Weston Homestead site

 

These trees are all that is left of the De Salis' Weston farm. The photos below show harvesting, the former house and the swimming pool that made up part of the Weston property.

How to get there?

From the Cooleman site turn left back onto Namitjira Drive. Take the first left onto Streeton Drive and after 3 km turn left into Mulley Street. Turn left into Blackwood Terrace and first right into Calder Crescent.

From the Visitors Centre drive south over Commonwealth Bridge, around Parliament House then take the left turn after the Royal Australian Mint exit onto the Cotter Road overpass. Turn left into Streeton Drive then first right into Dixon Drive. Take the second left into Twynam Street then left into Calder Crescent.

Why is this interesting?

The suburb of Weston is named after the Weston Homestead. Captain George Weston, a former captain of the East India Company, was granted 'four square miles' at the 'Yarrow-Lumla plains' in 1831. 

The De Salis family bought the property in 1937. Today you can only see a few pines that once sheltered the orchard. A descendent recorded the massive changes to come: 'During the 1960s we watched the progress of Canberra coming closer and closer. Town dogs, cats and men with rifles started coming over the hill to pester our sheep and cattle and leave gates open. Then the surveyors started walking all over the property. We always knew that the farm would be taken over by the government for the building of Canberra but it came quicker than we thought. Dad had to start pegging back his activities on the property - first he sold the sheep and then the cattle and he stopped growing crops. The last thing he did was take on the agistment of horses from townsfolk. We were still living there when the first construction on our property was begun the building of the telephone exchange which is now still there on Hindmarsh Drive in Stirling'.