Lake Innes House Ruins

Location
Lake Innes Ruins are 11 kilometres south of Port Macquarie, Australia. They are the relics of the house and stables once belonging to Major Archibold Clunes Innes, a retired officer of the British military. The ruins also include the remains of servants’ cottages, an estate-workers’ village, a farm that supplied the house with food, a brickmaking site and a boathouse by the lake. The site contains a rich history about the settlement of New South Wales, convict labour and the culture of the 1800s. It is managed by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and is accessible to the public. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. (wikipedia)

History
Archibald Clunes Innes was born in 1800 at Thrumster, Scotland, the sixth son of Major James Innes. He was commissioned an ensign in the 3rd Regiment (the Buffs) in 1813 at the age of only 13 and served in the Peninsular War. He came to Sydney as captain of the guard in the convict ship Eliza in 1822. Between January 1824 and May 1825 he served in Tasmania where he was commended for recapturing escaped convicts. In December 1825 he was appointed aide-de-camp to the lieutenant-governor of New South Wales and became a magistrate in November 1826. After this he became commandant of the penal settlement at Port Macquarie. In 1828 he resigned his commission and was appointed superintendent of police and magistrate at Parramatta. He served here until his resignation in 1829. In the same year he married Margaret, daughter of the Colonial Secretary, Alexander McLeay.

In 1830 the couple came to Port Macquarie and Archibald was granted 2568 acres and was awarded contracts to supply the surrounding convict population with food. At this time Port Macquarie was a major convict settlement. Archibald gradually built his property over the next decade adding sections to his original modest house. By 1840 it consisted of 22 rooms and was known as one of the most luxurious houses in the area. Unlike most houses of this time it had an underground cistern, a bathroom, privies and a boiler for providing hot water.

During the 1830s and 1840s Lake Innes House was an important social centre in which Major Innes provided generous hospitality to a succession of prominent house guests who in 1847 included even Sir Charles Fitzroy, at that time the Governor of NSW and his wife Mary. As his wealth grew he acquired more and more property. He bought sheep and cattle stations all over northern New South Wales, among them Yarrows on the Hastings, Brimbine and Innestown on the Manning, Waterloo, Innes Creek, Kentucky and Beardy Plains. He also bought Furracabad. The township on this station which is the present Glen Innes, was named after him. In his first few years at Lake Innes he produced the first sugar grown in the district and in 1844 he planted thirty acres of vines.

Major Innes was convinced that Port Macquarie would become a major port and settlement area. However the entrance to the Hastings was too dangerous to encourage a large amount of shipping and the road that was built up to the Tablelands was found too hazardous. It was this miscalculation and the general economic depression of the 1840s which lead to his financial ruin. In addition the transportation of convicts to NSW ceased and the Port Macquarie Penal Settlement closed. This deprived him of his contracts to feed the convict population and meant that he no longer had the use of convict cheap labour to run his property. In 1853 he abandoned Lake Innes House and accepted employment as assistant gold commissioner and magistrate at Nundle and later police magistrate at Newcastle, where he died on 29 August 1857. (wikipedia)

Places of Interest
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