Visible from the Hume Highway, it is nonetheless tucked away off the beaten track in a town over-endowed with magnificent, fading heritage left from First Fleeters, early explorers and graziers who made vast fortunes.

Yet once a month under the brewery's giant elms, fresh berries, eggs, pumpkin, quinces, squash, two-tiered cakes and home-made candles are laid out for sale. Produce comes from the people who have moved to Parkesbourne, south of Goulburn, and sunk their fingers and seeds into the mildly acidic soil.

Doreen Macpherson, a former neonatal intensive care nurse from Canberra, pencils on shells the date on which each of her free-range eggs is hatched. A computer operator from London, she came first to Sydney, then Queanbeyan and then to Parkesbourne for a less stressful existence, with husband Peter, an upholsterer who ''hankered for a bit of dirt'' on the Breadalbane Plains where he was raised.

Their neighbour, Julie Anderson, a former teacher in Leichhardt, Sydney, grows alpine strawberries so fragrant they are a star at Sepia, The Sydney Morning Herald's 2014 restaurant of the year. Mrs Anderson's son Terry Robinson, a chef at Sepia, alerted the restaurant to the strawberries' aroma when they are freeze dried.

''My son eats his way around the garden when he comes home,'' Mrs Anderson said. ''The borage flowers, they have a kind of seafoody taste, cosmos, calendula, violas, nasturtium. I have to stop him from trying the mushrooms.''

Lorraine Phelps' family has farmed at Parkesbourne since long before the 1860s, when Sir Henry Parkes renamed the settlement in his honour. She is seeing the old grazing country subdivided into smaller holdings and resettled by Canberra commuters who are coaxing remnant fruit trees back to life.

Their little market, on the last Saturday of the month, basks in the quiet ambience of the old brewery and new arrivals soaking up history.

''It's nice the heritage buildings are coming back in and finding a use,'' Mrs Macpherson said.

''People say this is perfect, just a lovely place to come.''

Waves of redevelopment periodically flatten grand buildings in Goulburn. But being on a flood plain away from the concentration of Goulburn's growth has saved most of the brewery's visual curtilage.

Fresh produce from labour-intensive hobby farms is bringing a wider appreciation of the early architecture.

Mrs Anderson has discovered alpine strawberries, raspberries, tayberries, mulberries, gooseberries, and red and black currants thrive at Parkesbourne.

Mrs Macpherson is in the early stages of producing free-range pork from her Wessex saddleback pigs.

East Goulburn's public school has begun a barbecue at the market, which may tempt people away from the highway fast food outlets back into Goulburn's glorious past.