Just to the south of the village of Tomerong in New South Wales, is a spot on the map called Kells Road. It’s named after my 2x great-grandfather Robert William Kells and his family. They farmed and made their home there, Robert taking it over from his maternal uncle William Barton.

At the time they lived there, the road was at the centre of Tomerong’s thriving sawmills and timber industry. Originally part of the Princes Highway, when the highway was upgraded and bypassed Tomerong, the section of road where Robert Kells had lived became officially known as Kells Road.

Part of the Kells family house was apparently moved from their land about a kilometre west, to the Kells Road site around 1915. It was the family home for many years, being sold in 1947. It was lived in by a couple of other families, before becoming uninhabited and ramshackle.

There’s not much to see now. The building stood beside the road until recently, becoming rather a hazard. Debris from its ruins are stacked on site, in one pile of wood and another of corrugated iron.

What will continue to remain long after the building that was the Kells family home, is a road named after my ancestors.

Selected references

Robert William KELLS, Tomerong Past Wiki, https://tomeronghistory.com/wiki/index.php/Robert_William_KELLS, accessed 22 August 2026.

Industry & Commerce, Tomerong Past Wiki, https://tomeronghistory.com/industry.html, accessed 22 August 2026.

Margaret Blair, From Bullocks to Bypass: A Local History of the NSW South Coast Village of Tomerong, Margaret Blair, Tomerong, 2000.

Tomerong Historical Map, Tomerong Past, https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1t4tnCT9Q-BTXvMOX3V0Tth4tkyCzn2Zp&ehbc=2E312F, accessed 22 August 2026.