Wilberforce, NSW 2756

Wilberforce is one of the five 'Macquarie Towns' proclaimed by Governor Lachlan Macquarie on 6 December 1810 and named for William Wilberforce, the British campaigner against the slave trade; it sits on the Hawkesbury River just beyond Sydney's outer north-west suburbs, about 62 km from the CBD. The 2021 census recorded 2,957 residents. Today it is a quiet, semi-rural riverside village of acreage lots and heritage streetscapes: heritage-listed sites include St John's Anglican Church with the 1819 Macquarie Schoolhouse, the original 1810 Wilberforce Park town square, Rose Cottage and the Australiana Pioneer Village open-air museum, and it is the birthplace of bushranger Captain Thunderbolt. Buyers' and agents' write-ups frame it as tightly held, semi-rural acreage living on the Hawkesbury's floodplain.

At a Glance

Transport

Wilberforce has no railway station; the closest station is Windsor (T1 line), about 9–10 km south across the river. Busways operates route 668 — Richmond to Windsor via Glossodia & Wilberforce — through the village, linking Wilberforce to Windsor and Richmond with limited, largely school-and-daytime frequencies; bus travel is sparse and driving dominates (Busways).

Schools

Wilberforce Public School — NSW government K–6 primary school in the village with around 350 students (NSW school website; My Choice Schools). Its forerunner was the heritage Macquarie Schoolhouse of 1819 beside St John's Church, which served as school, chapel and residence until replaced by a public school in 1880. There is no high school in Wilberforce; local secondary students fall within the catchment of Hawkesbury High School in South Windsor, across the river.

Shopping & Amenities

Wilberforce's village services line Wilberforce Road and the surrounding streets: the Wilberforce School of Arts (531 Wilberforce Road, officially opened 1930) operates as the community hall and hub, available for hire and running community programs (Hawkesbury City Council venue booking; LocalityBiz). The riverside Macquarie Park Boathouse Cafe (28 Wilberforce Road) offers a local cafe stop on the river side of the village (TripAdvisor). The Australiana Pioneer Village on Rose Street is a working heritage attraction with 20+ relocated 19th-century buildings (theapv.org.au). Everyday retail is limited — Wilberforce is a small village, and locals shop in the larger Hawkesbury towns for day-to-day needs (Hawkesbury tourism).

Parks & Outdoors

The Hawkesbury River borders the town — Wilberforce sits on the river opposite Pitt Town, with the Macquarie Park Boathouse Cafe at the river end of Wilberforce Road. Wilberforce Park (47 George Road) is the original town square proclaimed by Macquarie in 1810, still retaining its relationship with the schoolhouse and cemetery, and holds the War Memorial erected by local residents in 1918. The Australiana Pioneer Village (Rose Street) recreates a 19th-century streetscape with relocated colonial buildings including Rose Cottage, described as the oldest timber slab cottage in Australia standing on its original site. St John's Anglican Church (1859, designed by Edmund Thomas Blacket) and the 1819 Macquarie Schoolhouse sit beside the park, and the heritage Wilberforce Cemetery (1815) holds pioneers' graves including the unusual Table Slab Grave.

Property Market

The median house price in Wilberforce was around ~$1.33M–$1.40M (2025–26 trackers: CoreLogic via YIP $1,400,000 on 38 house sales; proplo $1,340,000, +11.7% YoY, Jun 2026; realestate.com.au median sale price $1,352,500; auspropertyfinder $1,332,500, +18.4% — see notes) (mid-2026). See our full Sydney property price map for how the suburb compares across the city. House-median trackers cluster tightly: CoreLogic via YIP $1,400,000 (+13.4% annual growth, 38 sales in 12 months, ~33 days on market); proplo $1,340,000 (+11.7% YoY, updated Jun 2026); realestate.com.au median sale price $1,352,500 (Aug 2025–Aug 2026 window) with 3-bed houses around $1.30M; auspropertyfinder $1,332,500 (+18.4%) on Valuer General data. An older onthehouse AVM put house median value at $1,169,856 as at Mar 2025 (onthehouse). HtAG characterises Wilberforce as a tightly held, supply-constrained acreage market with ~1,398 dwellings and a 1.24% vacancy rate. Units are negligible in this acreage suburb — onthehouse's 'unit median' of ~$1.5M reflects a handful of atypical sales over five years and is not meaningful (onthehouse).

New Developments

Minimal. Wilberforce is a tightly held acreage village with no significant residential development pipeline; HtAG describes supply-constrained, long-hold market behaviour across its ~1,398 dwellings. New building is limited by the village's Hawkesbury floodplain location and rural zoning — the Hawkesbury–Nepean valley is one of NSW's key mapped flood-risk areas (NSW SES).

Jobs & Local Economy

Local employment centres on the village's heritage-tourism economy — the Australiana Pioneer Village, the School of Arts community hub and the riverside cafe — plus acreage-based rural work (theapv.org.au; Hawkesbury City Council venue booking). Most working residents commute to the Windsor–Richmond corridor, the Hawkesbury's main commercial and employment centres about 10 km away across the river, fitting HtAG's characterisation of a long-hold market roughly 70 km from the Sydney CBD.

Nearby Suburbs

East Kurrajong, Glossodia, Freemans Reach, Pitt Town, Maraylya, South Maroota, Ebenezer

Sources & method

Researched 5 September 2026 from named public sources — census and government records, transport authorities, council and planning documents — plus published sales data. Where sources disagree on a figure, the guide says so rather than picking one.

Sources cited in this guide:

• Wikipedia — Wilberforce
• Transport for NSW
• NSW Government

Corrections are welcome — if something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will fix it.

Back to all Sydney suburb guides.