NSWFarming
Mona Vale
A farming flat at the crossroads of the Pittwater roads.
1814Robert Campbell granted land at Bongin Bongin
WHAT STARTED IT
Robert Campbell was granted 700 acres at Bongin Bongin in 1814, on flat land behind the beach near the shores of Pittwater. The flat sits where the roads north to Barrenjoey and Newport, west to Bayview and Church Point, and south to Manly meet, so a coaching inn at the junction became the centre of the district.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Tenant farmers worked the land from the 1820s, and robberies, cattle killing and murder between 1849 and 1870 became known as the Mona Vale outrages. Leon Houreux’s Rock Lily Hotel, licensed in 1885, served the Manly–Pittwater coaches. Market gardeners grew vegetables and glasshouse tomatoes until the land was subdivided, mostly after the Second World War.
TURNING POINTS
1814Robert Campbell is granted 700 acres at Bongin Bongin.
1849Farmer David Foley is murdered near Bungan, the first of the crimes later called the Mona Vale outrages.
1867The Sydney Morning Herald blames the district’s neglected farms on its reputation for ‘agrarian outrages’.
1885Leon Houreux is granted a licence for a hotel to be built at ‘Narrabeen’ (later the Rock Lily), despite police objections.
1893The Illustrated Sydney News describes lunch at Houreux’s Rock Lily Hotel on the coach trip from Manly to Newport.
1947Sir Edward Hallstrom buys 40 acres of farmland at Mona Vale to grow feed for Taronga Zoo.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
The main commercial centre of the Pittwater area, with shops, a hospital and a beach. Pittwater Road and Barrenjoey Road still meet at its centre.