NSWFarming
Peats Ridge
A late-settled ridge that grew with the highway and its citrus.
1930sPacific Highway arrives
WHAT STARTED IT
The ridge was opened to settlement late because the main road north bypassed it. When the Pacific Highway was built through in the early 1930s, more families came, and the cleared ridge was worked as citrus orchards and market gardens.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
A telephone line arrived in 1915, and a polling booth on a farm veranda in 1917 served 14 voters. The highway brought a school; later the Calga route and then the F3 freeway, opened in 1988–90, took through traffic away.
TURNING POINTS
1915Residents supply poles for the first telephone line.
1917The first polling booth opens on a farm veranda.
1930sThe Pacific Highway is built through Peats Ridge, and a school follows.
1949Electricity reaches the area.
1988The F3 freeway begins to open, taking traffic off the ridge.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A rural district of nurseries, horse studs, quarries and spring-water bottling, and home to Sydney commuters as citrus growing has declined. It is named after George Peat, the Hawkesbury ferry operator.