 The site was under cultivation early in the colony's history and was used in the 1820s for the acclimatisation and development of exotic fruit trees when Australia's first Agricultural Society was formed in Parramatta (1822) and was given this land by its president, Governor Brisbane as an experimental garden to grow new varieties of plants and trees.A number of trees over 100 years old remain from the School gardens, some rare in Sydney, such as the carob bean tree, Ceratonia siliqua.Marsden Rehabilitation Centre was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.