The countryside around Penrose

Penrose
Small township in the Southern Highlands
Located between Bundanoon and Marulan on the Highland Way, Penrose is 152 km south-west of Sydney, 650 m above sea-level and, according to the sign on the outskirts of the town, has a population of 205. Like Wingello and Exeter, Penrose is a town which came into existence in the late 1860s when the railway between Sydney and Goulburn was being constructed. It thrived until the 1920s and then slowly declined when the trains started to by-pass the station.

Today, with the advent of the XPT fast train and the decline of small railway stations as transport nodes, the town is on the edge of oblivion. Nearly every house and every business in the town is either for sale or boarded up. This is a far cry from the romantic image of a tiny, quiet village 'nestled amidst towering pine trees, fringed by the State Forest, deep gullies and gorges' which is depicted in A Village Called Penrose written by Lesley Day in 1987.

The first European to pass through the area was surveyor-general James Meehan who travelled through the district on 17 March 1818 and named the local creek St Patrickıs River (known locally as Paddyıs River).

The railway with its two stations - Kareela and Cables' Siding (where the railway crossings at the northern and southern ends of town are now located) - arrived in 1868. People began to settle beside the track in 1870. One of the first properties was that of Philip Rush who occupied the land now known as 'Sylvan Glen' in 1870.

By the 1890s the town had grown large enough to have its own Methodist Church (previously used in Bowral and reerected at Penrose in 1893), post office and police station. It was surveyed in 1895 and plans were made for a village, named after Penrose in Cornwall.

By the 1920s the town was on the edge of the boom created by the fashion of holidaying in the Southern Highlands. 'Edenholme', with views across to Jervis Bay, was opened as a guest house and Mrs Teudt, who ran the guest house, gained a reputation as a superb cook. It was destroyed by fire in the early 1950s.

It was in the 1910s that orchards were planted in the district. During World War I the two sidings were closed and Penrose Railway Station was opened. By the 1930s more guest houses - notably 'Cherry Hinton' and 'Sylvan Glen' - were opened and the fresh country air attracted substantial numbers of visitors from Sydney. But the town had never really created a solid economic base for itself and after World War II, when many people moved to Sydney, it started to decline. Today it is a few houses with little prospect of revitalisation.

Things to see:  

Activities in the Area
The Sylvan Glen Guest Farm has a nine-hole golf course, set in a picturesque valley.

Accommodation and Eating
There is no accommodation or eating in Penrose. See the entry for Bundanoon.