RUNNYFORD

In the days before ‘the punt’ started operating across the Clyde River at Batemans Bay the highway south basically ran along the western side of the Clyde River (to avoid having to make a river crossing) and passed through Runnyford.

A Henry Burnell was given a grant of 1,928 acres in the area by the Governor of NSW in 1837. He named it Runnymede after the area on the Thames River where he had been to school.

He was provided with convict labour to help clear and work the property and he also employed servants that had been brought from England. His homestead was built from locally-made bricks and was completed in 1838.

Henry Burnell never married. Two of his servants, Cathrine Condon and William Austin, married in 1841 and they leased the property from Burnell who returned to England.

Runnymede became known for its cheese which was first made there in 1847 by an English convict.

Runnymede also had a post office, a telephone exchange and a timber mill. In 1909 its name was changed to Runnyford to avoid confusion with another post office in Tasmania named Runnymede. The telephone exchange operated until 1972.

Nearby, on the main bend in the Buckenbowra River, are old Aboriginal fish traps.