Historic Bleak House

James Pennington was born to Thomas & Sussannah ( Welch,Wiggins )Pennington in Hobart Tasmania ( Van Diemans Land ) in 1815 . His father Thomas was one of the first settlers given a land grant in Sorrell Tasmania 1813 .Thomas Pennington married Sussannah Welch following the death of her first husband Samuel Wiggings a Royal Marine in the founding party of Lieutenant Govenor David Collins . Samuel & Sussannah had six children and in 1803 they took passage on the ship Calcutta where Sussannah gave birth to a son Thomas Wiggins and step brother to James Pennington , he was to be the first recorded birth in the official baptismal register in Van Diemans Land . ( Australian vital records Tas R/N 1 ) Sussannah was to bare two more children to Thomas Pennington , being James and his sister Mary.

James met and fell in love with Sarah Ann Burke born 1820 Convict no 9201 who was transported to Van Diemans Land on the ship the Arab in 1836 for the term of seven years after being convicted at Lancaster /Liverpool Quarter session for petty crime , she was 15 at the time and was assigned to Mr Thomas Thornloe Esq ) , she was granted a ticket of leave in 1838 and in that same year her and James were married . One year on in 1839 Thomas Thorneloe was sent to Port Phillip / Northern country Vic to investigate prospects for the Govenor and went on to manage Barfold Station ( Macedon Ranges )  He invited James Pennington and Sarah to join him in employement on Barfold station , where James worked for many years along side Mr Thorneloe . In the late 1950's James purchased land in Malmsbury from Andrew Phurphy ( Phurphy water tanks ) where they built their homestead from the bluestone being quarried on their land and went on to name their property  Bleak House , we are not sure to this day whether they named it Bleak House due the release of Dickens book in the 1850's or if was it due to the  howling cold winds that swept across the Great dividing Ranges .

They farmed the Bleak House property together up untill Sarah passed away in 1871, and not more than six months later James died of a heart attack on Piper St kyneton 1872, it is said he died of a broken heart due to losing his beloved Sarah. Today their gravestone still stands proudly in the Kyneton cemetry. Sadly James & Sarah were a childless couple and bequethed Bleak House to the Kyneton hospital in perpetuity ( forever ) hence after a one hundred year period the hospital sold Bleak House as it did not have the funds needed to maintain it . During the 100 year period Bleak House was better known as the Hospital Farm and rumour has it that it was once a house of ill-repute and run as a brothel by one of its caretakers for the Hospital .  Many local people were born at the Bleak House Hospital Farm.  In the late 1970's after a court case ended in the Supreme court in Melbourne to forego the perpetuity bequeth made by James & Sarah the Bleak House property was sold to reknowned rosarian Susan Irvine and it would become her first rose garden ( Garden of a Thousand Roses ) it also became one of the first open gardens in the 1980's .

Today Maarten Reinalda and his partner Pamela garden and nurture 15 acres at Bleak House Gardens with love, passion , respect and in memory of James & Sarah Pennington.