Riversdale is a heritage-listed house in the early colonial Regency style located in Goulburn, New South Wales, Australia.

The house is listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register[1] and the property is owned by the National Trust of Australia.

[1] The land on which Riversdale was built was originally owned by Matthew Healey who ran a small hotel on the property called the Old Goulburn Inn.

A story in the Sydney Morning Herald of July 1842 recounts the concern that Benjamin Gould had about the safety of the nearby bridge which crossed the Wollondilly River.

[8] He was remembered by one former pupil as "a splendid man and a great scholar" who had the gift of imparting knowledge to others and although he was strict he was kind hearted.

[5]: page:31 Shortly before David Patterson left Riversdale an advertisement appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald for the sale of the building.

A mention is made in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1861 that John had grown a prize apple at his house in the Old Township of Goulburn.

[12] The first reference to the property being called Riversdale was in 1862 when a marriage notice (see picture on right) for the eldest daughter Emily was placed in the Sydney Morning Herald[13] by John Fulljames.

He obtained employment as an assistant surveyor soon after he arrived in Sydney and during his career he carried out many important surveys into the interior of New South Wales.

When the youngest sister Alice Joan died in 1967 the property was sold to the National Trust of Australia and it is still owned and operated by them today.

A Victorian cottage garden was established full of greys and greens, lavender and silver, with highlights of pink, yellow, white and red, and heritage roses.

In the early 2000s the property was leased for a short while as the Trust attempted to resolve the perennial problem of attracting ongoing funding for maintenance of the highly significant heritage in its care.

Soon the reestablishment of the important historic feature of heritage fruit trees and a substantial raised vegetable garden will take place.

The garden now abounds with lamb's ear, catmint, larkspurs, peonies, delphiniums, poppies, sweet peas, lavenders, melianthus (honey flower), salvias, roses and flag iris, alliums and perfumed Lilium candidum.

[1] At the beginning of 2013 over 500 people gathered to hear a special Mass in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Catholic Diocese of Goulburn.

[22][1] Volunteer Ray Shiel has made Riversdale's vegetable garden his responsibility and has transformed it, along with the viability and appeal of the property.

[24][1] Now into the fifth year of its annual Open Garden Australia day and Vintage Fair, monthly homestead markets were initiated in 2014.

A community building partnership grant enabled construction of a ramp to give disabled access to the toilet block.

Riversdale has a partly intact early colonial garden, which has been restored and supplemented since 1967 by National Trust volunteers, mainly of shrubs, perennials, bulbs fruit and shelter trees (the latter, both coniferous and broadleaf).

[1] Riversdale, having functioned as inn and a school as well as a residence, has a notable connection with the area's social history over a lengthy period.

[1] Riversdale also has historic and aesthetic significance for its partly intact early colonial garden, which has been restored and supplemented since 1967 by National Trust volunteers.

[1] Riversdale, Goulburn was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 1 March 2002 having satisfied the following criteria.

The Healy/ Richards/ Fulljames/ Twynam allotment was the only major private construction of the Old Town, with the added value of its public function as an Inn and rest house.

The property is capable of demonstrating a past way of life, which has significance in the City of Goulburn, the southwest of New South Wales, and for the long period of stable occupation by one notable family.

[26][1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.

The surviving outbuildings associated with the house, particularly the stone barn which pre-date it, provide excellent examples of early service buildings attached to a gentlemen's residence.

Riversdale setting on the edge of the Goulburn, slightly detached from the town and close to the Wollondilly River, enhances the autonomous quality that the property possessed throughout its history.

[27][1] The place has potential to yield information that will contribute to an understanding of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.

[28][1] The place possesses uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.