Penrith Suburb Overview
Penrith is a suburb in Greater Western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Penrith is located 50 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the City of Penrith. It lies east of the Nepean River.
Penrith is a commercial centre, designated a regional city under the NSW Metropolitan Strategy.
Penrith was named after the town of Penrith, England. However, Penrith comes from “Penrhyd” which is the Welsh Language for “Chief Ford / Hill Ford”. How it got the name is unclear. One theory is that in the early days, development in Penrith was entirely on one road, like the English Penrith, and someone familiar with both spotted the similarity and suggested the name. The earliest known written reference to the name Penrith dates back to 1819.
Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the Penrith area was home to the Mulgoa tribe of the Darug people. They lived in makeshift huts called gunyahs, hunted native animals such as kangaroos, fished in the Nepean River, and gathered local fruits and vegetables such as yams. They lived under an elaborate system of Law which had its origins in the Dreamtime. Most of the Mulgoa were killed by smallpox or galgala shortly after the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. Early British explorers such as Watkin Tench described them as friendly, saying, “they bade us adieu, in unabated friendship and good humour”.
Watkin Tench was the first British explorer to visit the area in 1789 and named the Nepean River after Lord Evan Nepean, under-secretary to the home department. Governor King began granting land in the area to settlers in 1804 with Captain Daniel Woodriff ‘s 1,000 acres on the banks of the river the first land grant in the area. In 1814, William Cox constructed a road across the Blue Mountains which passed through Woodriff’s land at Penrith. Initial settlement in the area was unplanned but substantial enough for a courthouse to be established in 1817.
The post office was established in 1828, the Anglican church, St Stephens, was built in 1844 followed by the Catholic Church, St Nicholas of Myra, in 1850. Two other prominent Penrith pioneers were Irish-born Thomas Jamison , a member of the First Fleet and surgeon-general of New South Wales , and his son, the landowner, physician and constitutional reformer Sir John Jamison . In 1824, Sir John erected the colony’s finest Georgian mansion, Regentville House, near Penrith, on a ridge overlooking the Nepean River. Sir John established an impressive agricultural estate at Regentville and became a Member of the New South Wales Legislative Council. His grave can be seen in St Stephen’s graveyard. Regentville House burned down in 1868 but most of its stonework was salvaged and used for building projects in and around Penrith.
Another well-known early settler was Thomas Frost who arrived from Buckinghamshire in 1810. His wife Sarah had been baptised by Samuel Marsden and her brother, Robert Rope, was reputed to be the first European born in Australia. In a Petition to the governor of the colony, Sir Thomas Brisbane, on 13 October 1822, Thomas Frost declares that he is a Free Man and cultivates a farm on the Nepean River where he has a herd of 125 cattle. He mentions that the previous Governor, General Macquarie, was pleased to grant him, Thomas, a further 50 acres of land at Bathurst and he now craves the Governor’s consent to drive cattle across the mountains to that property for pasturage. Frost’s gravestone still stands in good condition in St. Stephen’s Churchyard, Penrith.
The first bridge was opened over the Nepean in 1856 and was washed away the following year in a flood. The railway line was extended to Penrith in 1863, a school was established in 1865 and in 1871 the area became a municipality. It officially became a city in 1959.
Penrith is one of the major commercial centres in Greater Western Sydney. Penrith hosts a number of shopping complexes, the largest being Westfield Penrith, formerly known as Penrith Plaza. The shopping centre features over 300 stores ranging from department stores to specialty shops.
Penrith Railway Station is a major railway station on the Western Line of the CityRail network. It has frequent services to and from the City and is also a minor stop on the intercity Blue Mountains Line.
Penrith railway station has its own bus interchange . Penrith is also served by Nightride Bus route 70.
Nearby Suburbs
