[2] Situated about 30 kilometres (19 miles) west of central Sydney, the hill is Sydney's largest body of igneous rock and is higher than the ridges of the Cumberland Plain around it, with its present-day highest point being 117 metres (384 feet) high,[3] although before its summit was quarried away it rose to a height of 131 metres (430 feet) above sea level.

Oval in shape, the hill has historical significance as one of the first places in the fledgling Colony of New South Wales where liberated convicts were granted land to farm.

The hill started to form around 200 million years ago when volcanic material from the Earth's core was thrust upwards and then sideways into joints in the layers of Triassic shales of the Cumberland Plain Woodland.

There is also evidence to suggest that the occupation of these lands continued after European contact, through discovery of intermingled glass and stone flakes in archaeological surveys of the place.

[6] Very early after first settlement, on 26 April 1788, an exploration party heading west led by Governor Phillip, climbed Prospect Hill.

[13] During the initial struggling years of European settlement in NSW, Governor Phillip began to settle time-expired convicts on the land as farmers, after the success of James Ruse at Rose Hill.

On 1 May 1801 Governor King took drastic action, issuing a public order requiring that Aboriginal people around Parramatta, Prospect Hill and Georges River should be "driven back from the settlers" habitations by firing at them'.

[16][17] The meeting was significant because a group of Aboriginal women and a young free settler at Prospect named John Kennedy acted as intermediaries.

The Sydney Gazette report of the meeting is notable for the absence of the sneering tone that characterised its earlier coverage of Aboriginal matters.

[6][20] A change in the interpretation of government policy in 1792 had opened the way for grants of land to officers of the New South Wales Marine Corps.

In 1808 William Lawson was granted 220 hectares (550 acres) on the western slopes of the west ridge where he was to build his home Veteran Hall.

He then bought Cummings' grant and it was here that his third son, Nelson Lawson built a magnificent home, Grey Stanes, on the crown of Prospect Hill.

Greystanes was approached by a long drive lined with an avenue of English trees - elms (Ulmus procera), hawthorns (Crataegus sp.

[23] By the latter part of the nineteenth century coarse-grained picrite, and other doloritic rock types were being extracted from William Lawson's estate on the west and north sides of the Hill.

This scheme was to be Sydney's fourth water supply system, following the Tank Stream, Busby's Bore and the Botany (Lachlan) Swamps.

[6][24] By the 1870s, with the collapse of the production of cereal grains across the Cumberland Plain, the Prospect Hill area appears to have largely been devoted to livestock.

In 2000, the CSIRO site has an area of 57.15 hectares (141.2 acres) and is the primary research centre of the Division of Animal Production, with some 40 buildings and sheds having been constructed over the last forty years.

The gap in the ridge that had previously been created by quarrying has been lowered to the floor level of the quarry and the drainage of the area reversed from its earlier northward flow to empty into Prospect Creek, while a new road, Reconciliation Road, has been driven through the centre of the hill from Prospect Highway and across the gap to Wetherill Park.

[27] On 31 December 2019, during the intense 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, a grass fire broke out on the hill's pine forest and the contiguous grey box reserve, where it headed north towards Pemulwuy along the Prospect Highway.

About 10 hectare size and burning a number of historic Monterey pine trees, the fire impacted a large industrial area and threatened numerous properties before being brought under control by about 9 pm that day.

Lying centrally in the Cumberland Plain and dominating the landscape of the area, Prospect Hill is Sydney's largest body of igneous rock and rises to a height of 117 metres above sea level.

The CSIRO portion of Prospect Hill is generally cleared for pasture grasses, with remnant stands of native vegetation along a creek line that runs from north to south along the site.

[6] The first settlement of the area occurred in 1791 on the eastern and southern slopes of Prospect Hill, however no buildings dating from the 18th or 19th century remain above ground.

The Early Jurassic activity resulted in the shaping of the Prospect dolerite intrusion, which unequivocally points that the hill had a volcanic origin.

When Australia, then part of the Gondwana supercontinent, began to break up and drift away from Antarctica and Zealandia 80 million years ago, this may have also caused a period of volcanic activity along the east coast, as breakup tension caused deep faults in the continental crust allowing magma to ascent from the mantle regions below the earth's surface.

[29] The eroded residue of the volcanic core forms Prospect Hill, which was battered down over millions of years to a small bulge in the generally flat lands of western Sydney.

As a dolerite outcrop rising to a height of 117 metres (384 ft) AHD, Prospect Hill is a rare geological and significant topographic feature providing expansive views across the Cumberland Plain.

[15] Prospect Hill is also associated with an important phase of Aboriginal/European contact; firstly through Pemulwuy's guerilla warfare in the area between 1797 and 1802, and in 1805 as the site of a reconciliation meeting involving Samuel Marsden.

Prospect Hill has aesthetic significance as Sydney's largest body of igneous rock, which rises to a height of 117 metres and provides expansive views across the Cumberland Plain.

The large dolerite formation of Prospect Hill is a rare geological and landmark topographic feature, lying centrally within the Cumberland Plain.