owned by Colin & Marion Wade, who purchased it in 1993 from Landcom.

REGIONAL CONTEXT

From a regional aspect, The Ponds is located within Blacktown City Council.  The first railway station was built in Blacktown in 1860, the first post office two years later.  The first school to open in the area was in Prospect in 1967, then at Rooty Hill in 1875 and Blacktown in 1877.  The Shire of Blacktown was created in 1906 and by 1914 6,000 people lived there.  Electricity came to Blacktown in 1930.

The arrival of the railway to Quakers Hill opened the area up to more residential development with the Quakers Hill Estate subdivision offered for sale in the early 1900s. Despite this the area still retained its rural character until after the Second World War when housing development in Blacktown gathered momentum.  Blacktown became a municipality in 1961 and a city in 1979.  In 1966 the population was 111,488.

Blacktown is now a city of 265,000 people with 48 suburbs and one of the fastest growing populations in Australia with an additional 5,300 residents moving into the area each year. The city is home to people from many cultural backgrounds with 29% of residents speaking a language other than English. Blacktown has the largest Aboriginal population in Australia.

The immediate residential areas around The Ponds include Newbury, Kellyville Ridge and Stanhope Gardens are some of Blacktown's newest residential areas. Like other areas of the city they are home to young, culturally diverse communities.