His wife, Mary, accompanied him on the Minorca as a free woman, and in 1803 she received a grant of 28 hectares (69 acres) on the Castlereagh flood-plain.

After obtaining an additional 20 hectares (49 acres) at Prospect, the Collits family was allowed to settle over the Blue Mountains in 1821 with 145 head of cattle, but Pierce remained as Chief constable on the Nepean until 1823.

[1] Until Mitchell opened Victoria Pass in 1832, Collits Inn, the Golden Fleece, was the premier hostelry on the old western road.

[1] Historical Period:[1] Collits' Inn is a single story Old Colonial Georgian building, of weatherboard and brick nog construction.

The nature of the historic occupation of the site and of the documentary evidence, means that additional material or deposits, particularly informally established features such as rubbish dumps, may be expected to be present elsewhere in or around the Inn.

[1] Draft Landscape Conservation Management Principles:[3] As at 10 August 2007, Collits' Inn and its group of surviving buildings is of national significance for its rare historical, aesthetic, technical and social values.

It was the first wayside inn built west of the Blue Mountains and was sited to service people and stock using the first roads descending Mount York.

[1] Aesthetically the group of buildings are remarkably well preserved and the Inn, clad in weatherboard, is an excellent example of a wayside inn from the colonial period with many of the characteristics of the Old Colonial Georgian style including its pleasant human scale, symmetrical facade, stone flagged verandah below a broken backed hipped roof, small paned sash windows and simple chimneys.

The setting in a remote site in the Vale of Clywdd below a spur of the Blue Mountains and its visual relationship to Mount York also contributes to this aesthetic significance.

Other important issues which could provide opportunities for further research are the range of early building materials and techniques such as the use of dry pressed bricks, local sandstone, joinery and other timberwork including the rough timber construction for the surviving outbuildings such as the barn.

Initially it was intrinsically linked with the lives of all early NSW travellers and settlers west of the mountains providing an important service to the region and a rare social meeting place.

During the years while operating as a substantial farm it was important to the Hartley community possibly as a symbol of the first grazing and inn keeping family to settle in the region.

The main Inn and surrounding site has considerable historical archaeological value and research potential to demonstrate the general character of its types of occupation from the early 19th century onwards.

Although a number of city hotels have been archaeologically excavated in recent years that is not the case for roadside inns, especially those in rural and remote locations.

Collits Inn and its group of surviving buildings is of National Significance for its rare historical, aesthetic, technical and social values.

[1] It was the first wayside inn built west of the Blue Mountains and was sited to service people and stock using the first roads descending Mount York.

The adjacent cemetery has direct connections with the Collits family and the Inn is historically important in itself for its associations with first settlement west of the Blue Mountains.

The setting at a remote site in the Vale of Clwydd below a spur of the Blue Mountains and its visual relationship to Mount York also contributes to this aesthetic significance.