William Manwaring and his family arrived in the Kyron district and selected land around the year 1874.

William selected his land, calling the property "Rosehill." George and his family took up their own land adjacent to his fathers'  to the south, and called his property "Cranbrook" after their hometown in Kent, England. I asked  one of the older members of the family why William called  his property "Rosehill".  He said "because  of  the  red hill just before you come into Rosehill itself. It used to be red dirt and you had  a hell of a job getting up there in wet weather." Or was it because Rosehill was where William and his family first stayed when arriving in Sydney or did William call his property Rosehill as a gesture to his son Thomas who stayed in Sydney and resided in the Rosehill district?     

William and his son George had neigbouring land so they decided to build their houses near one another. They were 500 yards apart divided by a creek, on the banks of which the family grew many trees. The houses were pise' with lots of trees surrounding them. William's house "RoseHill" was a long pise' place with a dirt or possibly a cowdung  floor,  and  was surrounded  by a huge hawthorn hedge which was cut once a year to keep it in check.

Rosehill had a very large room (dances for  the  whole  family were held there) with a kitchen with a great big table in it. It had a huge  fireplace  you'd walk into, and the fire would be built in the  middle and you'd sit down against the fireplace and warm yourself.   

The original "Rosehill" does not stand today  but  portion  of the  hawthorn hedge  still remains. The present house on Rosehill was built in 1936, by Charlie, son of Edwin, until then they lived in  the old  pise'  house.  The  new house was built in the garden of the old home. 

The original Cranbrook built by George Snr also does not stand today. Cranbrook homestead built by George Jnr in 1906  still stands  today  but  is  in  a state  of disrepair. It was once a fine home with a lovely garden and orchard. 

It appeared Alfred also selected land to the east of his brother George's  property, but  with  further  research  this proved  false, George actually taking up land in Alfreds name. This is explained in more detail later in the book. Edwin, it seems, also selected land, but his land eventually went into the possession of the Fitzgerald family (related to the Manwarings through Ellen - daughter of George Snr).

Edmund settled on land two and a half miles closer to Cootamundra, to the north of the other members of the family and called the property "Rosedell". A very old settler, Pat Jones, had settled in between, the big hill looming in the west being known far and wide as Jones Hill. Fitzgeralds now own the land previously belonging to Pat Jones.                   

The following is Roy Manwaring's (Grandson of Edmund) recollections of life in the Kyron District -   

"I can remember our first old home at "Rose-Dell" built in two parts -  the front part of the house consisted of the dining  room and  bedrooms; the  back  portion  was  built seperate with a walk way  between the two. The timber was  wooden slabs mostly cut from timber growing on the  property  and hewn with  the  saw,  axe  and  adze. The inside of the home was lined with newspaper.Flour was mixed and used to plaster the  paper  to  the  walls  to prevent  the  cold  winds from blowing through the cracks between the wooden slabs.

The second home on "Rose-Dell" was built in 1927-28 and  the  bricks were made on the property. The sand was carted out of the creek by horse and dray  to  make  the bricks wich were known as cement bricks. It was a large home comprising four bedrooms, lounge, dining room,  kitchen,  bathroom  and laundry.  Having  been  renovated  in parts and painted, it stands as a very good solid home today. The building contractor's name was Burns.

I recall the big cast steel fountain swinging by a chain in the  old original  home  of 1860's - 90's over the big open fire place in the kitchen and the big steel kettle sitting on the stove.  Generally  full  of  boiling water  day  and  night  ready  to make  a cup of tea when necessary for the family, friends and visitors when they called to say hello. There certainly was a big  contrast between  the  two  homes,  the second  home  was  much  bigger  with  all the then modern conveniences.

The erection of steel water tanks, followed by the water supply from  Burrinjuck Dam  connected  in the  early  1930's.  An electric light battery operated system was purchased and installed  in  1928  followed  by  the  electricity supply  by  the Commission  some 5 - 8 years later. These modern facilities made the way of living much happier and convenient for our family. There is no doubt that everyone  in  the  community  and  the  whole country  for that matter lived in the 1860's - 1900's under severe hardship, with lighting by candle, kerosene lamp and lantern, with no modern cooling or heating  convenience. It was in the early 1938  -  40  period  that  kerosene refrigerators  were  introduced onto the market. Kettles for heating water were used in the new home, on a wooden stove  and  the  old  fountains  were discarded.               

I  can  recall childhood memories in about early 1920's of my father and  mother driving a horse and sulky to Cootamundra for their supplies once every two weeks which was I believe a full days work. I have been told  that it  has been known that some of our forebears have carried bags of flour for food from Muttama a distance of 8 - 10 miles to feed their  families  and  no doubt these were odd occasions.           

I  recall  a  building of significance to me and many other children that being Auntie Emily's cottage at "RoseHill". It was a real dream  home to  all  children who had the opportunity to visit this old worldly cottage. Not everyone was welcome because Aunt Emily was very  particular  about  the welfare  and  contents  of  her  home and garden. It was built in the 1920's period and comprised of very small rooms, a low ceiling and as the owner was of very small stature it suited ideally. The home was built of  mainly  slab timber and mainly lined with newspaper and brown paper. Flour was mixed into a paste to stick the paper to the slabs to keep te cold out. Aunt Emily had the home decorated of her own liking, a portion of it  was  allocated  as  a Post Office; which she conducted for many years very successfully.     
               
A  matter  of  interest  was the Mail run in the early 1920's - 30's which was contracted for. It was run for many years by Paddy O'Halleran.  It was  run  three days per week - Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. He used a horse and sulky and horses used to be changed at the end of the  run  and  a fresh horse driven back to town. He carried mail, bread,  groceries and cream cans  from  the  dairy to the butter factory. In those days he was always  a welcome visitor with letters and papers to read. In the  middle  1930's  the horse and sulky was abandoned and replaced by motor transport. 

I  also  recall about 1922  the bullock teams carting wool and wheat to Cootamundra and Harden. They used to work about 22 bullocks at a time in a team yoked up to a big wheeled wagon. They used to carry a load of about 60 bales of  wool or 120 bags of wheat. I remember clearly the teamster Ivan McCullock with his big long bullock whip. About one or two years later the horse teams replaced  the  bullocks and  then about 1927 the motor trucks came into being. They used to carry 40 bales of wool or 60 bags of wheat, then in the 1930's the semi trailers were introduced.                     

When I was young and we were kids at home we used to  have  to  make our own fun and games . We did not have many visitors and there was no where to  go, we may have got to the annual Cootamundra Show every year if we were lucky. We often used to imagine and play cubby house down in  a  cluster  of bushes  near  our  home.  We  would  mark  out  the rooms and have imaginary visitors to afternoon tea. Every day we would create some new game to occupy our time and interest  but, of course once we started  school  that  occupied our  minds  and  time  for most of the week.

As we grew up a tennis club was formed at "Rose-Hill" and we used to play other teams  at  Jugiong,  Muttama and Caulderwood. I enjoyed a game of  tennis very much indeed. I also enjoyed dancing  during  my  teens and used to attend dances at "Rose-Hill" (Charlie Manwarings) wool shed and at Muttama and Jugiong. I used to ride my horse to all the dances in those days."

I  trust  that these few paragraphs will be of interest to people in knowledge of the early life of the pioneers and the Manwaring relationsip and people living in the "Rose-Hill" district.

The land was virgin country when the Manwarings settled, densely timbered with trees and shrubs. Edmunds eldest daughter, Rose, was lost for two days soon after the family settled because the land was so densley timbered.   

They cleared the land, ploughed it with the single furrow plough, reaped the crop with the reaping hooks, then waited for the man who owned the threshing machine to come along and thresh the grain. The  bullock teams hauled the logs together, packing one on the other to make the log fences. The brumby foal was caught, tamed and hacked around the property for years. They worked long and hard to carve their farms out of the timbered bushland.   

A man named Armstrong had the store at Muttama at one time and owned a lot of country around there and Edmund use to shear there and carry the groceries home on his shoulders at weekends.       

William's youngest daugter, Emily, lived in the corner of the garden of Rosehill, her house was a slab and weatherboard bungalow, built  in the 1920's by her nephews, Francis (Frank) and Edwin Albert (Dick), Edwin's eldest sons. It had small rooms and low ceilings. It was lined with newspaper and brown paper with flour being was used to make paste to stick the paper to the slabs. A portion of the house was allocated as a Post Office as Emily was the postmistress for many years, receiving mail for nearby properties, the mail being brought from Cootamundra twice a week by horse drawn sulky.   

Church services in the early days were held at Cranbrook, with the minister travelling from Gundagai to perform the sevices. It seems that the early Manwarings were very devout followers of the Anglican religion. The Church sevices held at Cranbrook were a  special  time for  the Manwaring family and a real  family  affair.  The  pastor  for  Gundagai  parish  in  1897,  Pastor  A.C. Moseley, wrote in is address for that year -       
  " The services held at Bongongolong and Muttama are also well    attended. The latter service is most interesting, as the congregation  consists of four generations of Manwarings. It resolves itself into a large family gatering. I would thank Mr Plows of Bongongolong,  and Mr Manwaring of Muttama for the use of their rooms."           

They gave freely to church funds of the Gundagai parish, especially to the building fund for Christ Church, Jugiong. In 1897 the Manwaring family gave a total of nearly 30 pounds to the church funds, 18 pounds of which went to the building fund for Christ Church, Jugiong.     

Many purchases and sales of land have occurred since the first land was purchased in the 1870's but both RoseHill and Cranbrook are still farmed today by the fifth generation of Manwarings.