Our Story
History
1798
Rowland and Elisabeth Hassall arrived in the colony of New South Wales in 1798, and almost immediately established themselves as Cattle and Sheep graziers in the areas of Pennant Hills and Parramatta in Sydney, and afterwards around Camden and Cobbitty to the southwest of Sydney (known as ‘The Cow Pastures’).
1850
The family moved to the newly settled pastoral district around the township of Braidwood in the early 1850’s and established a grazing enterprise that’s still based there to this day. The grazing property at Braidwood, ‘Glendaruel’ is situated in the highly productive Jembaicumbene Valley. It consists of alluvial flats and open undulating pasture country, rising to an area of low hills on the southern end. It is situated in the upper catchment of the Shoalhaven River, on the Eastern side of the Great Dividing Range.
1960
Glendaruel Pastoral Company’ was formally established as the trading name of the family’s grazing enterprise by Geoff and Jenny Hassall in the 1960’s. Cattle and Merino sheep continued to be run on ‘Glendaruel’ until the early 1970’s when the sheep enterprise was sold off, and the family decided to focus solely on Cattle breeding.
1994
The decision was made in 1994 to expand the business, and with the purchase of ‘The Willows’ at Holbrook, in the South West Slopes region of Southern NSW, the business evolved from being a weaner producing enterprise, to focussing on growing steers out for the feeder market. More emphasis was placed on value adding the cattle and controlling the marketing process.
1996
The purchase in 1996 of another Holbrook property ‘Jergyle’, which adjoined ‘The Willows’ was the catalyst for Jono and Francine to relocate to the district, to take control of the backgrounding and marketing end of the business, and to implement a significant pasture improvement and infrastructure upgrade program on the new properties.
2001
Banawarra, the final adjacent portion of what is now known as ‘Jergyle’ was acquired in 2001. This third addition created a property ideally suited to the backgrounding and fattening of the young cattle. In addition to production advantages, the Holbrook enterprise has assisted in mitigating seasonal risk by balancing the Eastern fall, Summer/Autumn dominant climate of Braidwood with a Winter/Spring climate on the South West Slopes.
2012
Jono and Francine formally took over Glendaruel Pastoral Co in 2012 and set about implementing significant changes to the management of the business, as well as restructuring the cattle herd to implement best practise processes, with a clear goal to make the herd more efficient and improve marketability of the cattle.
2018
Another parcel of land ‘Lowana’ was purchased in late 2018 as a further addition to the breeding side of the business. Located at Mullengandra, between Holbrook and Albury, it is approximately 26kms from ‘Jergyle’. The addition of ‘Lowana’ has allowed one of the next generation of the family, Fergus, to establish himself as an integral part of the business, and become the eighth generation of the family to be involved in livestock breeding and grazing in Australia.