The Horsley complex is a heritage-listed rural estate at 52–58 Jamieson Close, Horsley Park, New South Wales, a suburb of.Sydney, Australia. It was built from 1805 to 1832, with uses as a vineyard, orchard, horse and livestock breeding farm. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. The heritage listing for the complex covers the residence and surrounding pastoral property, also known as Horsley complex (homestead, outbuildings, garden, farm), Horsley Park, King's Gift and Horsley House.
History
Establishment of the Horsley estate (1831–1839) and naming of Horsley In 1805, Governor King granted Lieutenant Colonel George Johnston of Annandale farm 2000 acres of land at Prospect, for his part in putting down a convict uprising at Castle Hill in the previous year. Johnston called the farm "King's Gift". Johnston died in 1823. A related place is Horsley near Dapto (Wollongong), which was a grant c. 1818/19 to George Weston's elder brother, William Francis Weston, known as "Mr Johnston's Meadow". William Francis Weston died in 1826 leaving a widow and five small children, and it is possible that George Weston came to Australia to advise and help his sister in law, Elizabeth around this time. The Horsley (Fairfield) land was given by Col. Johnston to his daughter Blanche, who, on 21 May 1829, at St. James' Church, Sydney, married George Edward Nicholas Weston, a Lieutenant in the East India Company Service. Weston had a Swiss mother and his family had descendants on West Horsley Manor in Surrey in England dating back to 1066, farming large estates. It is thought Horsley (Fairfield) is named after West Horsley Manor in Surrey.
The Weston family and estate life Captain & Mrs George Weston spent the following two years in India, returning to Sydney with their two children in July 1831. In that year they took up their property, living in a large Indian tent attended by Indian servants until the house was completed. In 1832, the homestead was built by then, together with major outbuildings (kitchen, stables, blacksmith's shop and barn). The well-wooded land produced timber carted to sawmills for many years. The Westons' predominant interests were agriculture and raising stock, including fine bloodstock race horses. Captain Weston (from reports in the Australian between 1831 and 1841) was involved with the Cumberland Turf Club, the Australian Race Committee, fox hunting, and with contemporary political issues. In 1839, Captain Weston was one of the promoters of a public meeting to petition the continuation of transportation of convicts to maintain the supply of low cost farm labour. An 1843 Sydney Morning Herald report noted his indignation at the loss of a convict's labour by the Governor's order, his support for neighbour William Lawson (of Greystanes) in elections to the Legislative Council in 1843 and his animosity to Hannibal Macarthur in the same election. Other 1844 Sydney Morning Herald reports show his involvement in establishing the Penrith Agricultural Society and his award for the best coaching stallion. The Westons had eight children, 4 girls and 4 boys, 1 of whom died in infancy. In 1837, Captain Weston had a pack of foxhounds at Horsley, and by 1838 his pastoral activities had extended beyond the limits of location, and he held a grazing lease in South-West Yass. An 1841, sale notice in the Australian cited land near the "mansion and improving property" of Captain Weston, but the area was not closely settled then. The Westons exported horses to India, a Sydney Morning Herald report of 29 August 1844 describing 80 horses loaded onto the Blondell bound for Calcutta, of which 31 belonged to Blanche's brothers Robert and David Johnston, and Captain Weston. Although East India Company agents left Calcutta in 1847, horse trading between the Australian colonies continued at a diminishing rate for several more years. George Weston died at Horsley in 1856 at the age of 56 and was buried at St. Bartholemew's cemetery at Prospect. His widow Blanche continued to conduct the farm business, supported by her extended family, and employees and their families, who had been in her service for many years. An 1871 storey in the Town & Country journal describes a garden, vineyard of about 15 acres which produced 2000 gallons of wine in 1870 and none due to blight in 1871, and Mr Frank (Francis, the youngest son, then managing the property)'s pride, his horse stock, many of which were successful race horses. The main driveway from front gates was lined with bunya pines (from photographs these were possibly planted by 1860s/70s) terminating in two Moreton Bay figs, where it reached the crest of the hill on which the house stood. Circular carriage loop and shrubbery laid out in front (east) of house. Later a small carriage drive was laid out (along what is now the north and west site boundaries), and a planted maze. Blanche Weston died in 1904 at the age of 98. At that time, some of her employees were the third generation of those families in service and residence at Horsley. In 1904, the main activity was again grazing, with all the wine used in the house produced on the estate, fine vineyards and orchards. A report in the Cumberland Argus 3 September 1904 notes this, and that wheat had been formerly grown but abandoned due to rust attacks years ago. During Blanche's lifetime, there had been a number of changes to the package of land comprising Horsley and smaller adjoining grants, which had become the property of other Johnston family members or been used to negotiate exchanges with Weston land elsewhere.
Late nineteenth-century prosperity and consolidation and changes to land holdings In 1906, Blanches' widowed daughter Alice Smart successfully applied to have them all brought together under the one certificate of title, making her the owner of 2045 acres, by then traversed to the east by a section of the Sydney Water Supply Canal to Prospect Reservoir.
Subdivision and decline of the estate In 1924 (or 1930), the estate was subdivided into 20 & 40 acre holdings, with approximately 65 acres including the homestead remaining in the possession of Miss Julia Perry, a Weston descendant (granddaughter) of Mrs. Weston). Julia Perry (née Antill), a granddaughter of Mrs Weston, lived there until the late 1930s, when the estate passed out of the hands of the Johnston-Weston family.
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