Club Run – Arms of Australia Inn

Corner of Great Western Highway and Gardenia Avenue, Emu Plains NSW

Meet at the Inn at 10:30am

Normally $15 per person on a Sunday. Cost will be $10 per person. The club will be subsidizing the cost. Please bring the correct money. Cash only please.

Please advise if you will be attending by no later than 10th November 2024 so the Nepean Historical Society can have enough volunteers to accommodate us on the day.

Please bring your own morning tea to have at the Inn. Tables and chairs will be provided.

After morning tea, we will proceed on a guided tour of the Inn. Depending on numbers attending, we may be broken into two groups.

Lunch we be at either O’Donohue’s Irish Pub or the Rowing club or the log cabin. All close by. Will depend on what the group decide on the day.

Shown below is a bit about the history of the Inn.

The Arms of Australia Inn was one of 23 road side inns in the Nepean District and the last stop before starting up the mountain road and the trail west. It is believed that the building was built in two sections, the first around 1826 and was purchased on 1st May 1833 by Joseph Barrow Montefiore. He later split the land in two in 1840 and sold half to John Mortimer, who commenced trading as an inn on the main road to Bathurst, Orange and the gold diggings. Passenger Coaches The coaches that plied the road day and night also used to stop at the inn as did many bullock team drivers taking stock and provisions over the mountains. As the inn only had two main rooms, most overnight travellers had to sleep in the barn, on the veranda or under their wagons. A year later the laws were changed and Inns had to have separate rooms for ‘Ladies and Children’. Mortimer added four additional rooms for bedrooms. The society took control of the building and began the slow work of restoration until it was officially opened on 27th March 1976 as a museum of local history for the Nepean district.

Bushrangers As bushrangers were a great problem in the area, the Arms and a second inn at the top of the hill had a system to warn travellers if bushrangers were about. This was accomplished by the inn at the top of the hill hanging a lantern on their building which was visible to the Arms. If the lantern was burning, the road was clear, but if it was not, the stagecoach drivers and other travelers would spend the night at the Arms and continue on in daylight. The Inn continued to prosper till the 1860s, when the rail line came through. People began to use the train instead of going by road and trade died off. The inn was sold in 1865 and became a private house for the next hundred years, when it was sold to Lucas & Tait for subdivision. Restoration In 1972, rather than have the building demolished the Nepean District Historical Society asked the Penrith City Council to purchase the site, which they did.

(Log Book Entries ARE NOT required)