Nerrigundah is a locality and former village in south eastern

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 ...

situated at the head of the Tuross River Valley, nineteen kilometres inland from Bodalla. At the , the locality had a population of 40. The

Walbanga The Walbunja, also spelt Walbanga, Walbunga and Wulbunja, are an Aboriginal Australian people of New South Wales, part of the Yuin nation. Language The Walbunja language may be a dialect of Dhurga. Country The Walbunja people are a subgroup o ...

people, a group of the

Yuin The Yuin nation, also spelt Djuwin, is a group of Aboriginal Australians, Australian Aboriginal peoples from the South Coast (New South Wales), South Coast of New South Wales. All Yuin people share ancestors who spoke, as their first language, ...

once lived over the area. It is not known how long the Walbanga people lived over the area as the area underwent significant change with sea level rise 18,000 to 7,500 years ago which completely displaced inhabitants of previous coastal areas and resulted in dramatic changes in distributions of peoples. The place name, Nerrigundah, is derived from an aboriginal word for 'camp where edible berries grow'. Nerrigundah and its valley were used as a cattle run by Thomas Mort of Bodalla prior to the discovery of

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

on 23 December 1860 by George Cook, Joseph Goodenough and William Crouch. The discovery of gold was recorded at the office of the Gold Commissioner at

Braidwood, New South Wales Braidwood is a town in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia, in Queanbeyan–Palerang Regional Council. It is located on the Kings Highway, Australia, Kings Highway linking Canberra with Batemans Bay. It is approximately 200 kil ...

on 2 January 1861. On 8 April 1866, Nerrigundah was raided by

bushrangers Bushrangers were armed robbers and outlaws who resided in the Australian bush between the 1780s and the early 20th century. The original use of the term dates back to the early years of the British colonisation of Australia, and applied to ...

, the

Clarke brothers The Clarke gang was a group of bushrangers active in the mid-1860s in the southern goldfields of New South Wales, Australia. The membership of the gang fluctuated over time, the two core members being brothers Thomas and John Clarke, from the Br ...

, Thomas and John, and their associates. They held up a number of passers-by outside the town at Deep Creek and then attacked the store and hotel. During the raid, William Fletcher, a new recruit to the gang, was shot dead by

NSW Police The New South Wales Police Force is a law enforcement agency of the state of New South Wales, Australia, established in 1862. With more than 17,000 police officers, it is the largest police organisation in Australia, policing an area of 801,60 ...

trooper Miles O'Grady when he and constable Smythe confronted the gang. Trooper O'Grady was shot and later died of his wounds and was buried in Moruya. A monument to his memory was erected and remains at Nerrigundah. Although the area was already a mining settlement, the site of the Village of Nerrigundah was not reserved until April 1868. The plan of the village probably reflects the irregular layout of the earlier settlement. Gold mining in the area continued into the early years of the 20th-century. Following its heyday during gold mining, Nerrigundah survived as a small village sustained by local production of timber, wattle bark (for tanning) and eucalyptus oil. Nerrigundah had a sawmill that provided employment, including for local Yuin people. The sawmilling company also provided housing. The sawmilling operation had ended by 2000. The village had a school from 1863 to 1923 and again from 1959 to 1972. The village has more than one burial ground, including the cemetery dedicated in 1904. Nerrigundah was severely affected by bushfire, during the 2019–2020 Australian summer. On 31 December 2019, fire destroyed the village's hall and 20 of its 25 homes and one of its residents died. Despite this catastrophe, the population of the locality increased between the 2016 and 2021 censuses.

References

External links

* Media at Wikimedia Commons under Nerrigundah, New South Wales
Riverbend NelligenSouth Coast Travel Guide - Nerrigundah
{{authority control Towns in New South Wales Ghost towns in New South Wales Towns in the South Coast (New South Wales) Eurobodalla Shire Mining towns in New South Wales