But pull up at the last shed and you arrive at one of the shire’s meatiest endeavours.

His work may be unknown in his home town, but from his workshop, Ross Macnamara has supplied meat-rail systems – rails, hooks and scales – to butchers and abattoirs across the country.

“We did the meat rails for Parliament House,” Ross said.

“I had only just moved here, so we made it in the lean-to that was on this block then.”

Most of his work has been for the Sydney market.

“You can’t get meat into Sydney without using something we have built,” he said.

That’s a lot of meat rails, but Ross started from a young age.

“I was apprenticed as a butcher when I was fourteen,” he said.

“We had eight shops going; always something to repair or a new shop coming on.”

Ross first built a shop for his dad: “Me old man knew what he wanted and said, ‘Son, you might as well do it.’”

The Master Butchers Cooperative were impressed with the young Ross’ effort: “Would he do meat rails for them?” The work kept coming in.

“I was 19 and could only butcher for my old man on a Thursday and Friday, I was that busy. I couldn't do both,” Ross said.

He made the decision to build the meat rail business. 

“My dad put a ‘For Sale’ sign on the butcher shop door, and then worked for me for 20 years.”

The Macnamaras have a long family history of butchering.

“George Macnamara was a freeman and butcher who came to Australia on (Captain) Phillip’s ship,” Ross said.

“Around 1900, we Macnamaras had the butcher shop in Cleveland Street. It went on from there.”

Ross’ uncle –  Norm Macnamara –  was the first to hold an export licence.

“He had export licence Number 1, the first allowed to export packaged meat,” he said.

Ross thinks live export should be banned.

“I don’t think meat should leave the country unless it’s in a carton,” he said. 

It isn’t animal welfare that most bothers him: “You need a job? We have thousands of sheep being sent overseas that could be put through an abattoir and employ 100 maybe 200 people.”

He says it’s a tougher industry now - “there’s just less work”. At his busiest, Ross employed 25 workers at his Potato Point Road premises. Now he has a half dozen.

He may be the last Macnamara butcher.

“My two boys are not butchers – neither of them could use a steel. My brother is still a butcher, but his boy’s not.”