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Kelso.
The Anglican Church and historic cemetery of Kelso are well worth a visit. Historic buildings include Kelsoville historic house which dates from 1840 and Woolstone House built in 1880. The Anglican Church, the oldest away from the Sydney coast, dates from 1835. It is a fine Gothic style red brick church. By the Macquarie River is the site of the former Chinese market gardens on the Macquarie River flats. Kelsoville, a fine Georgian house was built by Thomas Kite in 1840. Like many other eventual leaders of the Bathurst district Thomas Kite was transported as a convict in 1814. He was one of the group of convicts who worked under Cox whilst building the road across the Blue Mountains. Governor Macquarie gave Kite (and the others) a land grant of 80 acres on the Macquarie River flats in 1818. Kite married a 16 year old girl in 1820 when he was 30 years old. They had 9 children. Soon Kite had purchased a further 150 acres and become the licensee for the first hotel in the district. In that year the governor gave him a further grant of 640 acres for his hard work and advancement of the district and a team of four assigned convicts to work for him. His original house built in 1820 was incorporated into the new Kelsoville House which he built in 1840.By then had owned 50,000 acres of land. He had amassed 200,000 acres by the time of his death in 1850. He is buried in the Anglican cemetery at Kelso. It was one of his sons who built the Italianate style mansion of Woolstone in 1880. So a former convict became one of the great and owners of the district. The Anglican cemetery also contains the graves of one of the First Fleeters who arrived at Botany Bay in 1788.