James Lowe Mitchell (1840- 1909) married Isabella Fletcher Cameron (1841- 1915) in 1861. As Europeans settled New England, the area which became ‘Invergowrie’ was first part of the adjoining Saumarez run and later the Eversleigh run. As pressure for closer settlement rose, the area became available for selection, and it was in 1866 that, James Lowe Mitchell selected 100 acres of land straddling what is now Invergowrie Creek. The site of his first house and garden was on the creek near a spring about one kilometre north of the present house. A sole remaining English elm marks the site.
In the early 1870’s James L Mitchell built the first section of the present house and laid out some of the garden. In particular he planted two Funeral cypresses (Chamaecyparis funebris) and Photinias ( Photinia robusta) in the classic Victorian fashion as two pairs and created gardens there. Unfortunately, one of the cypresses was lost in a storm in early 1996. The original format of the garden has been retained. Changes in modes of transport have resulted in the front of many Australian country houses becoming the back. Invergowrie was no exception.
In about 1876 the house was altered and the area between the original house and the detached kitchen was enclosed. At the same time the driveway, with its Monterey (Pinus radiata), Himalayan (Pinus roxburghii), and Bunya ( Araucaria bidwilli) pines, was planted together with many other Monterey pines as windbreaks. An impressive picket fence was built from the eastern garden fence boundary to the bachleor’s quarters (a building erected to house my James Lowe and Isabella Mitchell’s growing family). Making the new front of house now on the south side of the house. All this probably coincided with the Cobb and Co. coach run through the property, when Invergowrie has a post office and was a way station. The post office is noted in Robert Garran’s Picturesque Atlas of Australia 1886. It is believed to have closed in 1914.
Upon the death of Isabella Mitchell in 1915, Invergowrie passed to John Martin Moffatt (1867 – 1941) and Mary Cameron Mitchell (1875 -1958) who had married in 1902. They took over the property in 1916.
A journal belonging to John Martin Moffatt lists the roses he planted in 1919 and we believe this to be his first major contribution to the garden. John Martin Moffatt was an enthusiastic and competent gardener, and the rose gardens were quite splendid. About half the roses on his list have been replanted in the garden.
It is most likely that he planted the box hedge, and that the built the fence which curved from the north western corner of the bachelor’s quarters across the northern side of the house to the eastern boundary fence of the garden, fencing the cypresses and photinias out into an area known as the lamb’s yard, thus completing the fencing process that had commenced around the house and garden forty years earlier.
John Martin Moffatt built the present garages, and access to the garden was now from the west side of the house, which is presently marked by two purple leaved plums. The driveway was abandoned.
Upon John Martin Moffatt’s death in 1941, the property passed to his two sons (Kenneth Norman Moffatt -1904 – 1956 and John Houston Moffatt 1910 -1972). Norman Moffatt and his wife Gwenyth Janetta Hunter Warner (1906 – 1988) married in 1929 and made ‘Invergowrie homestead’ their home. In 1935 John H Moffatt married Jean Hunter Warner (1911 – 2001), and they built a home on the property to the south east of the homestead. Because of the war and subsequent labour shortages, the gardens were grassed over for easier maintenance. Apart from some alterations to the garden boundaries as original fences collapsed, things remained that way for about 45 years until 1990.
During the 1950’s and into the early 1970’s Kenneth Hunter Moffatt (1933 – 1994) and his brother Graham Hunter Moffatt (1940 -) continued to run Invergowrie with their mother Gwenyth. In 1973 Invergowrie was surveyed for subdivision, eventually forming the Invergowrie estate.
In the late 1980’s the ownership transferred to Douglas Hunter Moffatt (1943 – 2013) and David Kenneth Hunter Moffatt (1960), who together with Ian Telford (1941) have worked on the restoration needed to ensure the survival of the homestead, out buildings and gardens. The restoration of the garden by this next generation has centred on the roses and gardens of the early 1920’s (reflecting John Martin Moffatt’s contribution), and the reincorporation of the trees on the northern side of the house back into the garden (reflecting James Mitchell’s gardening contribution to a Victorian house).
The driveway has been reinstated as an entrance in order to take advantage of the pleasure of approaching the house and entering the garden from that direction. Wherever possible they have taken advantage of existing plantings made by each generation and they have drawn heavily on the knowledge of the garden by family members, and this has played an important role in deciding aspects of design and plantings.
The driveway has been reinstated as an entrance in order to take advantage of the pleasure of approaching the house and entering the garden from that direction. Wherever possible they have taken advantage of existing plantings made by each generation and they have drawn heavily on the knowledge of the garden by family members, and this has played an important role in deciding aspects of design and plantings.