Rous Lench is a

heritage-listed This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and human-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In ma ...

farm and homestead located at Denman Road, in the

Muswellbrook Shire Muswellbrook Shire is a local government area in the Upper Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia. The Shire is situated adjacent to the New England Highway and the Hunter railway line. Muswellbrook Shire was established on 1 July 1979 f ...

local government area of

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, Australia. It was built from 1875 to 1895. It was added to the

New South Wales State Heritage Register The New South Wales State Heritage Register, also known as NSW State Heritage Register, is a heritage list of places in the state of New South Wales, Australia, that are protected by New South Wales legislation, generally covered by the Heritag ...

on 2 April 1999.

History

The land on which both Edinglassie and Rous Lench are located was the original Portion 4 of the Parish of Brougham in the County of Durham. This comprised an area of 1280 acres the deed of grant for which was issued to George Forbes on 1 August 1839. Like many grants of the period the land had been occupied for many years before it was officially surveyed and the deed grant issued. The

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

homestead is a low cottage constructed of rendered brick and corrugated iron featuring a roof ridge extended to form small gables, four panel doors, large four-pane sash windows, panelled ceilings, and gunstock stiles on French windows at the side. A photograph dating from the 1880s showing the first part of Edinglassie adjacent to an earlier hipped roof house indicates that the original house was demolished and/or rebuilt when the present Edinglassie was completed in . It is therefore not likely that Rous Lench is the original homestead. The homestead was designed by

John Horbury Hunt John Horbury Hunt (1838 – 30 December 1904), often referred to as Horbury Hunt, was a Canadian-born Australian architect who worked in Sydney and rural New South Wales from 1863. Life and career Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, the son of ...

Description

The homestead is a low cottage constructed of rendered brick and

corrugated iron Corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America), zinc (in Cyprus and Nigeria) or ...

featuring a roof ridge extended to form small

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s, four panel doors, large four-pane

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s, panelled ceilings, and gunstock

stile A stile is a structure or opening that provides passage for humansrather than animals such as livestockover or through a boundary. Common forms include steps, ladders, or narrow gaps. Stiles are often built in rural areas along footpaths, fen ...

s on French windows at the side. A photograph dating from the 1880s showing the first part of Edinglassie adjacent to an earlier

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...

house indicates that the original house was demolished and/or rebuilt when the present Edinglassie was completed in . It is therefore not likely that Rous Lench is the original homestead.

Heritage listing

As at 31 July 2007, the Edinglassie property including the Edinglassie homestead, associated buildings and Rous Lench cottage are closely associated with the earliest European occupation of the area and collectively represent one of the earliest land grants of the initial settlement of the Hunter Valley. The Edinglassie property demonstrates various phases of human activities such as settlement and clearing, water supply and management, sheep and cattle running, development of specialist cattle breeding activities, recreation, viticulture and horse breeding. The Edinglassie homestead with its associated outbuildings and Rous Lench cottage are good architectural examples of their type and style. The Edinglassie property demonstrates an excellent application of the Arcadian design approach to the siting of structures and elements in the landscape which is rare in the region. The place is also significant because it is associated with George Forbes, the original grantee, who was one of the "gentry" settlers in the early settlement of the area. It is associated with a prominent family, the Whites, a leading pastoral dynasty, who were synonymous with the opening and development of the region. It illustrates the degree of opulence achieved and lifestyles led by the leading pastoral families in the area. It is associated with a significant Australian architect,

. It is a well known landmark, and has provided a community focus over a number of generations form the turn of the 19th century. It has extant and potential intact archaeological evidence capable of helping interpret past occupation and lifestyles of the area. The siting of the homestead is intrinsic to its significance. Rous Lench was listed on the

on 2 April 1999.

References

Bibliography

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Attribution