Europambela

The homestead comprises two parts: a front section built in 1861 for Christopher Dawson Fenwicke and his wife Isabella Elizabeth Jobling and their family; and a new wing constructed at the rear of the property around 1900 comprising kitchen, pantry, school room and additional bedrooms. The new wing helped form a ‘u-shaped’ courtyard in the middle of the homestead with verandahs on three sides. The homestead features French doors with shutters leading onto the front verandah, internal cedar joinery and some 19th century furniture made on the property from local timber.

From 1861 until 1994 Europambela was owned and occupied by successive generations of the Fenwicke family. The last of the Fenwickes to live there were spinster sisters, Barbara Clennell (Peg) and Nancy Wauch (Nan) Fenwicke. They had lived all their lives in the house, occupying different wings in their latter years but sharing the common areas between the two wings including the kitchen. Peg died in 1990 aged 90 and Nan in 1994 aged 87.

The homestead, outbuildings and grounds of Europambela have been listed on the Register of the National Estate and as an item of state significance on the NSW State Heritage Inventory.

Photographer: Ellen Comiskey

Date Photographed: March 1995

Original image format: 35mm mounted slides; 35mm photographic negatives

Copyright: Caroline Simpson Collection, Photograph © Ellen Comiskey

Further reading: John Fenwicke, From my mind, Walcha NSW, 1999