The Dairy and Rangers Cottages at Parramatta Park

Convict brick-makers marked bricks with thumbprints to keep count of production numbers. Bricks were made by convicts at the Government Farm. The brick kilns were located on the river opposite Dodd’s Farm near Old Government House.

This very unusual dovetailed joint in a door frame of the Dairy Cottage is a good example of the transplanting of skills, culture and techniques from rural England to New South Wales with the convict artisans.

Lath and plaster was a traditional building method used in England for centuries and came to New South Wales with convict artisans after 1788. Lath and plaster was used for interior partition walls and the construction of ceilings in the Dairy Cottage.

Glue was added to the roof as part of conservation treatments in the 1990s. However, today, conservation practices specify that treatments must be low impact and reversible.

This stencil was applied when the Dairy Cottage was used as an agricultural depot, possibly in the 1930s. The cottage contains various items of graffiti recording the happenings of everyday life in the 20th century. "Edney" was a horse belonging to Ranger Sims.

Wallpapers in the Dairy Cottage date from the 1850s and the 1860s. They were added when the cottage was converted from a dairy to residential use.

These windows are unusual, as the glazing bars are much smaller than examples from the same period found elsewhere in New South Wales. This particular type is only found in rural England and is a good example of the migration of ideas and culture that arrived with the convict builders.

These English bond bricks were made by convicts at the Government Farm, dating to the 1790s. The brick kilns were located on the river opposite Dodd’s Farm near Old Government House. All of the material used to build the cottage was made locally by convicts. The mortar is of shell and lime, mixed with a loam earth, typical of the early colonial era.

These sections of timber date to the 1790s. All of the timber in the cottage was sourced locally and cut by convict workers with axes and pit saws, evidenced by the hand-hewn axe markings which are visible on the rough beams.

This fireplace was built in the 1790s and later adapted in the 1820s to serve the adjacent room. This can be seen in the top curved top plate and the lower straight top plate. Later the fireplace was plastered with cement render, which was removed in the 1990s during work to modernise the cottage. The kitchen fireplace on the other side of this wall serviced the sunken dairy next door.

Termites have taken their toll on wooden sections of the cottage. New support beams have been installed to support the roof structure next to original 1820s beams. The new support beams have been painted grey to clearly identify them as a later 20th century conservation measure.

These sections of timber date to the 1820s. All of the timber in the cottage was sourced locally and cut by convict workers with axes and pit saws, evidenced by the hand-hewn axe markings which are visible on the rough beams.

The Rangers Cottage was built specifically to accommodate the ranger's family. Here the domestic fireplace has survived. All of the family's cooking, boiling water and heating requirements were supplied by this fireplace.

Ranger Sim's brother-in-law, Horace Melville, painted murals above the picture rails in the Rangers Cottage. Melville was a tailor from New Zealand and his hobby was painting. The murals depict landscapes from his homeland and date from the late 1920s to early 1930s.