Reverend William Lisle, who was the fourth Rector of the Holy Trinity Church at Kelso after he arrived in 1844, was a regular visitor to “Brucedale”. 

An Englishman born in 1811, he arrived in Sydney Harbour on April 14, 1842 with Rebecca Ann Wainman Carter, who he had married the previous year. At Kelso, Reverend Lisle was soon known as one who would ride through sleet and snow to visit his rural parishioners.

The Reverend visited “Brucedale” on August 12, 1857 to conduct a service at this well-known property. He stayed the night before returning to Kelso. He noted in one of his diaries that he had partaken in the “evening meal at the lagoon”, so I assume it is this lagoon that he is speaking of.

Reverend Lisle does not mention taking any of his original four children or his then second wife, Sarah Ellen Suttor, a sister of William Henry Suttor of “Brucedale”, whom Reverend Lisle had married about a year after his first wife died during childbirth. The couple had two more children.

The late John Suttor recalled that when he was a boy, the lagoon was used as a place for picnics and other special occasions for the Suttor family at “Brucedale”. 

The Suttor children would use it to swim in as well as catching craybobs. The water was a bit deeper in the early days and many of the Suttor children and children of other employees learnt to swim there. 

David Suttor, the late John Suttor’s son, and who now owns “Brucedale”, told me that this natural lagoon is still there, though there are a few more willow trees around the edge now. These days it is only a shallow lagoon - about 750mm deep when full.

Webb and Company’s ‘Western House’ had printed and sold a series of local black and white postcard images for at least five decades. Many were printed in Germany, with all postcards having their name “E. Webb & Co., Western House, Bathurst” printed at the bottom. 

This postcard image is number 123. The postcard is named “The Lagoon, Brucedale, N.S.W”. There are at least 190 postcard images that were in the Webb series, so the company certainly had a selection. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has a numbered Webb postcard higher than 190.

Local and well-known photographer Mr H.C. Beavis took many of the local photos, but not all in the series.

Any form of water could be a danger in the early days. The early Burial Register at Holy Trinity Church had a provision made for an entry for "cause of death". A large number of them are "accidentally drowned".

The early newspapers can back up this sad fact - for example, a report appeared in The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser on March 27, 1832 concerning a coroner’s inquest “that was held on Saturday, at Brucedale, before John Liscombe, Esq., Coroner for Bathurst, on the body of an infant, two years old, belonging to a member of Mr. Suttor’s family, who met a premature death by falling into Winburndale Creek, whither it had made its way from the house – Verdict accidentally drowned.”