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History

Roleystone's name originates from a 5666-acre farm—named "Rolleston"[2]—established by Charles Blisset Churchman in 1830. The property included much of what is now Roleystone and Bedfordale, and remained untended after Churchman's death in 1833 until it was purchased by Thomas Buckingham in 1858, who referred to it as "Rollingstone". The area was also referred to as "The Rolling Stone" and "Rowley Stone" in early police reports.

In 1865, Buckingham built a sawmill, which was located at Sparrow's Place, later known as Butcher's, on the Roleystone Road, about 6.5 kilometres from Kelmscott. The area was subdivided into farmlets in 1902, and was subsequently developed as orchards and market gardens. Buckingham's homestead still stands along with a brick and mortar sheep plunge dip on the property of Araluen Golf Resort. In 1905, Roleystone was opened up for closer settlement, with property brochures extolling the virtues of the scenery and fertile valley soils.

Roleystone is now an area of large residential "R5" zoned properties—with 1500-2000m² minimum block sizes—surrounded by larger rural properties of native bushland and fruit orchards. The residential gardens, and surrounding council and regional reserves are home to a variety of native wildlife with bandicoots, brushtail possums, shingleback lizards and children's pythons in relative abundance. Large numbers of Western Grey Kangaroos are found in bush surrounding the suburb.