Fernhill is a heritage-listed former chicken hatchery, plant nursery, guest house, farm, residence, stone mason's yard and piggery and now residence and horse stud located at 1041 Mulgoa Road, in the western Sydney suburb of in the City of Penrith local government area of New South Wales, Australia. Completed in as a residence for Captain William Cox and family, the house was completed in the Old Colonial Greek Revival style with its design attributed to either Mortimer Lewis, John Verge or Francis Clarke. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
Set on , Fernhill was built as a much grander residence with associated gardens following Cox's earlier construction of The Cottage, that dated from . Following Cox's death in 1837, Fernhill was completed under the supervision of one of his sons, Edward.
History
Aboriginal land
The traditional owners of the land now occupied by Cox's Cottage were the Mulgowie people, who became known as the "Mulgoa tribe".
There is a reference to an attack on the Cox property by Aboriginal people in 1814.
Colonisation
The Mulgoa valley has played an important part in the history of the development of New South Wales. From 1810 Mulgoa was a key area of settlement in the colony.
The first land grant was made by Governor Macquarie to Lieutenant William Cox, a colonial magistrate who promptly registered the property in the parish records in the name of his infant son, Edward.
Cox's Cottage is part of early colonial land grants and purchases to members of the Cox family in the Mulgoa Valley, south of Penrith, eventually totalling some . The first of the grants, of , made in 1809 to the infant Edward Cox and confirmed by Governor Macquarie the following year, became known as Fernhills or Fernhill.
Fernhill estate is located principally on the first land grant made in the Mulgoa Valley (to the infant Edward Cox) dating back to 1809. The name Fern Hills seems to have been given it as early as 1810.
Lieutenant William Cox is perhaps best known for supervising the construction of the first road over the Blue Mountains in the second half of 1814. He sailed to New South Wales on the Minerva in 1799. During his 37 years of residence in the early colony, he made a substantial and enduring contribution to its progress in the fields of public administration, building and agricultural development. The Cox family were remarkable "house and garden" people. During the middle years of the 19th century, William Cox Sr. was at Clarendon, near Windsor; his eldest son William, lived at Hobartville, Richmond; his sons Henry, George and Edward were to build and occupy their respective houses of Glenmore, Winbourne and Fernhill at Mulgoa. Another son, James, settled in Van Dieman's Land, where he built his own magnificent Clarendon. Around all these houses the Cox families created beautiful gardens.
For some time the property of was managed jointly with that of William Cox by the overseer James King with occasional help from Cox's sons, George, Henry and Edward.
Edward Cox (1805–68) returned from schooling in England (since 1821) and established his separate estate at Fernhill. In 1827 he married Jane Maria Brooks (of Denham Court estate, Ingleburn) and the family lived at The Cottage, Mulgoa (to the east) for many years.
By the late 1830s Fernhill was one of the principal estates in the Mulgoa Valley and included The Cottage site to the east. At this time it was one of five properties that had expanded to occupy virtually the entire Mulgoa Valley.
In 1842 Edward Cox began building the sandstone house. It was planned on a large and sophisticated scale and in the Greek Revival style, possibly by colonial architect Mortimer Lewis. The house was completed in 1843 and Edward and Jane Cox moved in then. Above the door is a date of 1842. The architect of Fernhill is not known with any certainty. The house bears features suggestive of the work of Mortimer Lewis and John Verge. The less-well known architect, Francis Clarke, was working in the area at the time of Fernhill's construction and the house may have been designed by him.
Lewis' private commissions show a dependence on published sources, identified in recent year by architectural historian James Broadbent. Fernhill and Tomago boast separate entrance and garden fronts at right angles to each other, the garden fronts marked by bay windows. Their plans are probably adapted from the British architect William Wilkins' design for "Oxberton House", Nottinghamshire, as published by George Richardson in the New Vitruvius Britannicus (1802-8).