Wellingrove is a village located on the Wellingrove Road about north west of
Glen Innes, New South Wales
Glen Innes is a parish and town on the Northern Tablelands, in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. It is the centre of the Glen Innes Severn Shire Council. The town is located at the intersection of the New England Highway and ...
on the
Northern Tablelands, New South Wales
The Northern Tablelands, also known as the New England Tableland, is a plateau and a region of the Great Dividing Range in northern New South Wales, Australia. It includes the New England Range, the narrow highlands area of the New England (Aust ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. At the , Wellingrove had a population of 113.
Wellingrove was established in the 1840s when the run of was taken up by George Polhill. This run became a site for Polhill, who was a resident magistrate, to conduct a court of petty sessions for the area between
Ben Lomond
Ben Lomond (Scottish Gaelic: Beinn Laomainn, 'Beacon Mountain'), , is a mountain in the Scottish Highlands. Situated on the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, it is the most southerly of the Munros. Ben Lomond lies within the Ben Lomond National Me ...
to
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
.
[Donald, J.Kay, Exploring the North Coast and New England, Kangaroo Press, Kenthurst, 1987.On 22 December 1846, the Government Gazette announced that a court of petty sessions was established at Wellingrove. The first Clerk of Petty Sessions was Thomas Mountsteven Wright.] In 1849 the Woolpack Inn was built and in 1849 Galloway, the surveyor, was instructed to survey townships at Wellingrove and Glen Innes. Despite objections from Galloway that the area was too far from main roads the town was gazetted in 1852.
Thus for several decades Wellingrove was one of the principal settlements of the northern
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
district.
The closure and movement of the court of petty sessions to Glen Innes in 1858 led to the decline of Wellingrove. The last business to close was the Wellingrove Hotel, which shut down in 1917. However, with the continued growth of the nearby towns of Glen Innes and Inverell, the village of Wellingrove declined and is now a place of minimal significance.
Today Wellingrove has a church,
Rural Fire Service (RFS) and a community hall in a Crown Land fossicking area where
sapphire
Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin "sapphir ...
s and
zircon
Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of the r ...
s may be found. The main industry is agriculture, principally sheep and beef cattle breeding.
Kings Plains National Park is located about 20 kilometres north west of Wellingrove.
References
*''Reader's Digest Guide to Australian Places'', Reader's Digest, Sydney
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Towns in New South Wales