About to close the gate for the last time at Kentgrove, Doug Rawlinson near the conservation area which provides habitat and critical corridor for numerous native species. Photo: John Thistleton.
As ownership of historic Kentgrove on Goulburn’s eastern fringe changes hands it continues drawing visitors who rekindle its famous past.
A professional woman from outer Sydney’s south-west passionate about history has bought the 12-hectare property, having visited Kentgrove several times over a year.
Meanwhile, the latest visitor Dr Anthony Emmett – the grandson of a former Goulburn mayor, James Middlebrook – returned for one last look.
Mayor Middlebrook, one of three mayors who lived at Kentgrove, was associated with the foundation of the Goulburn Woollen Mills. During his term in office in 1924-26, he used his casting vote to support the establishment of Sooley Dam which became the city’s main water supply.
In those early development years for Goulburn, civic affairs would have been hot topics among the city’s leaders in the ballroom of Kentgrove.
Dr Emmett was a reconstructive plastic surgeon who worked for many years repairing children with congenital deformities in Queensland, New Zealand, England and Brisbane.
In retirement he moved to Bowral in 1993 and became an art student, learning sculpture and painting. A prominent author, his books range from surgery to philosophy and sculpture.
Kentgrove’s owner Doug Rawlinson, who bought the property in 2006 and rejuvenated the drought-ravaged grounds, was thrilled to welcome Dr Emmett.
“Anthony and his lovely wife and two wonderful friends were doing the very last tour of Kentgrove,” he said. “He is a sculptor, and I do a lot of that; he is a ceramist – I do a lot of that work too,” he said. “We just hit it off, except he is a renowned plastic surgeon; I am not,” he said.
Dr Anthony Emmett and Doug Rawlinson take one last look over Kentgrove’s ball room. Photo: Michele Critenden.
While he may not boast the surgical skills of his esteemed visitor, Doug nevertheless has changed the face of Kentgrove into a beacon for sustainability. He regularly opened the front gate to gardeners and people eager to learn about his response to climate change.
His father Harry began Doug’s lifelong love affair with Kentgrove when he rode his pushbike 380 kilometres from Cootamundra to Sydney and accidentally met a wealthy property owner, Ernie Hyles, who offered him a job at Uriarra sheep station in Canberra.
Harry and the family later transferred to Hyles’s other property, Kentgrove, which became Doug’s childhood playground. When Doug returned in 2006, he was determined to restore the place to a productive and attractive garden.
Following a species audit, the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage confirmed his application for a portion of Kentgrove to have conservation status.
“It’s a fantastic corridor between the Cookbundoon Range and Mount Gray,” he said. “It is the sole conservation area within Goulburn’s boundary.”
The 6.5-hectare bushland block stands in stark contrast to the neatly-trimmed hedges, clipped lawns and turned-over garden beds on the remainder of the property and is instead critical habitat for rare birds such as Australian diamond firetail finches, black-hooded robins and flame robins.
Assessing Kentgrove overall in 2024, Australian Garden History Society reported the oldest fruit tree was an apricot (Prunus armeniaca), which was between 110 and 120 years old and 12 pear trees of a similar age. The original orchard had 30,000 fruit trees and was the largest in NSW.
During the late 19th century Kentgrove provided fruit for its own cannery, producing Argyle Jams. Doug said 20 people worked at the jam factory and three of the workers’ homes remained on the property.
In 1893 the Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser reported a Mr Benson of the Department of Agriculture, judging in a national prize competition, declared that a cherry tree on Kentgrove to be the biggest in the world, with a diameter of more than 35 feet (10.66 metres).
Members of the Australian Garden History Society in Canberra strolling through historic Kentgrove gardens in December 2023. Photo: John Thistleton.
One of the last open gardens in 2024 attracted almost 500 visitors to Kentgrove from Port Macquarie, Wagga, Canberra and the Southern Highlands. “That was massive; I almost couldn’t do it; I did have help,” Doug said.
Today he says he is at peace with leaving Kentgrove. “I’m philosophical about what I have done here. I have left a good legacy; I am really happy with what I have done and happy to hand it over to someone else. I’m not a person who has to hold on to everything I’ve got,” he said.
Doug and his wife Sharon will continue to live in Goulburn, and plan to resettle on a place with room for a garden and sheds to accommodate his hobby in ceramics, pottery and sculpting.
