The Shamrock Trail begins with two familiar main street landmarks — the Old Courthouse and the Old Post Office — both well known to locals. So, for this instalment, we're picking up the trail at stop three: The Dairy.

This rare slab dwelling was once home to one of the town's first dairymen. Built in two sections, the house had living quarters at the front and amenities at the rear — a layout still clearly visible today, even though the sections were later connected to create more living space. The slab shed at the rear was moved from the adjoining block. Now a private residence, the house has been named Dendavilleigh by its current owners.

The site is a reminder of just how central dairying once was in the district. Perhaps the first dairy licensed in Boorowa under the municipal council belonged to Martha Randall, a mail contractor, laundress and housekeeper who also ran a dairy while raising eight children after being deserted by her husband.

Journalist Randolph Bedford wrote of her in the Bulletin under the title "The woman who never got tired."

By 1926, Boorowa had eight dairies supplying the Harden butter factory, with figures including Henry Hure, William Barden, R. Hately and Tom Hoskins among the town's early licensed dairymen. Attempts to establish a local butter factory date back to 1893, though bad seasons, a lack of dairy cattle and a devastating fire in 1905 meant the industry never fully took hold in Boorowa itself.

Standing at the corner today, The Dairy offers walkers a tangible link to that era — a quiet survivor of a trade that once shaped the town's daily life. It's a fitting stop on the trail, connecting the streets we walk now to the hands that built and worked this place more than 150 years ago.