Ledgworth near Yass is being offered for sale after more than a century in the Walker family. The 612.6-hectare property has been home to three generations. Photo: LAWD.
In the early 1970s, Michael Walker drove from ‘Ledgworth’, his family’s farm near Yass, to university in Canberra each day.
Belconnen was still “an open paddock”, he recalls, and the Barton Highway was a whisker more than a country road.
More than half a century later, Canberra has spread towards Yass, nearby Murrumbateman is a far cry from the village it once was and Ledgworth’s proximity to the capital has become one of its selling points.
And now, for practical reasons, Michael and his wife Katie are offering the 612.6-hectare property at 594 Dog Trap Road for sale.
Ledgworth began in 1910 with a gift of about 400 hectares from George Merriman to his daughter Ann and her husband, Terry Walker.
Its name brought together their two family homes: Ledgerton, owned by Terry’s family in the Mullion district south of Yass, and Ravensworth, the Merriman property nearby.
Terry established a fine-wool stud at Ledgworth in 1914.
By 1915, Australia was at war, and Canberra had been named as the new national capital only two years earlier.
The war slowed work on the city, while demand for wool for uniforms and blankets grew.
Ledgworth took shape in that world, with sheep at the heart of the property and a homestead that would remain in the family for more than a century.
Terry and Ann eventually expanded the holding to about 1309 hectares.
Their son George and his wife Nano were the next generation to live in the house, raising five children there: Peter, Richard, Terry, Michael and Frances.
After George’s death in 1982, the family’s properties were divided among his five children.
Ledgworth was subdivided, and Michael and Katie took on the homestead and its farm buildings, becoming the third generation of Walkers to call it home.
Because Michael went away to boarding school as a young boy, his clearest childhood memories of Ledgworth are of the holidays: long days on horseback mustering sheep and chipping burrs.
And there was that memorable night he was out sowing crops as snow started falling.
Michael went on to become a lawyer, but largely gave up practising when he and Katie moved to Ledgworth in 1984.
Together, they raised their family in the home where he had grown up.
“It’s been a beautiful home to bring up children, and we’ve been very fortunate in that regard,” he said.
At the heart of Ledgworth is the homestead, bearing the hallmarks of each generation that has called it home.
Terry and Ann enlarged it in the late 1920s. George and Nano added to it in the 1950s and 1960s, and Michael and Katie completed a major renovation in 2012.
The gardens were already beautiful in Ann’s day, and Katie has spent years tending and enhancing them.
The six-bedroom house now spans about 600 square metres, with pressed metal ceilings, sandstone verandahs, bay windows and open fireplaces preserving its original character.
Even the old kitchen remains part of daily life, repurposed in part as a butler’s pantry.
Three cottages, shearers’ quarters, stables and a five-stand woolshed stand elsewhere on the property.
Ledgworth is still working country, with about 469 hectares of arable land and 139 hectares of perennial pasture.
It has supported superfine Merinos, prime lambs and cattle, as well as crops grown for grazing, grain and hay.
Ledgworth lies 11 kilometres south-east of Yass and 35 kilometres from the ACT border, with access from Dog Trap Road and Gums Lane.
Col Medway, national director of selling agency LAWD, said its soils, water supply and gently undulating country suited a mix of winter cropping, sheep and cattle.
He described Ledgworth as “one of the iconic properties of the district”.
Its future could also involve subdivision.
Mr Medway said the two road frontages and current 40-hectare minimum lot size, with averaging provisions, offered that possibility, subject to council approval.
Michael agrees the land and the location together make Ledgworth special.
For Michael, the deepest connection is to the homestead and garden, which hold the accumulated work of three generations, each adding something to what the last left behind.
Through all those changes, its beginnings remain personal.
“It’s a place my grandfather built,” he said.
Their son is helping on the farm, but Michael said Ledgworth would be a great deal for one person to manage alone.
For Michael and Katie, caring for the house, cottages, other buildings and extensive garden has also become harder.
“I’ve loved my time here, and if it does get sold, we’ll be very, very sad to leave,” he said.
Expressions of interest close at noon on Thursday 29 October. Check out the listing to find out more.
