Banjo Patterson's childhood home

Rockend Cottage at 40 Punt Road in Gladesville, on the northern banks of the Parramatta River, is where A.B. 'Banjo' Paterson lived with his maternal grandmother Emily Mary Barton from approximately 1874-75 through the early 1880s, while attending Sydney Grammar School. The cottage was built as an inn in the late 1830s and purchased by Barton in 1866; she renamed it Rockend for its position near the rocky shoreline of Looking Glass Bay. Emily Mary was herself a gifted poet and widely believed to have been an important early literary influence on the future author of 'Waltzing Matilda', 'The Man from Snowy River', and 'Clancy of the Overflow'.

Paterson was born in 1864 at Narambla, near Orange in central western New South Wales, and spent his earliest years on a series of country properties before his grandmother brought him to Gladesville for his schooling. The juxtaposition of his bush origins and his Sydney education -- mediated by this particular cottage on the river -- shaped the tension between city and country that runs through much of his work. His grandmother's cottage was the bridge between those two worlds.

Rockend Cottage is heritage-listed on both the NSW State Heritage Register and the Register of the National Estate. It was purchased by the NSW Government in 1985, restored, and now operates as the Banjo Paterson Cottage Restaurant, set within approximately five acres of parkland and gardens with river views. The grounds are open to visitors.