Although now serving other purposes, these buildings are reminders of our history. From 1876, fresh milk was railed daily to Sydney, and from the 1920s, local cooperatives made butter and cheese for wide distribution. 

Local manufacture of dairy products ceased in the 1990s. Since then, the district’s milk output has gone by road tanker to central processing facilities elsewhere and our present-day dairy farmers continue to contribute fresh milk on a large scale.

The local history of dairying dates back to the earliest days of settlement in the 1820s. In his “History of the Berrima District” (published in 1986) James Jervis writes that the early settlers had to be self-dependent. As well as keeping cows, pigs and poultry, they cultivated wheat, barley, potatoes and other crops on land they had tilled, with orchards and gardens providing fruit and vegetables. Being prior to the invention of refrigeration, salted meat was generally consumed.

Although Sutton Forest was reported in 1847 as being a fine wheat-growing area, the district soon proved too damp for the crop. Grazing became the major primary industry, as cattle thrived on the excellent pasture that grew from the district’s rich volcanic soil. A number of large dairy herds were kept, it being stated in 1839 that substantial quantities of salt butter were being sent to Sydney from a local property.

James Atkinson, who established the Oldbury estate at Sutton Forest, noted that he kept milk cows shut in a yard at night and fed them on hay, oat, barley and pea straw. They thrived much better than on natural grass and the manure was useful as fertiliser.

On many small farms, dairy herds provided milk for the family and nearby villagers, with the excess being used for making butter. The milk was poured into wide shallow pans which were placed on shelves in a small room or hut near the farm house and allowed to stand for the cream to collect. The women-folk skimmed the cream off and churned it into butter. Butter was made from October to May; the cows were then dried up before winter set in, or only provided a small supply of milk.

After the passing of the Land Acts in 1861, the densely forested Yarrawa Brush area around Robertson was opened up by free settlers, many coming from the Illawarra. Besides raising crops and vegetables, they undertook some dairying. Their butter, after being washed and salted, was packed in brine barrels or kegs to be carried on the backs of pack-horses down the escarpment to Kiama for shipment to Sydney. Gross contamination was inevitable and exacerbated by hot weather so, in general, the product quality was very poor.

Two developments in the 1860s turned the district’s small dairying ventures into a major industry. The first was the opening of the southern railway from Sydney in 1867, which provided a faster mode of transport than shipment by road. Locally made butter was taken to railway stations for despatch to Sydney.

The other was refrigeration. In the 1860s, Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, a prominent Sydney auctioneer who had prospered in wool sales, financed experiments to design and produce refrigeration machinery suitable for use in ships, trains and cold-storage depots.

He realised that preserving perishable goods with ice opened many opportunities for transporting food, especially meat. He also looked for ways to preserve milk by refrigeration. He had long thought that the enormous death rate among Sydney infants was largely brought about by the consumption of impure and poisonous milk. 

From philanthropic rather than profit-seeking motives, he sought ways to supply Sydney with pure and unadulterated fresh milk from a country district. When milk was chilled or frozen, however, the cream separated. It was not until a simple agitator was used to blend milk in large vats during chilling that he could proceed.

Mort chose the Southern Highlands as the most suitable country area to supply milk for city tables. He visited in 1875 and received enthusiastic support from local farmers.