Rossiville owner Georgina Chambers, her Cavoodle Chester and garden designer and horticulturalist Lorna Vallely near an olive tree at the property’s entrance, believed to be 200 years old. Photo: John Thistleton.
Magnificent gardens surrounding historic Rossiville near Goulburn which once belonged to a decorated military and police leader are being revived and will soon be opened for a public showing.
A short drive west of the city, Rossiville will be one of eight beautiful gardens in the inaugural Goulburn Spring Gardens on the weekend of 18 and 19 October.
Sydney couple Ian and Georgina Chambers bought Rossiville seven years ago, in the nick of time to save pioneer trees on the brink of dying. Ian installed new irrigation systems, nourished the trees with nutrients and watched them gradually return to life.
Meanwhile Georgina dug into historical accounts of Captain Francis Nicholas Rossi who was born in Corsica, France. He served in the British Army, and later became superintendent of police in NSW. He received a land grant in 1826 from Governor Darling on which he established his Goulburn property.
While Rossi had lifted the professionalism of policing in the colony it was his dedication as a nurseryman that amazed Georgina and Ian, who see themselves as custodians for an important part of Goulburn and Australia’s history.
“There are amazing stands of American oaks in the paddocks and over the years Rossi was known to have hundreds of different specimens of trees, mostly exotics, elms, oaks, and different types of Cyprus,” Georgina said. “He had an extensive greenhouse and did a lot of propagation himself.”
Georgina uncovered a comprehensive appraisal of Rossiville in an 1881 Goulburn Penny Post newspaper article. It recorded elms, numerous species of Pinus, Cedrus deodara, and a 20-foot high Araucaria bidwillii (Bunya pine) among many different tree species. Sixty kinds of pansies helped fill garden beds and the expanse of lawns was as level as a board. Delphinium, cineraria and herbaceous plants of every conceivable colour adorned the garden beds.
Chester, Lorna Vallely and Georgia Chambers near rose gardens, an old silver birch and fountain at Rossiville. Photo: John Thistleton.
Rossiville has two kilometres of Wollondilly River frontage which offers glorious views along a meandering valley and overlooking the white, timber-truss Rossiville bridge. Among the willows and reeds magnificent birdlife stirs at dawn and dusk. The Chambers have seen a family of black swans, white swans, numerous parrots, wrens and willy wagtails.
Crops of raspberries and strawberries once grew alongside the river while apple, pear and plum trees flourished in Rossi’s orchard.
“Roses are breathtaking here and the bulbs,” Georgina said. “Tulips here last for months, whereas in Sydney if I plant a tulip it will last a week if I’m lucky.
“We have a magnificent old wisteria which I think must be the oldest wisteria I’ve ever seen; it must be 100 years old,” she said.
Horticulturalist and garden designer Lorna Vallely who is on the Goulburn Spring Gardens committee said the early settlers, wanting their gardens to resemble England, brought plants and seeds in Wardian cases when they came out to Australia.
A view from Rossiville gardens, taking in the heritage-listed, Allan truss bridge on granite piers over the Wollondilly River. Photo: John Thistleton.
Ian says a foot of sand sits on top of the soil before it changes to clay. “Once it gets past the topsoil, there’s a foot to 18 inches of quite a heavy clay.” Yet trees, including an old weeping silver birch with lichen-encrusted branches, have found a way to survive.
Georgina said an original Italian fountain comprising of two little children under an umbrella was years ago relocated from Rossiville to the gardens of Kenmore Psychiatric Hospital. Desperately trying to get it back, she is trying to contact the owners of Kenmore which the NSW Government sold about 2003. The quaint fountain has been damaged and Rossiville’s owners would like to bring it back and restore it so it can continue complementing an extraordinary property from our past.
What: Goulburn Spring Gardens
Where: Eight private properties around Goulburn
When: 18-19 October
Entry fee: $25 all gardens, or $5 per garden. For more details go to the STOGA website.
