Harris Park

Harris Park is a suburb of Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Harris Park is a suburb of Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Harris Park is located 19 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district in the local government area of the City of Parramatta and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. Harris Park has a plurality Indian and Hindu population, both making up the largest ethnic and religious group.

Harris Park is the home of several historic sites, including Experiment Farm.

James Ruse was the first convict to be granted land in the colony, by Governor Arthur Phillip in this area in 1791. He developed Australia's first private farm known as Experiment Farm, which sowed the first wheat in Australia. Surgeon John Harris, who had already received land grants in the area in 1793 and 1805, bought the farm and built a cottage on the site in c1795. Harris Park is named after John Harris. The cottage is heritage-listed and open to the public.John Macarthur built Elizabeth Farm in 1793. The building changed and grew substantially over the years, and the architect John Verge is thought to have worked on it from around the late 1820s to the late 1830s.It now falls within the Rosehill area and is heritage-listed.Macarthur built Hambledon Cottage in the early 1820s for Penelope Lucas, the governess for his children. The main wing was designed by Henry Kitchen and the house was used for vice-regal guests until 1883. It is heritage-listed. Penelope Lucas is now remembered in Penelope Lucas Lane, in Rosehill.In the 1880s, Arthur Latimer McCredie, an architect and alderman in Parramatta Council, built his mansion, Kenilworth, in Allen Street. It was a two-storey building in Victorian Italianate style and served as his home for most of the remainder of his life. Though his will expressly forbade the property being conveyed to Catholics, it was acquired on his death by the Sisters of Mercy, who ran it as the Convent of Mercy from 1927 to 1998. It then became the Australian International Performing Arts High School. In 2013 it was converted into the new home of Holy Spirit Seminary, the seminary of the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta. Kenilworth is heritage-listed.