Dungog

Dungog is a country town on the Williams River in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia.

Dungog is a country town on the Williams River in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. Located in the middle of dairy and timber country, it is the centre of the Dungog Shire local government area and at the 2016 census it had a population of 2,025 people. The area includes the Fosterton Loop, 22 kilometres (14 mi) of road, used in the annual Pedalfest. A small portion of Dungog lies in the Mid-Coast Council LGA.

The traditional owners of the area now known as Dungog are the Gringai clan of the Wonnarua people, a group of Aboriginal Australian people.By 1825 Robert Dawson had named the Barrington area, while surveyor Thomas Florance named the Chichester River in 1827. Two years later George Boyle White explored the sources of the Allyn and Williams rivers. Grants along the Williams followed to men such as Duncan Mackay, John Verge, James Dowling (later a NSW Chief Justice) and others, who, with their assigned convicts, began clearing land and building houses around a district that was by the early 1830s centred on a small settlement first known as Upper William. With a Court of Petty Sessions in 1833 and gazetted in 1838 as the village of Dungog (a local Gringai word), it had a court house, lockup and an increasing number of inns, shops and houses.Lord St, as were Dowling, Mackay, Chapman, Hooke, Brown and Myles, were all named after landowners at the time surveyor Francis Rusden drew up his generous 1838 grid plan of Dungog's streets. The descendants of some of these, notably the Dowlings, Mackays and Hookes, still live in and around Dungog. Others, such as John Lord, went bankrupt or, as did Myles, sold out early and moved to Sydney.Dungog village gradually grew from a mere 25 houses in the 1846 census (three of stone or brick). By 1854, four licences for publicans were granted in Dungog: James Stephenson, Dungog Inn; Joseph Finch, Settlers' Arms; Joseph Robson, Trades' Arms; and Edward Tate, Durham Hotel. Two of these continue to operate today.

The plan and street pattern of 1838 gave Dungog generous sized lots that, over the years, have allowed people to build homes with ample space in between, as well as to enjoy cow and horse paddocks close by. Before the 1920s there was relatively little building beyond Lord St. John Wilson, born in Dungog in 1854, described the town as a 'sea of bush and scrub, with a house here and there', and with bullock teams and drays having 'to wend their way between stumps and saplings'. Even in 1892, at the opening of Dungog Cottage Hospital on Hospital Hill to the west, the trek up was largely through open countryside.

Boosted by the dairy industry, which began to develop in the 1890s, Dungog grew more rapidly, receiving a further boost with the arrival of the railway in 1911. Many of the finest houses and commercial buildings still to be seen here were built between the end of the nineteenth and the first two decades of the following century. Coolalie (206 Dowling St) and Coimbra (72 Dowling St), as well as the then Angus & Coote, now J A Rose building (146-148 Dowling St) and the Dark stores (184-190 Dowling St) all date from this period of expansion. All, as the Dungog Chronicle continuously proclaimed, were 'up to date', and as the Dungog Chronicle also pointed out, modern improvements such as the 'water service and electric light service has made Dungog a desirable place to live in'. The architects and builders used for these projects were locals; such as C H Button, Town Clerk and architect, or J A Hall, builder, as well as those from Maitland, such as architect J A Pender.

Around 1926, Dowling Street was first fully kerbed and the present alignment of the shop facades was established. Money and new businesses were entering the town at this time. While things may have slowed a little thereafter, many new buildings and houses continued to be built in the following years. The Catholic community built a new place of worship in Brown St in 1933, replacing the church that had stood in Dowling St since 1870 (where the Tall Timbers Motel now stands). In 1935 the Bank of NSW replaced its old building on the corner of Dowling and Mackay Sts with one in the, then, very modern Georgian Revival Style.

The Second World War was just beginning when the Dungog Chronicle reported: Recent weeks have seen a progressive building campaign in Dungog. Apart from the palatial new building for the Royal Hotel erected and furnished at a cost of some £20,000, and remodelling of the Court House Hotel and Bank Hotel, nine new residences have been completed within the past month.

In addition to these works, the Education Department is clearing and grading the playing grounds at the public school, and has erected an ornate brick fence along those grounds on the Dowling-street frontage, whilst the Municipal Council has had two chains of kerbing and guttering carried out in Mary-street. (Dungog Chronicle, 24 November 1939)

Since the 1950s, few new public buildings and shops have been erected but homes have continued to be built in weatherboard, brick, fibro or concrete; following the fashions of the time. While dairying has declined, the beef industry has remained, and although most timber is now locked up in national parks, many visitors come these days to enjoy the area's natural beauty. This trend has also meant that numerous older homes have been saved from deterioration by 'tree-changers', who have increasingly bought and renovated older homes in Dungog and its surrounding countryside.

Dungog has a mild humid subtropical climate (Cfa) with warm summers and cool winters.