For Margaret Love though, there is no doubting that the weatherboard home out near Waratahs sportsground is on the site of the birthplace of Banjo Paterson.

It’s well known that Banjo was born in 1864 in the large homestead of the original Narrambla but the location of that homestead has always been in dispute.

Mrs Love, whose maiden name is Margaret Farrell, was born in 1929 and lived on a property called Emmaville.

Emmaville is part of the original Narrambla that was cut in half by the Orange to Wellington railway line in 1880.

West of the railway line, which contained the homestead, became Emmaville and the property east of the railway line retained its name of Narrambla and was home to Templers Mill.

This confusion in names is what Mrs Love believes has led people to think that Templers Mill is the birthplace of Banjo Paterson and not at the site of the ramshackle shed that remains.

“Narrambla extended from Templers Mill in the east to Molong Road in the west,” Mrs Love said.

“George Lord was a wealthy man and he would not have built the homestead right next to the mill, it was on the high ground with views over the 3000 acres and near Molong Road.”

Emmaville was owned by her father Robert Farrell and her uncle Jack Farrell and Mrs Love’s family lived in the homestead from 1908.

In 1926, due to it being in an appalling condition, the original homestead was demolished, a new house was built and the five rooms that are now at the site were retained and were attached to the new building via a verandah.

When her father Bob Farrell died in 1944 she became an owner of the property with her brothers Jim and Bob Farrell and her uncle Jack.

In 1950 the three siblings bought Jack Farrell out and in 1975 the property was resumed by the Bathurst-Orange Development Corporation.

For decades Emmaville was home to Mrs Love who as a child walked from the site to Santa Maria school in Byng Street.

“We got bikes for Christmas in 1939 and we used to ride all around the district.” Mrs Love said. “We rode over to Templers Mill once and searched around the ruins. We were lucky that no bricks landed on our heads.”

Emmaville consisted of 26 acres of orchards with the remainder under oats, potatoes and peas.

“In 1942, the year after my father had his first heart attack, I ploughed the fields with the horses and really did just as much of the outdoor work as the boys,” Mrs Love said.

“My mother wasn’t very happy about me not dusting the furniture on a Saturday morning.”

Over the years though the Farrell families moved into Orange and the building that remains was used as a shed with four of the rooms used to store toxic farm chemicals.

“In 1968 it was just used as storage for chemicals like 245T that had been banned in the United States,” Mrs Love said.

“No one was allowed to go in there.”

Mark.logan@ruralpress.com