McQuade Park is a heritage-listed park and sporting venue at 361 George Street, Windsor, City of Hawkesbury, New South Wales, Australia. The park was set aside by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1810, first surveyed by James Meehan in 1811, and re-surveyed and significantly expanded by G. B. White in 1827. It is also known as The Great Square, Church Green and Windsor Park. The property is owned by Hawkesbury City Council. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 14 January 2011. History The Hawkesbury region was inhabited by the Dharug people prior to European colonisation. The riparian area along the Hawkesbury River had been a source of food for the local Aboriginal people for over 50,000 years (it is known to the Dharug as Dyarrabin' or 'Deerubbin') and, with relatively frequent floods that spread enriched alluvium throughout the surrounding land, the region was known to be an abundant and reliable resource. It was also a place with strong social and spiritual significance. Following the establishment of the colony of New South Wales, the new colonists quickly recognised the agricultural potential of the banks of the Hawkesbury River. This led to intensive farming of the area to supply food to the developing colony that was experiencing severe shortages in the early years. However, following flooding in 1799, 1800, 1806 and 1809, life for the colonists farming the flats of the Hawkesbury River was a hard one, fraught with potential devastation with any inundation of the river. Governor Macquarie founded six new towns in the countryside of New South Wales during 1810, his first year of office. Unlike the first at Liverpool, the five towns on the Upper Hawkesbury and Lower Nepean (Windsor, Richmond, Wilberforce, Pitt Town and Castlereagh) were primarily created to assist existing farmers who suffered recurrent losses on the flood-plain. The Governor intended the new towns to have some common features, including a centrally sited square. Windsor was unique among the 1810 towns in incorporating an existing government village, in the area called Green Hills. As a result, there was already a square inside the area designated for the new town, but this public area, named Thompson Square by Macquarie, was at the extreme north-east end of the town and another square was planned from the outset in a more central position within the new grid-plan. This second reserve, which Macquarie called the Great