Paterson's Cottage

Statement of Significance

Paterson's Cottage is a fine example of an early residence constructed in Flemish bond-style brickwork. It is one of the oldest houses in Murray which has been continuously occupied. Paterson's Cottage is associated with significant Western Australian poet and novelist, Kenneth McKenzie.

Physical Description

The colonial cottage is constructed from local brick (from clay dug from the riverbank) with sandstone banding around the doors and windows. It has an iron roof and a rendered chimney. Set on the banks of the Murray River. The house was originally a four-roomed cottage constructed in the Flemish bond style.

History

Homestead was originally used for tenants on Creaton Estate, then used as a dwelling for the Paterson family. The place was constructed between 1845 and 1860 by Anthony Cornish when he and Nicol Paterson were partners and joint owners of Creaton Estate.
The cottage was originally a four-roomed residence with a verandah all round, built as a farm labourer's home. It was constructed in the then-popular Flemish bond style, with bricks made from clay dug on the property and fired in a kiln zt the end of Paterson Road. The kitchen was originally a seperate building, but by the 1920's it had been roughly attached to the main house.
Kenneth Mackenzie was the grandson of George Paterson, a member of Alexander Forrest's Kimberley expedition. Hs mother, after her divorce from Kenneth's father, moved the "The Cottage" in 1922.
Mackenzie loved the surrounding bushland and showed early promise as a musician. After attending the school at Pinjarra, he enroled at Guildford Grammar School and in 1930, Muresk Agricultural College where he disliked the coursework but wrote 'The Young Desire It' (1937), with scenes reminiscent of his experiences at Guildford Grammar. he studied arts/law at the University of Western Australia for a short time.
After journalistic work for the West Australian, Mackenzie left Perth in December 1933 for Melbourne. He moved to Sydney, on the advice of Norman Lindsay. In 1934 he married art teacher Kathleen Bartlett and they had two children, Elizabeth and Hugh. Mackenzie worked in radio and as a journalist with 'Smith's Weekly' and 'ABC Weekly', before being drafted into the army in 1942.
He served as an orderly room corporal in Cowra, overseeing captives in a prisoner of war camp, and later spent time in Concord army hospital. mackenzie witnessed the mass outbreak of Japanese prisoners from Cowra - written about in his novel 'Dead Men Rising'.
Mackenzie mentions the large camphor laurel tree in his novel, 'The Young Desire It'.

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