Walcha - Culture and History

The area is thought to have been occupied by the Ngayaywana and Dyangadi Aborigines prior to white settlement. In 1818 John Oxley camped beside the Apsley River very near the present townsite en route to the coast. He recorded the event in his diary that day: 'We halted in a fine and spacious valley ... watered by a fine brook, and at a distance of a mile we saw several fires at which appeared many natives.'

The first settler in the New England area was Hamilton Sempill (see entry on Gundy) who took up the 'Wolka' run in 1832, establishing slab huts where 'Langford' now stands. Consequently the hilly country around the present townsite was the first part of the New England tablelands to be explored. Other early runs around the town were Ohio (1836), Orandumbie (1837) and Europambula (1830s).

A road to Port Macquarie (the template of today's Oxley Highway) was constructed in 1842 for the transportation of wool from New England to the coast. A postal service was established in 1851 and the village of Walcha was gazetted in 1852. At that time there was a blacksmith's, a store and a flour mill. A Catholic chapel was erected in 1854, a police station and the first Presbyterian church in 1857 and the Walcha National School in 1859.

In 1861 the population was recorded at 355 and the Anglican church (still standing) was built in 1862. Numbers dropped in the 1860s but the town soon began to grow for two reasons: firstly, cedar-getters were active in the area's rainforests by about 1870 and goldmining began in 1873 at Tia, Glen Morrison and Nowendoc.

In 1878 Walcha was gazetted as a town and a courthouse was built. A rail link opened to the west, at Walcha Road, in 1882. The town became a municipality in 1889.

The timber industry became important after World War II. The first aerial spraying of superphosphates in Australia took place at a local property in 1950. One of the first instances of aerial agriculture in Australia it greatly increased the stock-carrying capacity of the land.

Walcha's Agricultural Show is held each year in February, the biennial Timber Expo in September and, in January, the Walcha Bushmans Carnival and Campdraft.