General Motors Badge

A metal nameplate reading "General Motors Truck" sits on a rust-spotted blue panel above a curved fender. Paint has lifted and flaked across the bodywork in layers, exposing the metal beneath. A small handle and several fasteners are visible below the badge. The vehicle rests at Mill Pond Farm, the 41-hectare property at Jembaicumbene in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales. Mill Pond Farm incorporates the Jembaicumbene Steam Flour Mills, a four-storey structure built in 1859 by Charles Dransfield using bricks manufactured on the property and stone from farm-sourced granite, with massive hardwood beams cut from the nearby Budawang Ranges. The mill opened in January 1860, its engineering works and 20-horsepower steam engine supplied by P.N. Russell and Co. of Sydney. The building was designed by Sydney surveyor C.E. Langley. Milling operations ceased in 1885. The property's history stretches further back than the mill. The homestead was established in the 1830s as part of the Roberts and Badgery pastoral estate, with a timber wagon barn and stables added in the 1840s. In 1859, when Dransfield began construction, more than 1,000 miners were working Jembaicumbene Creek, including approximately 600 Chinese miners. The mill served that community directly. Restoration of the mill and homestead began around 2008 under Antony Davies and Andrew Gow, and continued for approximately 11 years. The timber sash windows in the mill were made to order by Amish craftsmen in Pennsylvania as part of that work. The lower floors became the Wheatfield Gallery, exhibiting fine art, craft, and decorative arts. Davies had a known interest in vintage vehicles and horse-drawn carriages, which accounts for the presence of older machinery and vehicles across the property. This photograph, made in 2022, records the General Motors Truck badge as it now sits: weathered, still legible, still fixed to the panel.