greatest interest" to him. In marking out the towns of Windsor and Richmond in 1810, Governor Macquarie was acting on instructions from London. All of the governors who held office between 1789 and 1822, from Phillip to Brisbane, received the same Letter of Instruction regarding the disposal of the "waste lands of the Crown" that Britain claimed as her own. This included directives for the formation of towns and thus the extension of British civilisation to its Antipodean outpost. Stannix Park The house is in the Dharug region and there is extensive evidence of Aboriginal occupation on the site. Large numbers of axe and spear rubbings are present on exposed rocks and archaeologists estimate that the site had been used for about 2000 years. Artefacts are common and a fine stone axe was found within 30m of the house in late 1986. A "canoe" tree is still growing about 100m from the house. Stannix Park was built in 1839 on a 1820-acre (736ha) grant made to settler, William Hall in 1837. Hall had first come to Australia in 1810 as a missionary aide to Samuel Marsden but went to New Zealand soon afterwards. His health forced him to return to Australia in 1825 and he sought a suitable grant for a growing herd of cattle, with his wife Dinah. His early applications were refused because of official confusion with a second William Hall who lived nearby at Pitt Town. The matter was eventually resolved and Hall was given authorized possession in 1829. At that time he was in charge of the Aboriginal school and mission at Blacktown, but by 1831 he had prospered to such an extent that he had a large house in Sydney on the corner of Pitt Street and Liverpool Street, another at Blacktown and 161 horned cattle. He stated that it was his "intention to engage a free person of good character to take charge of the grant" but by 1839 when the house was finished he had transferred his grant to his son Henry Hall. The initials of the latter and the date are expertly carved on the keystone over the arched door to the coach house. During the depression of the 1840s the house was heavily mortgaged to Thomas Tebbutt (the uncle of the astronomer John Tebbutt of Windsor) and others. Following Hall's death in 1844 the property was sold. By 1851 it had