NSWPlanned settlement
Castlereagh
A Macquarie town that never became a town.
1810Named as one of Macquarie’s five towns
WHAT STARTED IT
Settlers took up grants on the fertile flats along the east bank of the Nepean River from 1803. In 1810 Macquarie chose a site here for a township where the Nepean farmers could store grain and shelter in floods, and named it after Viscount Castlereagh.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Surveyor James Meehan marked out streets and a square in 1811, and the Reverend Henry Fulton ran a church and school here from 1814. But Penrith, on the main western road, drew the trade, and Castlereagh stayed a scattered farming district of churches, farmhouses and cemeteries. It had its own municipal council from 1895 until it was absorbed into Penrith in 1949.
TURNING POINTS
1804John Lees receives a grant at Castlereagh, part of which he later gives for a Methodist chapel.
1810On 6 December Macquarie names the township for the Nepean district Castlereagh.
1814A glebe house and school are completed for the Reverend Henry Fulton.
1817John Lees opens a Methodist chapel on his land; the present chapel replaced it in 1848.
1895The Municipality of Castlereagh is proclaimed on 9 September.
1980The Penrith Lakes Scheme is established to quarry gravel from the river flats.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A semi-rural area north of Penrith. Much of the river flat was quarried for gravel under the Penrith Lakes Scheme, which also produced the Sydney International Regatta Centre.