History of Armatree
On 12th day of March 1912, Armatree was declared as a Village by the Governor of NSW, The Right Honourable Frederic John Napier, Baron Chelmsford. The declaration was made in the Government Gazette of NSW dated 13 March 1912. There were two notices published, proclaiming Armatree as a Village and secondly that the boundaries of the Village and Suburban Lands, in the County of Ewenmar, Parish of Allamurgoola were within the Land District of Coonamble and Gilgandra Shire. These boundaries were described in detail and contained an area of about 78 acres (31.5ha) Village Lands and about 131 acres (53ha) Suburban Lands.
Prior to this, in 1910, a proposal had been gazetted for land to be acquired to establish a Village and provide a Camping Reserve at the Armatree Railway Siding.
Armatree Village is located just west of the Castlereagh Highway between Gilgandra and Gulargambone. The area was traversed by colonial surveyor Evans in 1818 during preliminary investigations of the country between the Macquarie River and Warrumbungle Range (named Arbuthnot’s Range by expedition leader John Oxley). Europeans began to settle in the area from the 1830’s when John Jude took up his Armatree Run, the first on this section of the Castlereagh River. He was followed by others and by the mid-1880’s a post office and school had been established in the area. The present day village was established after the construction of the railway branch line from Dubbo to Coonamble in 1903. Like many rural hamlets the most prominent features of the village are its grain silos, hotel and war memorial.
The old Armatree School was opened as a Provisional School in 1885 which children of pioneering families attended. Large gangs of men camped at Armatree which enjoyed a period of prosperity when the railway line was built from Gilgandra to Coonamble in approximately 1902-1903. All the labour for the railway was manual or done with horse drawn scoops and plough. Ten men were engaged, with horses, to plough the land on either side of the pegged track and scoop earth to form the bed for the line. The men were paid fifteen shillings ($1.50) per day for man and horse. The railway track is still used to this day.
