A history of Berrima’s inns and several southward has already been provided. For travellers through the Southern Highlands, the first or last inn stop (depending on direction) was at Murrimba, where the road crossed Paddy’s River. 

Two inns traded there until the 1860s, the Jolly Miller/Murrimba Inn and the Rose, Thistle and Shamrock. These are described by Shylie Brown in the book ‘Life Behind the Bar: Inns and Hotels in the Southern Highlands’. Extracts follow here.

The Jolly Miller Inn was opened by William Beadman without the official granting of a publican’s licence. It is known to have been in operation in July 1833, being named in a Sydney Gazette advertisement calling for tenders to construct a wooden bridge across Paddy's River next to the Jolly Miller's Inn. 

Beadman retired in May 1839 and his nephew John Beadman Ward became proprietor and licensee, changing the name to the Murrimba Inn. Shortly afterwards the inn was robbed by bushrangers. A customer, Mr Smedley, who witnessed the robbery, recognised one of them in Sydney later that year, gave chase and, with the assistance of police, caught him.

John Ward had arrived in NSW from Lancaster, England in 1818, transported as a convict sentenced for seven years. He married Mary Myers in 1836 and they would have seven children. He advertised the Murrimba Inn for sale in 1853 but the lease was not transferred until 1856, when George Dawson became the licensee. Following him as licensee was Henry Jeffreys who had married Ellen Valpy in 1852 at Dunedin, New Zealand. The couple moved to Sydney where a son and daughter were born. After taking up at Murrimba, Henry became insolvent and had to sell all his assets. Sadly, Ellen died in 1858 and, to add to Henry’s woes, fire destroyed a cottage he still owned in Goulburn, which he rented to supplement his income. He died in Goulburn in 1868. What happened to the two children is unknown.

Through this period of the 1860s, bushrangers were still menacing small communities. A newspaper report described that the quiet of Paddy's River was thrown into a state of great alarm by an unwelcome visit by Messrs Gilbert and Co. These desperadoes made their appearance, rifling all 15 houses in Murrimba, marching the inmates to Jeffreys’ inn where they regaled with the best the house could afford. They later struck at the tollbar, then proceeded to rob the Black Horse Inn and head to the Crossroads.

In 1867, Ann O’Neill was listed as licensee of the Murrimba Hotel but no further information has been found about her, the establishment or its demise.

In 1863 the Rose, Thistle and Shamrock Inn was opened by Thomas Mooney on the Southern Road near Murrimba Road and Paddy’s River. Little information has been found about this inn or Mooney except that he was one of a number of Mooney family members who were innkeepers in the Goulburn district. The inn was put up for auction in 1864 and described as a weatherboard house with six rooms, on an acre of land. There was also a detached kitchen, a nine-stall stable with loft enclosed by a paling fence. The inn’s licence was cancelled in 1868.

That completes the description of these early inns at Murrimba. They closed because the surrounding rural community was not sufficient to keep them in business after road traffic declined and the railway to Goulburn took a different route than the road.

Even a general store which James and Jane Murray opened at Murrimba in 1843 did not survive, although at first doing well. From 1862 Jane ran the store and raised their nine children herself as James was incapacitated after falling from his bullock wagon. He died in 1879 and she moved down the river, buying a property, Canyan Leigh, where she opened a post office.

By the 1920s, when motor vehicles had come into use and the southern road was busy again, local inns trading between Berrima and Murrimba were just a memory.