Bungarribee is a newish suburb near Doonside in the modern City of Blacktown but the name itself is an old one for the area . The modern Bungarribee Road was once a track that took people from one side of Blacktown to the colonial era mansion , Bungarribee House .

In the 1820s the whole area was formed from a land grant named Bungarribee , which extended from Eastern Creek in the west to the site of modern day Flushcombe Road in the east . It was roughly fenced by today ’ s Great Western Highway to the south and Bungarribee Road marked its northern boundary .

It was more than 800 hectares or 2,000 acres in area and covered most of the suburbs of Blacktown , Arndell Park and parts of Huntingwood and Doonside .

The Dharug people of western Sydney invented the name . It comprises two Dharug words which joined together describe the area ; bun or bung which means a creek that dries out in summer , and karabee or caribi which refers to cockatoos .

Bungarribee Creek and Kitchen Creek near the Bungarribee Hub do not flow regularly and are often dry and how many times does our peace and quiet get disturbed by noisy flocks of white cockatoos , corellas and rainbow lorikeets ?

Scottish immigrants , John Campbell , his wife Annabella and their children arrived in Sydney on 30 November 1821 and he was granted the land that he later named Bungarribee . He was allocated twenty two convicts with whose help he cleared some of his land and began building his new home . By 1825 he and his wife and their family were living in Bungarribee House .

Unfortunately , Annabella died in 1826 and John Campbell passed away the next year after his leg turned gangrenous from a simple scratch . Both were buried in St John ’ s Church at Parramatta .

The lovely looking colonial mansion with its Italianate round tower endured until 1957 . What a pity