250 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



Parramatta. The railway line as far as Blacktown serves the purpose both of the 

 w.-.u-rn and north-western roads, the branch to Richmond turning northwards from this 

 junction. On the route is the station of Riverstone, where private enterprise has 

 established a successful slaughtering and meat-preserving establishment. The flocks and 

 herds on their way down from the northern pastures are intercepted at this point and 

 sent on as dressed meat to Sydney. 



Windsor, which next to Parramatta is the oldest of the country towns, still retains 

 the characteristics of early days. The ivy creeps over the old brick walls; the trees 

 look almost weary with age in many neglected gardens. Old men in checked cotton 

 shirts, moleskin trousers and cabbage-tree hats, sit beneath the long verandahs of one- 

 storeyed inns and tell tales of the old, old times. Characteristic, too, of those times is 

 St Matthew's Church, built substantially on high ground in the basilican style of 

 architecture. The foundation-stone of this church was laid, says the official record, a 

 little after sunset on Sunday, the nth of October, 1817, by Governor Macquarie, and 

 his speech on that spring evening was short and very much to the point. He saw the 

 "holey dollar" (the Spanish dollar with the centre cut out) safely deposited in the 

 bottle, he tried the stone with the square, tapped it with the mallet, and saying " God 

 bless St. Matthew's Church " left it in peace, but not, as shown in the sequel, in 

 security. For that night sundry rascals uplifted the stone, broke the bottle and abstracted 

 the dollar. His Excellency, holding to the belief that coin of the realm was the only 

 sure foundation for the Church, began the proceedings de novo, called together the whole 

 of the respectable inhabitants and the notabilities of the vice-regal court, addressed them 

 in a pathetic manner, passed a high eulogy on the clergy and planted other dollars, 

 which, alas for the morality of the times, were within two days likewise abstracted. 

 After this it appears that the Governor contented himself with fulminating against the 

 probable robbers, and permitting the walls to rise without the silver basis. Yet no good 

 luck attended this. For we read that " two years after, the walls of the building had 

 to be pulled down to the very foundation, owing to some defect in their construction, 

 and another building of much larger dimensions and of the best materials was commenced 

 on its site." This church is the St. Matthew's of to-day. 



Four miles west of Windsor is Richmond, another village dating from the first 

 decade of the colony. It is not so busy now as it has been for the railways have 

 diverted the great trade on which its early prosperity was built but it still shows 

 evidence, not only of past vigour, but of present vitality. Two great stock-routes 

 converge on the slope of the hills on the other side of the stream. By the northern 

 one, known as the Bulga Road, came down sheep and cattle from Patrick's Plains on 

 the Hunter River, along a rough and somewhat grassless track. The other route came 

 from the " Far West," and crossed the Blue Mountains by what is still known, after the 

 surveyor who discovered it, as Bell's Line. This route takes the dividing ridge between 

 the waters of the Grose and those of the Colo, and joins the other line near Mount 

 Clarence. Richmond, therefore, was the gate-way through which for many years passed 

 the greater portion of the live stock destined for the Sydney market. The Kurrajong 

 Hills look down upon Richmond from the northern side of the River. Their seaward 

 slope is covered with singularly fertile soil, originally thickly-timbered and clothed with 



