OUTBACK STATIONS
Grand old Gostwyck
Story Tim Hughes
Photo John Williams
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| George Cooke, recently retired after 24 years as wool-classer at Gostwyck |
Standing in front of a small ivy-covered brick chapel, looking north along a majestic avenue of 140-year-old elm trees, it is easy to agree with the On The Wallaby columnist in The Pastoralist Review of December 15, 1906.
On the left, a mob of fine-wool rams shelter under a circle of seven oaks planted to commemorate World War 1. Further to the right, the imposing homestead - with a wing especially built for the 1934 visit of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester - overlooks terraced gardens and a web-like suspension bridge, constructed to shepherd sheep across the willow-lined Salisbury Waters.
Gostwyck could well still be considered one of the most picturesque pastoral holdings in the nation, but behind the exotic trees and the well-kept fences is also a lineage of good management that has ensured the property has remained in the same family for more than 160 years.
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| Gostwyck's histpric shearing shed. |
"That is quite a responsibility, but the property has to have an entirely commercial focus," says John Maher, station manager of Gostwyck Estates since 1987. "The trees and buildings are certainly magnificent, but they aren't what pays the bills," he notes.
It was in the early 1830s that Edward Gostwyck Cory, displaced by the Australian
Agricultural Company from his squatting occupancies on the Peel River near
Tamworth, headed north into the area soon to be known as New England and
took up a vast area of land south of what is now the town Uralla. 
Full story: Issue 17, June/July 2001
