Stonehenge, New South Wales

Recreation Reserve, Stonehenge, NSW

Stonehenge is a rural locality on the Northern Tablelands of New England in New South Wales, Australia.

The settlement is located about 8 kilometres (5 mi) south of Glen Innes, on the New England Highway and just north of Beardy Waters. It is about 3,500 feet (1,067 m) above sea level and exists mainly as a flat plateau strewn with granite boulders, some over 5 metres high. One of note is a roughly spherical monolith about 2.5 metres in diameter known as the Balancing Rock. The locality was named because of the local granite outcrops that were reminiscent of Stonehenge, England.

History

Stonehenge station was occupied by Thomas Hewitt in 1838 on behalf of Archibald Boyd making him the first settler in the Glen Innes district. In 1848, Stonehenge, also known as Boyd’s Plains covered an area of 80,000 acres (320 km²). In 1886 the station was purchased by a Queensland grazier, George Morris Simpson, who built the Stonehenge homestead the following year.

The Main North railway line (now closed) crosses the New England Highway at Stonehenge, which also had a railway station which opened in 1884 and was closed about 1974.

Stonehenge has a recreation reserve of about 80 acres (320,000 m²) which includes a sports ground, shelter shed and toilets.

References

Preceding station		NSW Main lines		Following station
Glen Innes towards Wallangarra		Main North Line (closed section)		Glencoe towards Sydney