Location
Woodbine is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 55 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Campbelltown and is part of the Macarthur region. (wikipedia)
History
Officially the name Woodbine comes from a local cottage which was home to a prominent local family, the Paytens, from the 1870s to the 1960s. James Payten’s cottage sat upon the hill now known as Payten Reserve. His daughter Rose Payten, was a NSW Tennis Champion and Campbelltown’s first sports star. From 1901-04 and again in 1907 she held the NSW Triple Crown, Singles, Doubles and Mixed Doubles Champion. The road that connects Woodbine and Leumeah, Rose Payten Drive is named after her. It has also been suggested that, during a Council argument about the name of the suburb, a disgruntled councillor suggested it be named after the cigarettes of his chain-smoking colleagues, and it was from this off-the-cuff remark that serious consideration was given to the name Woodbine.
For over 30,000 years the area that is now Woodbine belonged to the Tharawal people. The surrounding land still contains reminders of their past lives in rock engravings, cave paintings, axe grinding grooves and shell middens. A local park Kanbyugal Reserve is named after a Tharawal leader who met with explorer George Caley in the area in the early 19th century.
British settlers began moving into the area in the early 19th century, establishing farms and orchards in the area. Rose Payten died in 1951 and her aging Woodbine cottage was demolished in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the expanding Sydney was large enough for developers to look at the area around Campbelltown. Developers such as Landcom began building homes here and the first residents moved into them in 1976. Originally the suburb was going to be named Kiddlea in honour of John Kidd, a local MP from 1877-1904. Many councillors did not like the idea and with the Woodbine Cottage reference brought up in council, the name was changed to Woodbine.
The middle of the suburb was developed by the council as prestige housing. The 1980s saw the tree-less ridge turned into a community forest called Kanbyugal Reserve after an Aboriginal warrior chief and roamed the area in the 1800s. The area in front of the forest known as Woodbine Ponds is currently neglected but local government have mentioned a wish to open it up as parkland. (wikipedia)
Places of Interest
No Data Uploaded