The Campbell family is steering historic and magnificent Merrilla station on the NSW Southern Tablelands towards an exciting new future.
As Angus Campbell recalls meeting his future wife, Georgie, he credits his boss, polo enthusiast, bon vivant, music entrepreneur and legendary manager of the band INXS, Chris Murphy, as the catalyst. Chris was hosting a barbecue at his UK property when he handed Angus the tongs and told him to start cooking. “I was working for Chris as a polo player and he figured that, because I was Australian, I’d know how to barbecue,” Angus says. “I was 21, I could barely boil water and I had smoke and flames going everywhere. As model and documentary presenter Georgie recalls the occasion, she and her father — Chris’s mate, fellow polo enthusiast, businessman and pastoralist Robert Anthony “Ant” Crichton-Brown — and mother, Edwina, were guests at the party. “Dad prodded me to ‘go and talk to the Australian’,” she says. “He had a bit going on at the time with the grill and our conversation was brief.”
By the following year, Angus had managed to crawl out from under the blanket of smoke-filled mortification he’d been hiding under when they were seated together at a dinner party at Georgie’s parents’ English home. Chris needed to return to Australia and had sold his farm, polo horses and gear to Ant. As part of Chris’s polo team, Angus came with the package. Sparks flew and Georgie says she was in love before dessert was served. They were engaged three months later and married in 1996 at Deltroit, Ant and Edwina’s property at Adelong in the NSW Riverina.
Angus and Georgie then spent a couple of years dividing their time between Australia and the UK depending on the polo season and eventually moved back to Australia, where they bought property at Taralga. “It was hard at first,” Georgie recalls. “I was born in Australia but all my high school years and adult life to that point had been in London and Surrey and all my friends and family were there. Taralga is a diverse and exciting community now, but back then it was off the beaten track and it took me time to adapt. But Dad was just passionate about the land, as he was about everything in life, from sailing and flying to polo and farming. He was always a leader and embraced regenerative and holistic farming long before the words had even entered the language.”
Angus had grown up in the Southern Tablelands on farms around Braidwood, Bungendore and Araluen but, just before heading to the UK to pursue his polo career, his parents had moved to Taralga. “In one of those twists of fate, Angus’s grandparents had actually spent their honeymoon at Deltroit and his father used to go there for holidays because one of his aunts lived there … long before the Crichton-Browns bought it in 1989.
Georgie says she learnt a lot about adapting to country life from her parents-in-law, who are as dedicated to the land as Ant was. “They taught me so much about being resourceful and creative and they’re great cooks,” she says. “They’re in the process of retiring to Sydney at the moment but, even in their 80s, they are still working in the cattle yards.”
During the 1980s and ’90s, Ant amassed a portfolio of properties across the Riverina and divided his time between Australia and the UK as the Chairman and CEO of Lumley Insurance. In 2015, he added the 388-hectare historic Merrilla station near Goulburn to his holdings. He embarked on a refurbishment of the homestead and its outbuildings, which include an adjacent cottage, coach house, stables with a loft above and a significant garden.
The land that magnificent Merrilla now occupies was originally the country of the Wollondilly tribe of the Gandangara people. The property takes its name for the traditional owners’ word for running water over stones, a reference to Wollondilly River, which runs through the property. Its first European settlers included British Royal Navy captain and explorer, later founder of the Swan River Colony Mark John Currie, who was granted 2000 acres (809 hectares) of land on both sides of the Wollondilly River in 1825. He named it Gatton Park, a reference to his birthplace in Surrey in the UK. The other 700 acres (283 hectares) on the southern side of the river was granted in 1836 to Robert Flopp, who had come to the colony as Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s butler and became a butcher and farmer. Currie leased his farm to Scottish lawyer David Waugh, who also worked on nearby Mummel station. The Chisholm family had been running livestock on Gatton Park since 1828. In 1838, Fopp sold his land to James Chisholm Junior, who then bought Gatton Park in 1839 or ’40. The property’s name changed to Merrilla in about 1858 when it became the home of James’s second son, William Alexander.
The first dwelling on the property was built by Currie under Waugh’s watch in 1836. It consisted of four rooms with a detached kitchen and storeroom and formed the shell of today’s homestead. It was significantly expanded and updated after William Alexander Chisholm took up residence in 1859. When complete, the house had three sides with a traditional courtyard in the middle. It was made of rubble granite stone and had a hand-hewn native hardwood shingle roof. The interior walls were made
from lath and plaster.
William and his wife, Jane, shared a passion for horticulture, and they constructed a beautiful garden with vegetable plots, grape vines and an extensive orchard. They added a sweeping lawn at the front and a long circular drive at the entrance to the house. They took garden advice — and doubtless the odd cutting — from Sir William Macarthur, the youngest son of John and Elizabeth Macarthur, who was well-known for the works he instigated at his family properties, Camden Park and Belmont, and as the person who introduced the camellia to Australia. Several radiata and bunya pines in the magnificent Merrilla garden are hallmarks from this period.
The next flourishing of Merrilla occurred during the 1930s when William and Jane’s son youngest son, Bertram, an architect in Sydney, developed plans to rebuild the east wing and modify the rest of the building. Coincidentally, the old Mummel homestead was being demolished and some of the internal timberwork — doors, frames, architraves and window fittings — were incorporated in the refurbishment, which included a second storey, with a long cedar staircase leading down to the large hall. In 1913, Bertram’s older brother, William Maxwell, had taken up residence and he and his wife, Harriet, lived there until his death in 1962. Magnificent Merrilla had another minor facelift in the 1970s and finally moved
out of Chisholm hands in 1982, ending the family’s more than 150-year association with the property.
When Ant Crichton-Brown arrived at Merrilla some 33 years later, he applied his signature energy and enthusiasm to its revitalisation. Sadly, he died in 2021 from complications related to COVID, but Angus and Georgie and their now adult children — polo player Monty and his partner, Shannon Parker, who will welcome a baby to the family soon, Toby, who works in finance in Melbourne, and Stella, who is a designer in Sydney — have all inherited his passion for the land and are committed to seeing magnificent Merrilla prosper in the future.
“Dad always talked to me about his farming plans, so it feels like it’s in my DNA and we’ve passed it onto our kids,” Georgie says. “We are determined to continue his legacy. Our properties are run as one and we’re working hard to make it possible for all the family to have roles in the business and their own places to live if and when they want to come home.”
Diversification is important on the land these days, so Georgie plans to make use of Merrilla’s magnificent grounds as a small events venue. “It’s ideal for weddings and other bespoke events,” she says. “We already have the three-bedroom guesthouse called Chisholm Cottage available as a B&B and that would be ideal for wedding parties and as a bridal suite.”
It’s early days yet, but the Campbells also see the potential for the former shearing shed as a larger events venue somewhere down the track. “We need to start slowly,” Georgie says. “But we’re all very committed to realising Dad’s vision for magnificent Merrilla. I can honestly say I have never felt more connected to a home and I love the time we spend here. It just makes sense to share that with others.”
