An early housing estate in the area was Aero Estate at Ingleburn. The estate, situated on the western side of the railway line, was also known as Blomfield Estate. The Blomfields were descendants of Captain Richard Brooks of nearby Denham Court. Richard's daughter Christiana married Thomas Blomfield.
The vacant paddocks were subdivided in the 1920s and marketed as Aero Estate later in the decade. Information about the sales appeared in Sydney newspapers in early 1927. In the Daily Telegraph of 12 March 1927, the following notice appeared under the heading of Subdivisions: Six Estates Offering- Today's Sales and under Ingleburn "Today, at 3pm, Peach Bros. will offer at public auction, on the ground, 850 acres of choice residential and farm land, fronting the main Southern Road and the railway, at Ingleburn. The land for sale is known as the Aero Estate, and is subdivided into one, three, five and acre farmlets, in addition to a number of home sites". Advertisements the next month boasted it was "right at station" and buyers could choose between one, three and five acre lots from 30 pounds.
In 1939 Aero Road, which ran through the estate, became the first road in Ingleburn to be sealed. It was sealed for army purposes from the Military Camp to the railway station.
The estate continued to be developed into the late 1950s. In late 1969 Council announced plans to rezone the entire area light industry. All hell broke loose. Protests and petitions were the order of the day. Local residents who were living the dream on the estate were about to have their lives turned upside down. However, residents were eventually victorious, and the plan was dropped. Only a decade later Council overruled objections and approved light industry.
Aero Road was blocked off and became a minor road. In 1987 a new road bridge over the railway connected with Williamson Road. The level crossing closed, and Old Aero Road was renamed MacDonald Road, in honour of early landholders.
How Aero Estate and road got its name is confusing. According to locals Arthur and Jean Hounslow, around the First World War years when aviation was in its infancy, students from Sydney University used to travel there to use grass sledges. They then started using gliders and once they got used to it, they would sit in the glider and have it projected and come down over the flats over Ingleburn. However, according to Margaret Firth in her 1977 oral history interview, an early model aeroplane landed in a property named Moorland where the estate was later developed. A man and a woman had flown the plane and either a mechanical fault or lack of fuel forced them to land in the paddock. A huge crowd gathered, with "people coming from miles around".
Written by Andrew Allen
Sources:
Margaret Firth oral history interview held at Campbelltown Library 23 November 1977
Arthur and Jean Hounslow oral history interview held at Campbelltown Library 23 May 2013
McGill, Jeff et al Campbelltown's Streets and Suburbs: How and why they got their names 1995
Daily Telegraph, 12 March 1927, p10
Kerr, David, Old Ingleburn in Grist Mills: Journal of the Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society, Vol 21. No.1, March 2008
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