History of Mamre Homestead, St Marys NSW

Mamre is an 85-hectare property at St Marys, part of the Rev. Samuel Marsden’s South Creek farm established in 1804.

Marsden named Mamre for the future, a ‘place of promise’, after the Biblical Mamre where Abraham settled beneath the sacred oaks. This model farm produced Merino wool, abundant fruits and food for the colony. He built the Homestead in the 1820s for his son, Charles.

The Georgian style homestead has been renovated to close to its original state, with shuttered windows, verandahs, iron roof and sandstone flaggings.

Rev. Samuel Marsden

Rev. Samuel Marsden had arrived in Australia with his wife and son (born at sea in the midst of a storm 9 days prior) in Port Jackson (now Sydney Harbour) at the newly founded Colony of New South Wales on 10th of March, 1794.

Mamre Homestead

Originally a storage barn for wool, Mamre Homestead was built in the 1820s from brick and was noted for its cultivated rose and cottage gardens.

Mamre, where I spent so many happy days with my uncle, was a farm on the South Creek... The house was a two-storey brick building with a good gravel drive in front. Beyond, several hundred yards, was a splendid orchard of twenty acres. The fruits surpassed any that I have seen these forty years. The grapes, chiefly muscatel, were very fine. Peaches, apples, pears, oranges, apricots and nectarines, were in abundance. Supplies were constantly sent to Sydney, in the season, in waggon-loads and sold well. Large crops of wheat, and oaten hay were produced on the farm. The horses bred at Mamre were very good and sold at high prices. I remember a carriage horse brought a hundred guineas, and few sold under 70 or 80 pounds. The farm and orchard were worked by assigned servants, numbering I should say, from twenty to thirty hands.
-- James Hassell

Merino Wool

Marsden, was given a land grant of 100 acres on the Field of Mars near Dundas, NSW. It was seen as neccesary that all settlers were able to fend for themselves, instead of placing a burden on the newly established Colony.

Soon after, he purchased another 128 acres at South Creek near St Marys, the site where the Homestead is situated. He cleared and cultivated both properties soon after, stocking them with some cattle, Bengal Ewes and Cape Rams. They became prolific breeders, by 1795 he had over 1400 female goats and sheep.

In 1798, Marsden began to experiment with breeding his sheep through selection, concentrating on sheep that produced more mutton and wool. Not much later, he began to concentrate on sheep according to fleece, constitution, looks and weight.

Purchasing a Spanish merino ram and ewe from Captain Waterhouse, he crossed them with the best of his own flock. Two crosses later, by 1803 the sheep were producing wool, rather than the rough hair that had been produced in the colony prior.

From the book Mamre Place of Promise written by Laura Murray Cree.

This natural sandstone water filtration system, pictured above, was used by the Rouse family and donated by the Maclaurin family - a traditional method for water purification.

Water would be placed in the basin at the top and allowed to drain off at the bottom. There are no holes in the bottom of the basin, the sandstone, when saturated, becomes porous enough to let the water thru but not the impurities. This was a widely adopted method for cleaning water throughout the 1800s.

Read about Modern Mamre in the About Us Section.