Majura House

Heritage

Explore the Heritage of Majura House

Nestled at the foot of Mount Ainslie and Majura, this heritage-listed homestead has stood since the 1840s, bearing witness to generations of land stewardship, agricultural innovation, and rural life on Canberra’s fringe.

Majura House stands as a testament to the rich history of the region, showcasing its heritage through the beautifully preserved sandstone structure, evolving into a thriving farm, and continuing to celebrate the legacy of sustainable agriculture.

Statement of Heritage Significance

The Rich History of Majura House Through Generations of Care and Stewardship

Majura House and Property are a rare surviving example of a mid-19th century worker’s homestead and associated working farm. The construction of the original cottage was closely associated with the pastoral history of the very prominent Duntroon Estate, of which it formed a part. The house is one of the oldest surviving habitable structures in the ACT. After the formation of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and the termination of the freehold status of the land, the Mayo family acquired the lease to Majura House and the surrounding lands. At that time several generations of the Mayo family had been employees of the Campbell family, who owned Duntroon, and family members had been resident in the house for some time. They and their descendants would remain at Majura House and Property through the twentieth century until it changed ownership in 1981. The Mayo family and the subsequent owners continued to use the Property for farming, thus creating a continuity with the 19th century history of the Duntroon Estate and early colonial settlement of the Majura Valley. The property demonstrates a way of life, custom and function as a continuing working farm and is the oldest surviving remnant of the original Duntroon Estate that has maintained this role and function.

Legacy

The Majura House Precinct is a farm area first established in the 1820s at the north-eastern frontier of Robert Campbell’s ‘Pialligo’ (later ‘Duntroon) pastoral station. It appeared as a ‘cattle station’ on the first formal survey of the Limestone Plains (by Hoddle) in 1832, and as a sheep station in subsequent early surveys.

It is one of very few parcels of the ‘Duntroon’ pastoral/agricultural landscape that has not been greatly encroached upon, absorbed, or obscured, by urban development in Canberra.

It remains a working pastoral/agricultural landscape, and is probably the oldest farm area in the ACT in continuous use. ‘Majura House’ is the oldest of the three remaining ‘Duntroon’ worker stone cottages. It is the only one of those cottages still in continuous use as a farm residence, and is in turn one of the oldest farm residences in the ACT to be continuously occupied.

‘Majura House’ was built as a stone worker cottage, with an attached farmlet of about 2 acres. It was one of about ten stone cottages of this style that were built by George Rottenbury, mason and limeburner for the Campbells from c.1849. Others which remain are ‘Blundell’s Cottage’ and ‘Mugga Mugga’.

The cottage was sited thoughtfully, set above flood level from Woolshed Creek (still the case), while the farmlet included creek flats with deep alluvial soils, which have remained in cultivation for more than a century. Archaeological modelling suggests that the relatively elevated house site and the creek flats and creek junctions below it would also have favoured intermittent use by First Nations people. Due to the degree and frequency of cultivation and disturbance, little evidence has been located by several archaeological surveys in the area, despite numerous traverses of the immediate vicinity.

Occupancy Summary

1846 John McIntosh (1826-1892) + Eliza McPherson (1825-1906) married 1842

c.1864 Alfred Mayo (1820-1897) + Mary Ann Smith (1824-1897) married 1846

1880s William Mayo (1855-1936) + Mary Ann Warwick (1859-1946) married 1880 (to Mary Ann on William’s death 1936; to daughter Ethel on Mary Ann’s death 1946)

1946 Ethel Sells née Mayo (1880-1976) [prev. married 1908 Edwin Alexander Sells (1882-1945); divorced c.1923-24; Edwin at times recorded as ‘Edward’]

1948 Alex [John Alexander Mayo] Sells (1910-1980) + May [Edna May] Shannon (1910-2002) married 1931

1981 Tony [Anthony James] Sullivan + Pam [Pamela Ann] Hicks

1999 Nick [Nicholas Henry] Weber and Anne McGrath

Majura House and the surrounding property are proudly registered on the ACT Government’s Heritage Register, recognising their cultural and historical significance to the region.

With thanks to historian Mark Butz for his dedicated research into the farm and the broader history of the Majura Valley — much of the detail above is drawn from his thoughtful work.