The Mcintosh family has been custodians of Denbigh on Sydney’s South-Western periphery for 156 years. They are working hard to ensure the property remains intact for future generations.
The smell of garden at Denbigh greets visitors long before they’ve even set eyes on the Clivea-lined driveway or the yellow bungalow homestead. The heady scent of jasmine in full bloom assaults the senses as guests arrive for Susie and Ian McIntosh’s early spring open day. The jasmine cascades over the front fence, climbs up tree trunks and tumbles over walls throughout the garden, which, in a sense, has been a work in progress since 1812. In that year, the property in the newly discovered Cowpastures district was granted to merchant Charles Hook as a reward for his loyalty to Governor Bligh during the military coup that became known as the Rum Rebellion. Hook supplemented his 1000-acre (404-hectare) grant from Governor Macquarie with a further 200 acres (80ha).
Wary of Aboriginal attack, he supervised the convict construction of the first building, a stables from locally quarried stone, which was protected by barred turret windows. He surrounded the property with a high paling fence, then sited other outbuildings around a forest red gum, which remains a focal point for the property to the present day and is estimated to be at least 230 years old. In 1817, Hook also started building the timber bungalow, which had a shingled hipped roof and broad verandahs decorated with a distinctive metal trim, possibly inspired like the house itself, from time spent in India. Following Hook’s death, his wife, Sarah, sold Denbigh to the Reverend Thomas Hassall, better known as the ‘galloping parson’ for the pace at which he covered his parish, which extended from Marulan to Parramatta, a distance of 160km and no mean feat on horseback. Thomas had spent time as a young boy on Tahiti where his parents were sent from London as missionaries. Susie believes that it was there, as a child playing with Tahitian children, that Thomas developed a respect for, and understanding of, Indigenous cultures that was shared by very few at the time. Sympathetic to Aboriginal people in the Cowpastures, the high fences around Denbigh came down and Thomas befriended those living on Denbigh. The land was at the confluence of three language groups – Dharug, Tharawal and Gandangara – and as late as the 1850s Thomas’s son, James, recorded ceremonial gatherings at the front of the homestead. In 1838, Hassall Snr commenced work on a two-storey addition to the house made from bricks fired from clay found on the property.
As a child growing up at Denbigh, Ian recalls his grandparents living in the bungalow and his family in the extension. “There were French doors between the two buildings,” he says. “They served as a kind of ‘iron curtain’. We children only crossed over for afternoon tea and treats after school. Our grandparents came for Sunday roast dinners in the dining room of ‘our section’.” The McIntosh family first leased Denbigh from Thomas’ widow Anne, then bought the property in 1868. They bred draught horses for brewery carts and horse-drawn buses in Sydney, grew wheat and raised cattle. In 1910,the Denbigh Ayrshire stud was founded and in 1971 the McIntosh family started a Holstein stud. Both have produced many champions at the Sydney Royal and local shows. Through the generations – Ian and Susie’s children, Jamie and Mimi, are the sixth to call Denbigh home – the McIntoshes have added slab stables, hay sheds, milking bails, machinery sheds and silos. The property supported a working dairy well into Ian’s adult life, though it was no longer operating when Susie met Ian and moved in as a newlywed in the early 1990s.
These days, the land is agisted and Ian and Susie have spent the best part of the past two decades restoring the many heritage buildings. “When we became the custodians, we engaged [heritage architect] Alan Croker of Design 5 to come up with a conservation plan,” Ian says, Serendipity comes in many guises and for Ian and Susie, it began when a harness room wall collapsed. “We engaged builder James Haney to fix it,” Susie recalls. “He’s a truly remarkable tradesperson, more of an artist really. He patches rather than restores and he’s responsible for having saved and preserved many of our buildings. Without him, the Denbigh you see today would not exist.” James is also responsible for stone birdbaths in the garden and various metal installations around the grounds, which are among many artworks displayed.
Susie points to noteworthy original features of the grounds including the wind-shielding western grove of African olive trees, initially imported by John and Elizabeth Macarthur who built nearby Camden Park. There’s also a towering bunya pine that was planted in the early days as a homestead marker and Old Blush China roses in the beds at the front of the bungalow are believed to be the first ever grown in the colony. “While Denbigh always had a garden, Ian’s mother, Lesley, was responsible for most of the present-day structure,” Susie says. “I found the responsibility of taking over from her quite daunting, so we hired horticulturalist Gavin Noaks to advise us. Sadly, he passed away but his partner, Jodie Asher, has carried on helping in the garden and I’m indebted to her for maintenance and helping us get ready for charity open days.” Since Denbigh was added to the NSW State Heritage Register in 2006, the McIntoshes and Ian’s cousin, Angela Head, have been successful in having a curtilage of 500 acres (202ha) created on their adjoining lands to protect this extraordinary remnant of colonial farm life. While suburbia may be creeping ever closer, they can rest assured that Denbigh and its buildings nestled in that the Traditional Owners call ‘the valley of peace’ will be protected for future generations.
When Australian Country visited in early spring, Ian and Susie were full tilt preparing for an open day to support a fundraiser for one of Susie’s passion projects, Foster a Potter. Potters from all over the Macarthur region and far-flung corners of the country were converging on the farm to display and sell their wares for the recently formed not-for-profit organisation. Modelled on an English institution called Adopt a Potter, the Australian version also promotes skills and knowledge in ceramics education by supporting and funding students to learn and work alongside experienced potters. “There are a lot of highly experienced master potters in this country,” Susie says. “They have many skills to share with emerging artists and, truth to be told, some of the older ones are getting on and could do with a bit of help with the heavy lifting of running a pottery. So Foster a Potter is a two way exchange of resources.
We’re aiming to provide an emerging potter with a $10,000 grant to facilitate that partnership, whether it’s to pay for accommodation or travel to get to work with the mentor of their choosing.” A potter herself, Susie says she came to the art as a distraction from her work as a psychotherapist. “I was hopeless at art at school as I couldn’t draw to save myself,” she explains. “But I’ve always collected pottery, even as a young backpacker I bought pieces and brought them home. I actually took up potting as a form of therapy for myself and discovered that there’s something very centring, almost meditative, about having your hands in clay.” Having been loaned a wheel, Susie practised for about six months before she was accepted into a course at Sturt Gallery and Studios at Mittagong in the NSW Southern Highlands. A decade down the track, she is now well established as a potter and has her studio in the stone stables building at Denbigh. “A lot of talented artists have helped me along the way,” Susie says. “I began thinking about how it would be good to formalise that sharing of expertise.” As it turned out, master potter Jean McMaster from Herberton on Queensland’s Atherton Tableland was arriving at the same viewpoint at the same time. In collaboration with artist, teacher and former executive director of the Australian Ceramics Association Vicki Grima they’ve become directors of Foster a Potter, which they hope will grow over time to encourage many other enthusiasts to embrace the art.
More than 700 visitors came to the recent Denbigh open day, which added a significant injection of almost $20,000 to the Foster a Potter fundraising effort. “We’re indebted to all the potters who came and ran pottery demonstrations over the weekend, and more than 40 friends who did everything from supervise parking and ticket sales and run the café and sausage sizzle to clear out sheds for exhibition space,” Susie says. “I’m mindful that old buildings need to be used or they can fall into the ground, so I’m always looking for ways to give them a new lease on life.” While Susie looks to her ‘muddy friends’ to keep Denbigh ticking along, Ian has his own plans for using the property to make a positive impact on the community. For many years he’s been planting trees as part of his dream to restore the landscape to the original Cumberland Plains woodland. Recently, however, his efforts received a significant boost when he was approached by Wilding Western Sydney, which aims to restore the original ecology to parkland tracts in the region. “Scientists will evaluate the property, collect seeds from remaining species and revegetate the land,” Ian says. “Plants that no longer grow here will be reintroduced and biodiversity restored. I believe in allowing things to happen organically. We know what we want to achieve to preserve Denbigh and by bringing the right people together it’s been remarkable the way things have evolved to make it happen.”
