Kirkham - NSW

The original inhabitants of the area were the Dharawal people, who were displaced then dispossessed by European occupation of the area. The early European settlers created a cultural landscape similar in their minds to the land of their forefathers in England, where the ordered countryside of large estates had tamed the wilderness.

John Oxley (1784–1828) was granted 1,000 acres by Lieutenant-Governor William Paterson, which he had to surrender in 1810. Governor Macquarie subsequently granted Oxley 600 acres, which was increased to 1,000 acres in 1815. The grant was named Kirkham after Oxley's birthplace, Kirkham Abbey in Yorkshire, and had frontages on the Great Southern Road and the Nepean River.

The 1816 Colonial Georgian Kirkham Stables building is one of the oldest stable and farm buildings in Australia and a prominent landmark in the relatively intact rural landscape and farm setting at Kirkham. The Kirkham estate is now given over to a large rural residential development for well-heeled urbanites looking for a country escape.

Comprehensive information on Kirkham and its environs can be found at https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/kirkham