Mudgee

Mudgee
New South Wales

View of central shopping area, showing War Memorial Clock Tower
Mudgee
Coordinates 32°36′S 149°35′E / 32.600°S 149.583°ECoordinates: 32°36′S 149°35′E / 32.600°S 149.583°E
Population 9,830 (2011) (2011)[1]
Postcode(s) 2850
Elevation 454 m (1,490 ft)
Location
LGA(s) Mid-Western Regional Council
County Wellington
State electorate(s) Dubbo
Federal Division(s) Parkes
Mean max temp Mean min temp Annual rainfall
23.0 °C
73 °F		 8.3 °C
47 °F		 673.9 mm
26.5 in

Mudgee /ˈmʌdʒi/ is a town in the central west of New South Wales, Australia. It is in the broad fertile Cudgegong River valley 261 kilometres north-west of Sydney. Mudgee is at the centre of the Mid-Western Regional Council local government area. At the 2011 census, Mudgee had a population of 9,830 people.[1]

The Mudgee district lies across the edge of the geological structure known as the Sydney Basin.[2]

Economy

The Mudgee district is well known for its fine wine. Mudgee has developed as a wine producing region and is a popular destination for tourists, who visit the forty wineries operating in the Mudgee district. Further tourist attractions include the festivals, tours, and markets in the area.[3] Mudgee's hospitality sector has many bed & breakfast establishments, cafés, and restaurants.

Other rural produce includes cattle, sheep, wheat, alfalfa, olives, fruit, tomatoes, corn, honey, and dairy products.

The Ulan coal mines are in the district. During the 19th century, the area was a major goldmining area and the district also produces marble, pottery clays, shale and dolomite. These mines have further potential to expand in the region. The tourism industry is also a growing industry based largely on the wineries. A laboratory was established in 1987 to test meat for pesticide residues.

History

Settlement to 1850

Mudgee post office

The name Mudgee is derived from the Wiradjuri term Moothi meaning "Nest in the Hills"[4] or "mou-gee" meaning "contented".[5] James Blackman was the first European settler to cross the Cudgegong River in 1821[6] followed quickly by Lieutenant William Lawson who was then commandant of Bathurst. Lawson would later take up 6,000 acres (24 km²) in the area.

George and Henry Cox, sons of William Cox, were the first settlers on the Cudgegong River when they established the Menah run, 3 kilometres north of the current town. The European settlers were soon in conflict with the Wiradjuri over a range of issues including killing of livestock and animals such as kangaroos and possums which were major food sources for the Wiradjuri. Martial law was declared in 1824 leading to the killing of a large number of the Wiradjuri people.

While the site of Mudgee was surveyed for a village in 1823, Menah was the original settlement having a police station and a lock up by 1833. Robert Hoddle designed the village which was gazetted in 1838. John Blackman built a slab hut, the first dwelling in Mudgee and its general store.[7] By 1841, there were 36 dwellings, three hotels, a hospital, a post office, two stores and an Anglican church. The police station moved from Menah in the mid-1840s while an Anglican school was established in that decade as well.

1850 to present

Mudgee Railway Station (1884)
Lovejoy House
View of Market Street, looking towards the centre of the town

In 1851, the population of Mudgee was 200. However, the population exploded as the discovery of gold in nearby Hargraves by Edward Hargraves led to a gold rush in New South Wales. While no gold was found in Mudgee itself, the town prospered as gold was discovered in nearby towns such as Gulgong, Hill End and Windeyer, New South Wales temporarily reached populations of 20,000. Mudgee was a centre for the local goldfields and grew rapidly as a result.

Mudgee was declared as a municipality in 1860 making it the second oldest municipality west of the Great Dividing Range with a population of 1500 in 1861. A public school was built in the 1850s together with the present Catholic and Anglican churches and a Methodist and Presbyterian church. A new police station, courthouse, Mechanics' Institute and a town hall were built in the 1860s. There were four coach factories operating in Mudgee to cater for the demand of the nearby goldfields. The National Trust of Australia has a number of these buildings registered including the Mudgee Museum (formerly the Colonial Inn),[8] the Catholic presbytery, the court house, the police station and the Anglican Church. On 1 June 1861 the Electric Telegraph system arrived and was opened for messages to be transmitted and received at the Telegraph office.[9]

One of the gold miners attracted to the Mudgee district was Niels Peter Larsen who married Louisa Albury in Mudgee in 1866. They had a child, leading Australian poet Henry Lawson in Grenfell in 1867 and changed their names to Peter and Louisa Lawson. By the birth of their third child, they moved to a selection at Pipeclay (now Eurunderee) 8 km north of Mudgee. Louisa Lawson's vigorous lobbying led to the establishment of the slab-and-bark Eurunderee Public School in 1876 with Henry Lawson attending the school for the first time aged nine. He would later write about the school in his poem "The Old Bark School". Lawson would later attend St. Matthews Central School, Mudgee before his progressively worsening deafness leading to him leaving school at the age of 14. Lawson would live in the Mudgee district until the age of 15 and many of his stories were written about the district.

As the gold mines petered out in the latter half of the 19th century, Mudgee was sustained by the strength of its wool industry as well as the nascent wine industry established by a German immigrant, Adam Roth, in the 1850s. The opening of the railway extension from Rylstone to Mudgee occurred on 10 September 1884.[10][11] The railway boosted the town's agricultural industries. The railway between Rylstone and Mudgee closed on 2 March 1992.[11] This same railway section re-opened eight years later, on 2 September 2000.[11] The Wallaby Track Drive Tour visits various sites associated with Lawson including the old Eurundee Public School, the Henry Lawson memorial, the Budgee Budgee Inn, Sapling Gully, Golden Gully and the Albury Pub which was owned by Lawson's grandfather.

Mudgee's Glen Willow Regional Sports Stadium hosted the 2012 City vs Country Origin match with an attendance of 8,621.[12]

Heritage buildings

The following buildings are listed on the Register of the National Estate.[13]

Churches

Schools and colleges

Medical and allied health facilities

Climate

Mudgee has a warm temperate climate, that borders on a humid subtropical climate. Summers are hot with frequent thunderstorms, however nighttime temperatures are still cool. Winters are cool, with frosty mornings and sunny days, interspersed with periods of heavy rain and occasionally even snow. Rainfall is moderate and falls fairly evenly all year round, with a slight peak in summer. Extreme temperatures have ranged from 42.5 °C (108.0 °F) to -8.3 °C (17.1 °F). The highest montly rainfall ever recorded was 303.2 mm (11.9 in) of rain in March 1926. Mudgee gets 113.0 clear days, annually.[35]

Climate data for Mudgee (George Street 1962-2013)
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Record high °C (°F) 42.5
(108.5)		 41.0
(105.8)		 37.2
(99)		 34.5
(94.1)		 26.1
(79)		 22.8
(73)		 22.2
(72)		 26.8
(80.2)		 32.2
(90)		 38.2
(100.8)		 40.2
(104.4)		 40.6
(105.1)		 42.5
(108.5)
Average high °C (°F) 31.0
(87.8)		 30.2
(86.4)		 27.8
(82)		 23.3
(73.9)		 18.8
(65.8)		 15.2
(59.4)		 14.4
(57.9)		 16.0
(60.8)		 19.6
(67.3)		 23.4
(74.1)		 26.9
(80.4)		 29.8
(85.6)		 23.0
(73.4)
Average low °C (°F) 15.5
(59.9)		 15.4
(59.7)		 13.0
(55.4)		 8.5
(47.3)		 5.0
(41)		 2.6
(36.7)		 1.3
(34.3)		 2.3
(36.1)		 4.4
(39.9)		 7.6
(45.7)		 10.8
(51.4)		 13.7
(56.7)		 8.3
(46.9)
Record low °C (°F) 3.4
(38.1)		 4.0
(39.2)		 2.0
(35.6)		 −2.7
(27.1)		 −5.6
(21.9)		 −7.5
(18.5)		 −8.3
(17.1)		 −5.7
(21.7)		 −3.2
(26.2)		 −2.3
(27.9)		 0.5
(32.9)		 2.0
(35.6)		 −8.3
(17.1)
Average rainfall mm (inches) 67.7
(2.665)		 63.9
(2.516)		 51.1
(2.012)		 44.2
(1.74)		 49.4
(1.945)		 54.5
(2.146)		 52.9
(2.083)		 53.1
(2.091)		 52.0
(2.047)		 60.0
(2.362)		 62.1
(2.445)		 65.3
(2.571)		 676.2
(26.623)
Avg. rainy days (≥ 0.2mm) 6.1 5.9 5.3 4.7 6.3 8.0 8.3 7.8 7.2 7.4 6.8 6.5 80.3
Average relative humidity (%) 40 47 46 50 56 58 57 52 47 45 41 40 48
Source: Bureau of Meteorology[35]

Gallery

Notable people

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Australian Bureau of Statistics (31 October 2012). "Mudgee (State Suburb)". 2011 Census QuickStats. Retrieved 5 October 2012.
  2. ↑ http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/image/0007/96847/20758.gif
  3. ↑ "Mudgee". Visit NSW. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  4. ↑ "Mudgee". Geographical Names Register (GNR) of NSW. Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
  5. ↑ "PLACE NAMES.". The Australian Women's Weekly (1932-1982) (1932-1982: National Library of Australia). 13 May 1964. p. 61. Retrieved 22 February 2011.
  6. ↑ Greaves, Bernard. "Blackman, James (1792–1868)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  7. ↑ Yap, Brian. "John Blackman". Freepages. Ancestry.com. Retrieved 9 December 2013.
  8. ↑ "Colonial Inn Museum". Mudgee Historical Society Inc. Retrieved 15 November 2011.
  9. ↑ Annette Piper (1 June 1861). "Western Post June 1861". Western Post. Retrieved 14 March 2011.
  10. ↑ "THE EXTENSION OF THE RAILWAY TO MUDGEE.". The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) (NSW: National Library of Australia). 9 September 1884. p. 5. Retrieved 15 November 2011.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Bozier, Rolfe. "Gwabegar Line". NSWrail.net. Retrieved 15 November 2011.
  12. ↑ Chammas, Michael (23 April 2012). "Classy Carney closes on Origin spot with sizzling show". Brisbane Times. Retrieved 29 April 2012.
  13. ↑ The Heritage of Australia, Macmillan Company, 1981, p.2/287
  14. ↑ "Havilah Station - Unlocking Regional Memory Pastoral Station entry". Nswera.net.au. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  15. ↑ "Havilah Anglican Cemetery". Austcemindex.com. 2008-05-23. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  16. ↑ Broadley, John. "Historic Houses of Mudgee". Johnbroadleyheritage.com. pp. 184–201.
  17. ↑ Broadley, Historic Houses of Mudgee, pp. 110-124.
  18. ↑ "Parish Of St Mary". Cathchurch.net. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  19. ↑ "Mudgee Catholic Church :: Home". Mudgee.catholic.org.au. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  20. ↑ "St John's Anglican Church Mudgee P.1". Mudgeehistory.com.au. 2012-07-09. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  21. ↑ mudgee.unitingchurch.org.au
  22. ↑ "Mudgee, St Paul's Presbyterian Church — Find a Presbyterian Church". Findapresbyterianchurch.com. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  23. ↑ "Contact Us". Frontline.org.au. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  24. ↑ Jones, Andrew (2012-10-16). "Mudgee Corps ť". My.salvos.org.au. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  25. ↑ "Mudgee Seventh-day Adventist Church - Home". Mudgee.adventist.org.au. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  26. ↑ Maps, Google. "Google Maps". Google. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
  27. ↑ "St Matthews Central School Mudgee NSW Australia". Stmattsmudgee.nsw.edu.au. 2012-03-30. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  28. ↑ "Mudgee Public School". Mudgeepublic.com.au. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  29. ↑ Cudgegong Valley Public School In All Our Best. "Home". Cudgegongv-p.schools.nsw.edu.au. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  30. ↑ "Mudgee College : TAFE Western". Wit.tafensw.edu.au. Retrieved 2012-12-25.
  31. ↑ http://www.directory.nsw.gov.au/showorgunit.asp?id=%7B6797B337-6B34-4DBB-8322-66CBF9BEE8A0%7D
  32. ↑ http://www.mudgeepsychology.com.au/
  33. ↑ http://www.chwc.com.au
  34. ↑ http://www.mudgeemedical.com.au/
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 "MUDGEE (GEORGE STREET)". Climate statistics for Australian locations. Bureau of Meteorology. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
  36. ↑ http://www.bgmmodels.com

External links

Media related to Mudgee at Wikimedia Commons