Willow Tree is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

composed of about 308 people, located in

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 ...

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 ...

. It is situated in the

Liverpool Plains The Liverpool Plains are an extensive agricultural area covering about of the north-western slopes of New South Wales in Australia. These plains are a region of prime agricultural land bounded to the east by the Great Dividing Range, to the s ...

, 14 kilometres south of

Quirindi Quirindi ( or ) is a small town on the North West Slopes region of New South Wales, Australia, in Liverpool Plains Shire. At the , Quirindi had a population of 3,444. It is the nearest link to Gunnedah to the west and Tamworth to the north. ...

near the junction of the

Kamilaroi The Gamilaraay, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Aust ...

and

New England Highway New England Highway is an long highway in Australia running from Yarraman, north of Toowoomba, Queensland at its northern end to Hexham at Newcastle, New South Wales at its southern end. It is part of Australia's National Highway system, an ...

s. The town itself is small but the farms extend southwest out to the township of Warrah. It is a service centre to the rural areas of Warrah and Mount Parry.

History

Willow Tree is located at the north-eastern corner of the enormous Warrah grant which was made out to the Australian Agricultural Company in 1833. An inn was established on the future town site, at the junction of the roads north to Quirindi and north-east to Wallabadah in the mid-19th century. It was, however, the arrival of the railway in the 1870s that led to settlement. Willow Tree Post Office opened on 1 August 1872 (though known as ''Warrah'' for a few weeks in 1877). The village was surveyed when part of the Warrah grant was subdivided and sold in 1908.

Demographics

According to the , the village comprises 308 people, excluding impermanent residents. Of these, 159 (52.5%) were male and 144 (47.5%) were female. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 6.2% of the population. Their median age was 46 years, compared to the national median age of 38. Children aged under 15 years made up 16.6% of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 22.2% of the population. 83.4% of people living in Willow Tree were born in Australia. The only other response for country of birth was England 1.0%. 86.3% of people only spoke English at home. The only other response for language spoken at home was Punjabi 1.0%.. The Census question about religion is optional; of the people who answered it, the most common responses were

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

36.7%,

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

20.9%, No Religion 25.1% and

Uniting Church The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) was founded on 22 June 1977, when most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union ...

3.5% 53.8% of the residents over fifteen years old were in a registered marriage and 4.3% in a de facto marriage.

Education

Education is provided by a public

preschool A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school ...

and a public

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

, Willow Tree Public School.Willow Tree Suburb Profile & Real Estate Data
propertydata.com.au. Accessed 18 May 2009.

Transportation

Willow Tree station is on the Main North railway line, 375 km from Sydney. The station opened in 1877 as Warrah, and was renamed Willow Tree in 1879.Willow Tree Railway Station
NSWrail.net. Accessed 1 April 2008. It continues to be served by a daily rail service operated by a

NSW TrainLink NSW TrainLink is a train and coach operator in Australia, providing services throughout New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, along with limited interstate services into Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. Its primary interc ...

Xplorer train to and from

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

and

Armidale Armidale is a city in the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. Armidale had a population of 24,504 as of June 2018. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. It is the administrative centre for the Northern Tablelands region. It ...

/ Moree. The train to Armidale/Moree stops at 3:02pm and the train to Sydney stops at 12:03pm. They only stop on request.

References

External links

{{authority control Towns in New England (New South Wales) Liverpool Plains Shire