Aberdoon House

I found Aberdoon House while walking to the Rouse Hill Shopping Centre through the Caddies Creek Reserve from Kellyville, where I was staying. It is a long, rather boring slog to the shops if you go by the road. If you cut through the Reserve, it’s quite a pleasant walk, notwithstanding the prolific signs threatening all sorts of nasty diseases if you as much as paddle in the artificial lake.

At the end of the Reserve stands Aberdoon House, probably the oldest building around, and here, you can usually get coffee. It’s advertised as a ‘coffee shop and art gallery’, where local artists display their work. And, usually, offer it for sale.

The coffee bar is manned by volunteers from the local church, and very nice the coffee is, too. It comes … I don’t know if this is seasonal or not … with a little cake, like a miniature Christmas pudding without the fruit, topped with marzipan and icing.

It’s probably one of the oldest houses around, built in the traditional Australian ‘homestead’ style, and, if flies permit, you could take your coffee on to the verandah, and imagine what it was like ‘when all this was paddock’.

One of its earliest residents was landowner Hugh Kelly, after whom Kellyville is named. I wonder what he would think of ‘his town’?