William Lawson's home

Veteran Hall was built in 1821 by explorer and settler William Lawson and was his home from then until his death in 1850. It replaced a former house built in about 1810 on the same site. It was demolished in 1929.

William Lawson was born in 1744 in Finchley, Middlesex, of Scottish parents. Sailing to New South Wales as an ensign in 1800, he was posted first to Norfolk Island, returning to Sydney in 1806.

Lawson was granted 500 acres of land on the north-west slopes of Prospect Hill in 1808 and built his first house in 1810. He replaced it in 1821 and it must be the 1821 house that is shown in a painting by the professional artist, Augustus Earle, since Earle was in New South Wales from 1825 to 1827. In the 1850s the house was extended further by William Lawson's son William by the addition of a west wing. It is this extended house that is shown in photographs. It then had eighteen rooms and covered an area of just over 1000 square metres.

Veteran Hall was at the foot of the north-west slope of Prospect Hill, about 500 metres from the summit I have called Water Tower Hill. It is about 200 metres along the lane which leads to the water towers and the covered reservoir on Water Tower Hill. This lane leaves the main Prospect Reservoir access road at the mini-roundabout which is approximately 1.5. kilometres south of the main gates of the reservoir reserve.

Walking from the mini-roundabout alongside the post and wire fence on the right of the lane, you first come to a cairn containing a plaque which marks the general area of the homestead. The cairn was erected in 1969–1970 by two Water Board engineers, Alan Andrews and Bill Hazell, who also put in a lot of work to make the site presentable to the public. The plaque was provided by The Macquarie Regional Council of Historical Societies.

The site of the Veteran Hall itself is a few metres behind the cairn. All that remains are the concrete base of a wing of the house and some stone footings. The smoothly rounded edge of the base of the verandah is evidence that this is Veteran Hall, since it can also be seen in early photographs of the Hall taken when it was occupied as a residence.

Veteran Hall is described as,

a large, single-storey building in typical Colonial Georgian style, Veteran Hall was approximately 65 squares [sic] in size, which expanded to a size of approximately 110 squares including verandahs. (Sydney WHR, Veteran Hall Archaeological Site).

Stand by the remaining base of the house and try to imagine the scene in William Lawson's time. The immediate surroundings of the house would have been a garden, of which a few relict plantings remain, including olive trees and the remains of a firethorn hedge (pyracantha). Beyond you would have seen some farm workers' cottages and several substantial stone-built farm buildings, including a two storey barn and what looks like (in Earle's painting) a circular smoke-house.

Walking back to the cairn, we can see an old timber post-and-rail fence, just like the one in Earle's painting, except that it has three rails where the one painted by Earle had four. However it must have been in roughly the same place and may have enclosed a home paddock. Beyond to the west, Lawson might well have had a view across the bush to the Blue Mountains away in the west. If not, he had only to climb the summit of Prospect Hill behind the Hall (Water Tower Hill).

Today the view includes Prospect Reservoir which Lawson would not have seen. He died in 1850 aged 76 and was buried at the family vault in St Bartholomew's churchyard. In 1881 construction started on Prospect Reservoir which was to cover part of the Lawson land, although the house itself was well above the water level. During the construction works a grave containing a lead coffin was discovered with an inscription showing that it contained the remains of William's wife Sarah. The coffin was re-interred in the family vault at St Bartholomews. She had died in 1830 before the building of the church and, as was usual at the time, was buried on the property where she had lived. Although William had spent much time at his inland properties at Bathurst and elsewhere before Sarah's death, he spent most of his last twenty years at Veteran Hall.

In the 1880s Veteran Hall was taken over as a residence for the Water Board's engineer in charge. In 1912 the house was used by the army and many of the larger rooms subdivided, giving rise to a myth that it had been a "forty-roomed mansion" in Lawson's time. It was returned to the Water Board in 1915 and eventually demolished in 1929. It had thus lasted over 100 years.

Further reading:

Veteran Hall web page of the Prospect Heritage Trust web site.

Site of Veteran Hall web page of the web site of the Australian Government Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.