Berry family to sell Emu Creek cattle farm after 155 years

After six generations a NSW family is selling their historic 3026ha farm, with offers expected to reach the mid-$30 million range.

After a tenure spanning more than one and half centuries, a NSW family is selling their 3026ha NSW Northern Tablelands livestock farm.

Mark and Angie Berry have listed the historic Emu Creek farm for sale, calling time on their family’s six generations and 155 years on the livestock fattening and breeding property.

“Emu Creek has been a wonderful home to all of us over the generations, and it has been an enormous privilege to be the custodian of this beautiful property,” Mrs Berry said.

Located 13km from Walcha, in northern NSW, offers for Emu Creek are expected to fall in the mid-$30 million range.

Emu Creek has the capacity to carry 25,000 dry sheep equivalents, and has been conservatively stocked with a mixture of late-spring calving cows, replacement heifers and Dorper ewes lambing on a nine-month cycle in recent seasons.

LAWD senior director Col Medway and director Tim Corcoran are managing the sale, with Mr Medway describing the property as “remarkable and unique”.

“Benefiting from an average of 700mm rainfall per annum, the property will suit any institutional investor or large farming family looking for scale and will cater for any mix of livestock production,” he said.

Emu Creek has been used for a mix of late-spring calving cows, replacement heifers and Dorper ewes lambing recently.

“There is also a significant opportunity for further development, which will provide new owners with the ability to increase the operational scale of the property.”

Emu Creek was originally purchased by George Robert Gill for one pound per acre — the minimum price for rural land at the time.

Mr Gill gradually transformed Emu Creek into a superfine wool growing enterprise, comprising at one time more than 40,498ha (100,000 acres).

In 1874, Mr Gill was the first to import Vermont Merino sheep from San Francisco to Australia to establish his flock.

Then in 1908, George Robert Gill II built the existing homestead that now sits in a two hectare (five-acre) garden and is home to the family’s sixth generation.

The 1908 Emu Creek homestead.

Emu Creek’s wool also gained international recognition as repeat winners of the prestigious English Lumb’s Golden Bale Award and two-time winners of the Italian Ermenegildo Zegna Award.

Emu Creek has more than 700ha of perennial grass and clover pastures, which have been improved, while 1369ha is made up of open native grass and clover pasture land.

Water supply comes via 24km of frontage to a number of creeks including Dog Trap Creek, Emu Creek and Brookmount Creek and 28 dams.

Last year a number of high-profile Northern NSW farms were sold including the 3645ha Kentucky Blue and The Flags, which was sold by the Mawhinney family in a deal worth well in excess of $55 million.