An evolutionary tale
The old adage says that good things, like fine wine, improve with age. Hazeldean’s farming operation, homestead and garden in the Monaro high plains are a case in point. They’ve been a work in progress since the 1860s, when James and Ann Litchfield arrived in the south-eastern NSW high country.
When James arrived in the colony from Saffron Walden in Essex, England, in 1852, he had a letter of introduction to William Bradley, a pioneering member of the Monaro squattocracy, who built an empire that, at its peak, covered 200,000 acres (81,000 hectares) of the naturally treeless high plains. James gained employment as a manager of one of William’s properties, Myalla. With the division of the region following the Lands Act of 1861 under Premier, John Robertson, James was able to select his own 320-acre (130-hectare) block. He built the original stone cottage in a natural bowl, which
