Life of an early settler on the Georges River

Glenlee is situated on one of Lugarno’s earliest land grants, made in 1856 by Governor William Denison to British settler Thomas George Lee. In the intervening 188 years, until it was sold to a private buyer in April 2024, it had been in the hands of only two families, the last of which was the Matthei family. Generations of the Mattheis lived there for 110 years.

 

Glenlee, as it still is today, is one of the few remaining examples of early-European riverside settlement in Sydney that is largely intact. The century-old homestead, and hand-hewn steps, paths and walls leading down to the boat sheds and jetty, retain the character of riverside life in the early 1900s. The surviving 110-year-old organic vegetable garden and mixed orchard are evidence of the self-sufficiency of our early settlers, who were largely sustained by what they grew and caught for themselves.

 

The river provided both livelihood and transport. The family became fishers and oyster-farmers and were significant in the development of the oyster-farming industry on the Georges River. The river was their connection to the city as well as their lifeline for supplies. Everything they needed from the outside world had to come across the river from Como.

 

Environmental and Aboriginal heritage

 

According to a report by GML Heritage, commissioned by Georges River Council, Glenlee is a rare heritage property in New South Wales because it was owned by the same family for 110 years and because it remains largely undeveloped and intact both in its built environment and in the remnant forest it has preserved since settlement. This remnant forest in the western area of the allotment, with its original flora, fauna and landscape, also creates a visual divide between the heritage property and the surrounding modern development. 

 

The forest is one of two archaeologically significant zones on Glenlee, holding valuable information about the heritage of the Bidjigal people of the Eora nation. According to the journals of Philip Gidley King, an officer aboard the First Fleet, the first major social exchanges between the British and the Eora occurred at the head of Lime Kiln Bay on the Lugarno peninsula in 1788, so the site has high potential for additional historical significance. 

 

The National Trust has listed Glenlee as part of the Lugarno Early Settler Precinct Landscape Conservation Area both for its early settler history and Aboriginal cultural heritage. The listing states that the site ‘has historic significance because of the presence of rare Aboriginal rock engravings on the Matthei property’, including a shell midden, grinding grooves and rock bowl. The heritage report by GML Heritage corroborates well-preserved evidence of Indigenous life in both the northern and western zones of the site. This evidence is listed on the Aboriginal Heritage Information Management System of the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage.

 

Glenlee is also part of a heritage precinct with the neighbouring Heinrich Estate (now the Council-owned public land Heinrich Reserve) and the historic house The Hermitage on nearby Bayside Drive, both of which are heritage listed at a local level.

 

For all these reasons it is critical that both the built and natural environments of Glenlee be preserved for their historic value.