Gunning is a small town on the

Old Hume Highway The Old Hume Highway, an urban and rural road, may be described as any part of an earlier route of the Hume Highway, which traverses Victoria and New South Wales between the cities of Sydney and Melbourne in Australia. In some places, the hi ...

, between

Goulburn Goulburn ( ) is a regional city in the Southern Tablelands of the Australian state of New South Wales, approximately south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Canberra. It was proclaimed as Australia's first inland city through letters pate ...

and Yass in the

Southern Tablelands The Southern Tablelands is a geographic area of New South Wales, Australia, located south-west of Sydney and west of the Great Dividing Range. The area is characterised by high, flat country which has generally been extensively cleared and ...

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, about 260 km south-west of

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 75 km north of the national capital,

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

. (Nearby towns are

Cullerin Cullerin is a small township in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. It is on the Old Hume Highway and Main South railway line in Upper Lachlan Shire. The Cullerin railway station opened in 1880 and closed in 1973. At the , ...

Gundaroo Gundaroo is a small village in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia and in Yass Valley Council. It is situated to the east of the Yass River, about north of Sutton, about west of the Lake George range. At the , Gundaroo ...

Dalton Dalton may refer to: Science * Dalton (crater), a lunar crater * Dalton (program), chemistry software * Dalton (unit) (Da), the atomic mass unit * John Dalton, chemist, physicist and meteorologist Entertainment * Dalton (Buffyverse), minor cha ...

, Yass,

Murrumbateman Murrumbateman is a town in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. It is on the Barton Highway, approximately 30 kilometres north-west of Canberra, and is part of the Yass Valley Shire. At the , Murrumbateman had a population of 3 ...

and

.) At the , Gunning had a population of 820. The

Shire of Gunning Gunning Shire was a local government area in New South Wales centered on Gunning, New South Wales north of the Australian Capital Territory until February 2004, when the local government organisation was absorbed into newly created Paleran ...

(which was amalgamated into Upper Lachlan Shire in 2004) had a population of 2,280. The

Gunning Wind Farm The Gunning Wind Farm project is a wind farm development in the Cullerin Range, north-east of Gunning, in New South Wales. Wind turbines in the farm are visible from the Hume Highway. The Gunning Wind Farm comprises an electrical substation ...

has been established to the town's northeast, and is visible from the

Hume Highway Hume Highway, inclusive of the sections now known as Hume Freeway and Hume Motorway, is one of Australia's major inter-city national highways, running for between Melbourne in the southwest and Sydney in the northeast. Upgrading of the route ...

History

The Gunning region was originally home to two

Australian Aboriginal Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

language groups, the

Gundungurra The Gundungurra people, also spelt Gundungara, Gandangarra, Gandangara and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people in south-eastern New South Wales, Australia. Their traditional lands include present day Goulburn, Wollondilly Shire ...

people in the north and the

Ngunnawal people The Ngunnawal people, also spelt Ngunawal, are an Aboriginal people of southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in Australia. Language Ngunnawal and Gundungurra are Australian Aboriginal languages from the Pama-Nyungan ...

in the south. The region (specifically

) was first explored by Europeans in 1820, and settled the next year by

Hamilton Hume Hamilton Hume (19 June 1797 – 19 April 1873) was an early explorer of the present-day Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria. In 1824, along with William Hovell, Hume participated in an expedition that first took an overland rout ...

. In 1824, Hume and

William Hovell William Hilton Hovell (26 April 1786 – 9 November 1875) was an English explorer of Australia. With Hamilton Hume, he made an 1824 overland expedition from Sydney to Port Phillip (near the site of present-day Melbourne), and later explored the ...

left here to discover the overland route to

Port Phillip Bay Port Phillip (Kulin: ''Narm-Narm'') or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait via a short, narrow channel known as The Rip, and is completel ...

where Melbourne is sited. Land sales began in 1838. The nearby town of

, now best known as the

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

centre, was settled in 1847. In 1865,

Bushranger Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term had evolved to refer to those who took up "robbery under ...

Ben Hall and his gang held up Kimberley's Inn, and a constable was shot dead. In 1886 the town was described as

''Wheat, maize, barley, and Oats are produced in the district Natural grass is plentiful and affords good pasture for flocks and herds. The Great Southern Railway Line passes near this town. The population is 409''.

Heritage listings

Gunning has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: * Main Southern railway:

Gunning railway station Gunning railway station is a heritage register, heritage-listed railway station located on the Main Southern railway line, Main Southern line in the Upper Lachlan Shire of New South Wales, Australia. It serves the town of Gunning, New South Wal ...

Population

In the 2016 Census, there were 659 people in Gunning. 86.9% of people were born in Australia and 91.4% of people spoke only English at home. The most common responses for religion were Anglican 30.4%, No Religion 25.8% and Catholic 22.6%.

Transportation

Gunning was originally a

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...

stop, and service centre for the surrounding farms mainly growing

Merino The Merino is a breed or group of breeds of domestic sheep, characterised by very fine soft wool. It was established in Spain near the end of the Middle Ages, and was for several centuries kept as a strict Spanish monopoly; exports of the bree ...

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...

. It has a police station and court house, post office, and school. The

Main South Main South (or South Main) is a neighborhood in southern Worcester, Massachusetts. The area's eponymous feature is Main Street, the central roadway of the city. Main South experienced rapid economic development from the 1890s until the 1950s. H ...

railway from

arrived in 1875 and was completed through to

Albury Albury () is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the ...

in 1882.

Gunning railway station Gunning railway station is a heritage register, heritage-listed railway station located on the Main Southern railway line, Main South line in the Upper Lachlan Shire of New South Wales, Australia. It serves the town of Gunning, New South Wales, ...

is served by one daily

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 ...

XPT service in each direction operating between

and

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, and one weekly Xplorer service operating between Sydney and

Griffith Griffith may refer to: People * Griffith (name) * Griffith (surname) * Griffith (given name) Places Antarctica * Mount Griffith, Ross Dependency * Griffith Peak (Antarctica), Marie Byrd Land * Griffith Glacier, Marie Byrd Land * Griffith Rid ...

. Its main streets were built very wide, for the time of horse and bullock-drawn wagons. This served the town well when the main highway between Sydney and

carried cars and trucks through, until the

by-pass was completed on 5 April 1993. The town has been able to resume a more rural pace of life, and develop something of an industry in providing

bed and breakfast Bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. Bed and breakfasts are often private family homes and typically have between four and eleven rooms, wit ...

accommodation. The establishment of the main trunk

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

line is remembered by the Telegraph Hotel.

Notable residents

* Millicent Armstrong was a playwright and farmer in Gunning, New South Wales, who wrote primarily about the experiences of country life in early 20th century Australia. The plays she wrote while living in Gunning were well received and prize-winning.

Gallery

Gunning Uniting Church.JPG,

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 Unio ...

, Gunning Gunning public building.JPG, Old Gunning Court House Telegraph Hotel - Gunning.JPG, Telegraph Hotel, Gunning St Francis Xavier church Gunning.jpg, old St Francis Xavier church building

References

External links

Gunning info
{{authority control Southern Tablelands Towns in New South Wales 1821 establishments in Australia Upper Lachlan Shire