Occupied for a century by five generations of the same family, Meroogal has accumulated a rich store of treasures and stories. In the hallway stands a grandfather clock with the most wonderful and eventful history.

The clock first arrived from Scotland with the McKenzie family and was with them when they moved to Terara, on the banks of the Shoalhaven River. 

There the McKenzie family and their clock might have stayed if not for a catastrophe that struck in 1860.

At the time, Terara was a magnet for new colonial settlers, and all transportation of passengers, goods and information was by boat.

Proximity to the river was important, however this came with an ominous side; as the indigenous inhabitants had long known, floods came with alarming regularity.

 In October 1838, Thomas (ca.1794-1892) and Mary McKenzie arrived from the parish of Loch Broom Ross Shire, in the highlands on the north-west coast of Scotland.

Their first farming venture was at Kiama, which in 1839 boasted only four houses. A few years later Thomas entered into a partnership and took a farm upriver on the Shoalhaven at Wogamia. 

 In 1846, Thomas and Mary’s daughter Jessie Catherine (1824-1916) married Robert Thorburn.

Jessie and Robert eventually bought their own farm closer to the escarpment, away from the river, and raised eight children.

In 1859, when Thomas was 67, he, Mary and their unmarried children moved to some allotments in Terara, a move that was to prove disastrous.

Only a year later the Shoalhaven flooded; one of a series of flash floods across the South Coast and entire Sydney Basin as the Nepean, Hawkesbury and Shoalhaven rivers all burst their banks, with catastrophic results. 

Thomas, Mary and their children narrowly escaped with their lives as their home was swept away. 

Their possessions, home, and even the land on which it had stood vanished; so, with the help of their married children, the McKenzies moved to higher ground in Cambewarra. 

It seemed that the family had lost everything. Miraculously however, after the flood waters fully receded, the face and inner workings of their grandfather clock were recovered; the case had been smashed and the mechanism was full of mud.

Eventually the clock was cleaned and returned to working order and, with a new case, became a treasured reminder of their lucky escape.

Today, it still stands in the hallway,  keeping time for visitors to the house; an enduring reminder of the family’s history, the destruction at Terara, and the founding of Nowra.

Meroogal House

In 1879 the McKenzies were joined at Fairfield, Cambewarra, by their 14-year-old granddaughter Kennina Thorburn - known as Tottie or Tot.

Tottie’s widowed mother Jessie and three sisters, meanwhile, had moved into a new house. 

This was Meroogal, built for the family by Tot’s older brother Robert to a design by their uncle, Jessie’s younger brother Kenneth McKenzie (1836-1922).

Meroogal was built on several allotments on the western edge of the new town of Nowra, which had been laid out well above any possible flood line.

After the deaths of Mary (1886) then Thomas (1892, aged 98), the grandfather clock was left to Tottie and, and it returned to live at Meroogal with her

The great flood.

The Sydney Morning Herald, in a lengthy and detailed report about this most recent flood, described the devastation In its edition of Tuesday March 13, 1860 the newspaper detailed scenes of heroism and tragedy and told how the McKenzies escaped with their lives as all around them was destroyed:

“The Mackenzies, (sic) a numerous, well-to do, and happy family of farmers, residing on the same estate, have lost house, barn, other out-buildings, and all they contained, also money ; indeed, they had barely time to save their lives; the headland, called ‘Mackenzie’s Point’, jutting out some distance into the stream, has wholly disappeared, and better judges than I am say that from twenty to thirty acres, including portions of several Terara town allotments have been engulphed [sic] in the swollen river.

“The desolation of this district is beyond adequate description. …So quickly did the river rise that no time was afforded to save a single article. Women and children were carried through the water; some took refuge on the tops of their houses, and were swept away; others flew to haystacks; many hung on to the branches of trees, and remained there for hours until taken off by boats.

“The great, the awful, and most appalling scene of wildest desolation, irrecoverable wreck, loss of life, and annihilation of houses and property, is Terara township. It would appear as if the avenging fury and power of the flood were reserved for the special destruction of the locality. Truly, it is a melancholy and soul harrowing sight, to look abroad upon the spots where goodly dwellings once stood, and happy, too confident families, once dwelt-living in peace and comfort; the creation of their own industry, and smiling in contentment and feelings of independence.”

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