Borenore is a small rural community located 14 kilometres (8.7 miles) west of

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

, in the central western region of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. Borenore is situated in the Cabonne Shire local government area.

History

The area now known as Borenore lies on the traditional lands of the

Wiradjuri The Wiradjuri people (; ) are a group of Aboriginal Australian people from central New South Wales, united by common descent through kinship and shared traditions. They survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers, in family groups or clans, a ...

people. The first settler homes in the Borenore district were built in the early 1860s. Borenore soon became a large settlement. The first European settlers adopted the aboriginal name of the area "Bora-Nora". A Bora is the name given both to an initiation ceremony of

Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

, and to the site on which the initiation is performed. At such a site, boys achieve the status of men. "Nora" refers to the overhanging rock near where such ceremonies were held, probably around the area of the Borenore Caves. The original spelling and pronunciation of Bora-Nora is said to have been altered on maps made in Sydney and became Borenore. The first recorded settler in the area of what is now known as Borenore was William Charles Wentworth. After his conquest of the Blue Mountains, Wentworth pushed further into the Central Western region. In 1820s Wentworth squatted at Boree. At that time what is now the County of Wellington was considered to be outside the bounds of civilised settlement. Wentworth held an area that extended from Boree to Mt Canobolas to Toogong to Borenore. The first survey of the

district was done in 1828/29. This was followed by

Major Mitchell Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell (15 June 1792 – 5 October 1855), surveyor and explorer of Southeastern Australia, was born at Grangemouth in Stirlingshire, Scotland. In 1827 he took up an appointment as Assistant Surveyor General of New Sou ...

's expedition to the Darling in 1835 during which he passed through the Borenore area. An entry in his journal dated 5 April 1835: :"Here I at length took leave of my friend, to pursue a long and dreary ride along the track which led to Buree. The wood consisted chiefly of those kinds of eucalyptus, termed box and apple-tree – forming a very open kind of forest, the hollows being in general quite clear of trees. The farther I proceeded westward, the more the country exhibited the withering effects of long drought. The mountain mass of the Canobolas, lay to the southward of my route; and on crossing the lofty range which here divides the counties of Bathurst and

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...

, the summit was distant only four miles. The country in the neighbourhood of that mass, consists of trap and limestone, and is, upon the whole, very favourable for sheep-farming. The region to the westward of the Canobolas is still unsurveyed, being beyond the limits of the county divisions." The area would be used by Mitchell as the assembly location for his second,

third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...

and fourth expeditions. On his second expedition to the Darling and

Bogan River Bogan River, a perennial river that is part of the Macquarie– Barwon catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is located in the central west and Orana regions of New South Wales, Australia. From its origin near Parkes, the Bogan River ...

s, Michell met the main party there; it had come from Parramatta, under the command of Mitchell's second-in-command, his Assistant Surveyor,

James Larmer James Larmer (b. 1808 or 1809 – d. 1886) was a government surveyor in the colony of New South Wales. Between 1830 and 1859, he surveyed land, roads and settlements in New South Wales. He was an Assistant Surveyor to the Surveyor-General, Sir Th ...

. The Borenore area was the homeland of a Wirajuri man, Yuranigh, who Mitchell described in his journal as his ''"guide, companion, counsellor and friend"''. Yuranigh's main contribution, to Mitchell's fourth expedition, lay in his ability to negotiate with other Aboriginal people, through whose territory they passed, and in his extensive bush lore and knowledge of country, with which he advised Mitchell. In 1836, Mitchell visited the "Little Caves" at the Borenore Caves and collected some bones of extinct animals.

Australian National Field Days

Borenore is home to the Australian National Field Days. The Australian National Field Days is an annual agricultural exhibition. Each year it attracts around 20,000 people and over 600 exhibitors over 3 days in October.

Borenore School

Education in Borenore began with small part-time schools, one of the earliest being a family one at Stanley Farm where the Watts family settled. In 1875 an application was lodged to the Council of Education for the establishment of a public school at Borenore. The building was completed in May 1878.

Borenore railway station

The first train to reach the Borenore Railway Station on the

Broken Hill railway line The Broken Hill railway line is now part of the transcontinental railway from Sydney to Perth. New South Wales's first line opened from Sydney to Parramatta Junction (near Granville Station) in 1855 and was extended as the Main Western line in ...

arrived on 21 December 1885. The station is now closed. The station buildings were used by the local tennis club but this has since become defunct. All but the old station bathrooms are closed to the public and disused.

References

{{authority control Towns in New South Wales Towns in the Central West (New South Wales) Cabonne Council