Record sale for ‘the Hill’ at Clifton

In October 2020 a record sale price was reached for a property called “The Hill” at Clifton.

The Hill belonged to the Harvey Family for almost a century when the current owner’s father, Jack Harvey, bought two blocks circa 1927 and built the original house the following year when he got married. The couple started a dairy farm early in the Great Depression, when the local coal mine (where Jack was employed in the stables) closed. Coalcliff Colliery was not to open again until just before the outbreak of World War II.

The original slab dairy is still standing on the property. Jack and his wife Gladys started out milking 15 Jersey cows purchased from the north coast. The dairy expanded over the next few years, peaking at 28 cows. The remaining three blocks were bought over the ensuing decade, bringing the land area to about an acre.

The dairy cattle were grazed along the roadsides as far away as Wombarra, but returned to Clifton morning and night to be milked. Jack sold the milk out of metal cans and into householders’ billy cans from the back of a horse-drawn dray.

The dairy closed a few years after the Colliery re-opened, but horses and cattle have always been kept on the Hill. The current owner has lived on The Hill for almost
86 years, being the only child of Jack and Gladys. When he married in the late 1950s,
he and his wife moved in with his parents, before building the second house to the south of the original house in 1962.

The current owners have lived in their house since then, raising a family and working in the local area but needed to downsize. The Hill was sold by local real estate agent Simon Beaufils from Ray White Helensburgh for a record price of $4.51m.