[1] Isaac Archer and John Colethread each received 32 hectares (80 acres) of land on the site of the present Ryde-Parramatta Golf Links, now in West Ryde.

[1] The land on which "The Retreat" was later built was originally a grant of 12 hectares (30 acres) from Lieutenant-Governor Paterson to James Squire in July 1795.

Squire found land closer to the river more suitable for his brewery and wharf and in July 1799 sold his grant to his neighbour (and former assigned convict servant[3]), James Shepherd, for A£50.

The gravestones of Ann and James Shepherd were moved to Field of Mars Cemetery when their slab and stone cottage was demolished in 1926.

Isaac married in 1832 and the following year started to build a cottage, later called Addington, on part of the Stewart grant.

Isaac Shepherd was the member of parliament for St Leonards from 1860 to 1864 and was instrumental in efforts to bring local government to Ryde, achieved in 1870, the year of his death.

[1] In 1837 Isaac Shepherd sold a portion on the southern corner of Victoria Road and Bowden Street for a police station.

This evangelical tradition started in Ryde in August 1798 when the Reverend William Henry held the first religious service in a barn at Kissing Point.

The Society's letter concluded: We rejoice to perceive that in the retreat you have selected for your declining years, you will not be without opportunities for making known the preciousness of a Saviour's love.

Ann and her two youngest daughters, Sophia and Henrietta, had inherited from James Shepherd a block of land in George Street, Sydney.

[1] William Henry continued to preach at St.Anne's and acted as school master[3] until his death at Ryde aged 89 in April 1859, his body erect, his voice strong and his conversation animated to the last.

His obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald declared him "a pioneer of civilisation and commerce as a teacher of the Christian faith, he maintained an unblemished reputation through all the trials of his long public life.

In 1870 he and Friers were awarded the contract to build the new Wesleyan Church at Ryde and three years later with William Trevitt, J.S.Henry built St Anne's Parochial School on the corner of Belmore Street and Victoria Road.

She resided with her son, Philip, living in Arundel Terrace and later in Pyrmont Bridge Road where she died, aged 84 on 29 July 1882.

He married Sarah Rebecca Pemell at Balmain in 1860 and by the 1870s, his wild Tahitian childhood put aside, was a successful businessman in partnership with J.C.Yeo in the City Flour Mills.

[1] In July 1911 Sarah Henry and her children sold The Retreat" to retired mariner, James Brand Simmons of Gladesville for A£480.

He immediately sold the rear portion facing Anderson Avenue and the corner block to another builder but retained "The Retreat" for two years, selling in 1927 to George S. Dunnett, an engineer of Huntley's Point.

[1] The Retreat is sited on a large residential block, the building itself being set back considerably from Victoria Road.

The front garden contains remnants of previous landscaping, including rose bushes, a central pathway leading to the house and two mature pencil pine/Mediterranean cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens) either side of the main entry.

The hipped corrugated iron roof is of timber collar tie construction with batten spaces indicating that it may have been previously shingled.

[3][1] As at 22 November 2007, The Retreat is an item of State significance as a rare example, in the Ryde district, of a simple early to mid 19th century sandstone cottage built by Isaac Shepherd, the owner of Addington and a member of the NSW Parliament, for his sister, Ann and brother-in-law, William Henry.

Henry an early pioneer in the Ryde area and a close friend of Samuel Marsden, was a member of the first group of white missionaries to visit Tahiti.

The Shepherd family were significant pioneers of the agricultural, commercial, religious and civic life of Ryde in the nineteenth century.

The neighbouring homes of Isaac Shepherd at Addington and his sister Ann at the Retreat are rare survivors of contiguous family houses.

The Retreat is associated through the Reverend William Henry with the first Christian missionaries to visit the Pacific and establish a European settlement there.

Henry was among the first group and remained through personal and political adversity as the longest serving member of these pioneer missionaries.

His children and their descendants, scattered through Tahiti, Hawaii and New Zealand, pioneered European settlement in the South Pacific.

[6][1] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.

The scale of the Retreat, a small cottage, set back from a thoroughfare which even in the 1840s was a main route to Parramatta, evokes the modesty and retirement of its missionary worker and his slight financial resources in comparison with his wealthier in-laws, the Shepherds at the adjoining Addington.

[6][1] The place possesses uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of the cultural or natural history of New South Wales.