Nonetheless a party was organized by Governor Hunter to investigate the stories of the Aboriginal people that the first herd (which had grown substantially in size) was grazing 60 kilometres (37 mi) to the south-west of the Sydney town centre.

They admired the absence of underbrush – probably achieved through Aboriginal land management practices (burning off) – and felt comfortable with a landscape that reminded them of an English gentleman's park.

[1] Restoring order after the rebellion, Governor Macquarie recalled a number of the grants given out by Foveaux and Paterson during the interregnum but he agreed that the "right" or northern bank of the Nepean should be settled.

Food shortages and the imminence of population growth as the Anglo-American War of Independence drew to a close prompted this move to favourable ground in the south-west of the Sydney Plain.

[1] Some sources state that the first house that William Douglas Campbell built at Harrington Park – now the kitchen – was a modest single-room dwelling of local bricks with a stone floor and a fireplace at one end and sleeping cabins at the other.

Two years later, he leased, and later sold, a smaller farming allotment of 121 hectares (300 acres) north of the Cobbitty Road to George Graham, a farmer from Liverpool.

After his death, his share in the Harrington Park estate passed to his eldest brother, William Douglas Campbell the younger, a resident of Scotland, and the property reportedly declined from that time.

The remaining 364-hectare (899-acre) portion (with the homestead on it) was sold at auction to the highest bidder, Sydney leather dealer James Rofe for £1,775, together with the 3 hectares (8 acres) under lease.

[1] Records of William Macarthur's Camden Park Nursery sales indicate that Davy, who was proposed as a member of the Australian Horticultural and Agricultural Society in September 1857, undertook an extensive planting program with many of his purchases consisting of conifers.

Not much is known about Walter Britten's farming activity but he leased some of the land to dairy farmer in the interwar period and the remainder to a Sydney agent, Lee Chapman Solomon in 1931.

At the time the company acquired the property, during World War II, part of a military camp occupied a piece of land in the north-west corner.

The Army used other neighbouring historic properties such as Studley Park and Brownlow Hill and the Camden district also accommodated RAAF training squadrons at the local Aerodrome.

[1] At 72 kilometres (45 mi) by the Hume Highway (formerly the Great South Road), the Narellan campsite was ideal, because the district was sufficiently distant from Sydney for security purposes but close enough for regular contact.

[1] Following the death of his mother Lady Fairfax in 1965, Warwick inherited the historic harbour side mansion Fairwater at 560 New South Head Road, Double Bay.

In 1982 a Commission of Inquiry into the future of Harrington Park recommended that the 320 hectares (790 acres) in the southeast corner be rezoned from rural to urban, which was approved by then Planning Minister Craig Knowles in 1986.

The direct relationship between the homstead group and its traditional landscape features, such as Narellan Creek and Crear Hill, has been recently compromised by intervening suburban development.

Other views from the homestead or its surrounding gardens to neighbouring estates Orielton, Studley Park, Camden town (St.John's church spire), Camelot / Kirkham etc.

[1] Entrances to the property were from both Cowpasture Road (now Camden Valley Way) in roughly the same location as the current entry drive (since altered by residential development), passing across the race course and arriving at the carriage loop in front of the house via the south-west near the stockyards.

[1] A series of farm dams to the house's south-east have been modified or lost with residential development although the small pond alongside the 1890s realigned driveway remains within open space.

Non-coniferous species include the native kurrajongs (Brachychiton populneus), Norfolk Island hibiscus / white oak / cow itch tree (Lagunaria patersonia – several), European olive (Olea europaea cv.

The homestead built in stages between 1817 and 1827, associated structures, gardens, landscape features, and remnant grazing paddocks have historical, social, aesthetic and technical significance at the State level.

[1] The place currently retains some key historical visual relationships – vistas to Orielton, Studley Park, the spire of St. John's Church, Camden and the Razorback Range.

Although the Harrington Park homestead now shares its land with modern housing estates, it still retains sufficient grounds, farm buildings and improved pastures to demonstrate the style of living enjoyed by gentleman farmers in the early nineteenth century.

He was a partner of John Macarthur whose properties were at neighbouring Camden but later earned favour with Governor Macquarie for his part in rescuing the English missionaries from Tahiti.

[1] The homestead complex is significant for its associations with the squatting age, established when William Rudd Snr, formerly a smallholder from Campbelltown, made his home there after his success with a much larger pastoral lease on the Murrumbidgee.

Communicating with his office by telephone, Sir Warwick ran the paper while he lived part-time at Harrington Park and used the property as a retreat from his business life.

Despite the residential development of much of the Harrington Park Estate, the homestead knoll and remnant cultural landscape is still easily discernable from the major access routes in the area of The Northern Road and Camden Valley Way.

Harrington Park is of State significance for its ability to demonstrate the evolution of an upper-class working estate from early colonial times to the twentieth century.

The evolution of the house in terms of its fabric, dimensions and layout, is illustrative of the social and economic standing of its owners within the colony and their resources and the genteel lifestyle to which they aspired.

Harrington Park is rare at the State level as one of the earliest Gentleman's residences (1817–1827) dating from the Macquarie period on the Cowpasture frontier of the Cumberland Plain.