Willow Tree is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

composed of about 308 people, located in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. 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 2,602. It is the nearest link to Gunnedah, New South Wales, Gunnedah to the northw ...

near the junction of the

Kamilaroi The Gamilaroi, 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 Australians, Indi ...

and

New England Highway New England Highway is an long highway in Australia running from Yarraman, Queensland, Yarraman, north of Toowoomba, Queensland, at its northern end to Hexham, New South Wales, Hexham at Newcastle, New South Wales, Newcastle, New South Wales, ...

s. The town itself is small but the farms extend southwest out to the township of

Warrah The Falkland Islands wolf (''Dusicyon australis'') was the only native land mammal of the Falkland Islands. This endemic (ecology), endemic canidae, canid became extinction, extinct in 1876, the first known canid to have become extinct in histor ...

. 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, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

36.7%,

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

20.9%, No Religion 25.1% and

Uniting Church The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) is a united church in Australia. The church 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 a ...

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 (sometimes spelled as pre school or pre-school), also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, play school, is an school, educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they ...

and a public

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

, 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 regional train and coach operator in Australia, providing services throughout New South Wales and into Australian Capital Territory, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria (state), Victoria, Queensland and South Australia ...

Xplorer train to and from

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

and

Armidale Armidale is a city in the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. Armidale had a population of 23,967 as of the 2021 census. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. It is the administrative centre for the Northern Tablelands reg ...

/ Moree. The train to Armidale/Moree stops at 2:25pm and the train to Sydney stops at 11:41am. They only stop on request.

References

External links

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