Havilah Station (c. 1850 - )

First taken up by Nicholas Paget Bayly some time in the 1850s, Havilah Station is located near Mudgee, on the central western slopes of New South Wales. The property, which received its name after a visiting clergyman discovered specks of gold and, citing from Genesis, referred to it as the ‘land of Havilah’, became famous for breeding a fine strain of merino sheep. By the 1870s, breeders were referring to the flock’s offspring as ‘Bayly bloods’ and ‘pure Baylys’. Bayly built an impressive homestead at Havilah, but died in 1879. The following year, Havilah was purchased by Henry Charles White, of Belltrees in the Hunter Valley. Believing that Bayly’s ten-room mansion was too small, White commissioned John Horbury Hunt to draw up plans for extensions. When these were finished in the mid-1880s, the homestead with its two-storey brick wings on the east and west of the house, chapel-like kitchen and massive chimneys was a magnificent building whch is today listed with the National Trust of New South Wales. White, a strong advocate of Bayly’s methods, continued to concentrate on sheep-breeding, but he also developed a stud of race-horses which became famous throughout New South Wales. These dual concerns still predominate on Havilah Station, which remains in the hands of HC White’s descendants.

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References:
G Nesta Williams, Some Northern Homes of New South Wales (Sydney: The Shepherd Press, 1954); JL Stewart, ‘Nicholas Paget Bayly (1814–1879)’, in NB Nairn (ed.), Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1851–1890, Volume 3 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1969); Australian Council of National Trusts, Historic Homesteads of Australia (North Melbourne: Cassell Australia, 1970).

Related Families

• White Family