Land further up-river was first opened up in the 1890s. Yet further up, at and beyond the junction of the Left and Right Arms of the Pappinbarra River, land was allocated as Soldier Settler blocks after World War I. 

​

Early settlers made their living timber getting, and dairy farming, selling cream, raising pigs on the skim milk and sowing corn for fodder. There were 60 dairy farms along the Pappinbarra.

 

In the 1950s, there was a switch to whole milk production. Roads were basic, often impassable, and a source of concern to the present day. A bridge across the lower Pappinbarra was built in 1918 and wrecked in the 1968 flood. A ‘temporary’ low-level replacement provided access frequently interrupted by flooding until the new bridge was opened in 1975. A bridge built over the Right Arm at The Junction in the 1930s was washed away in 1953 and replaced by the present bridge in 1957.

 

It was the policy of Hastings Shire Council to extend the bitumen on its many rural roads by one mile every year. When Council became Port Macquarie-based, this practice was discontinued. Settlers married and had offspring; the provision of education became imperative but posed problems because of the distance children could walk or ride to school.

 

The earliest school was built at Brombin (Mungong) in 1874. It moved to another site, then to its final one in 1906 and closed in 1965. In 1900 the Pappinbarra School was built on Bappin, ‘Pappinbarra Creek’, transferred to the Hollis property, then, in 1930, to a new building at Hollisdale, where it was re-named Ellengrove School and operated until 1955. 1905 saw a school opened further up the Valley on the property now called The Old School Yard. It operated for 40 years. Lower Pappinbarra School was at Lyddington from 1925 to 1954. Beyond The Junction of the Right and Left Arms, Cedar Scrub (Pappinbarra Upper) School operated in the Cedar Scrub Hall from about 1925 till it, too, closed in 1966. The closures coincided, of course, with the availability of bus transport and the very gradual improvement of the road to enable safe passage to Beechwood and Wauchope!

 

Electricity reached the Valley late in the piece, met with pockets of resistance because of the expense, and enabled installation of milking machines. Even prior to deregulation of the dairy industry, farmers found that grazing beef cattle on native grass and improved pastures provided a living much more easily than 365-days-a-year dairying. Now there is only one dairy farm operating in the Valley.

 

As in all rural areas, community spirit has been evident in Pappinbarra Valley over the years since first settlement. Although outside help is more easily obtained these days, neighbours are often the first port of call and provide valued support not only for old friends, but also for newer arrivals.

 

The Pappinbarra Progress Association (PPA) was formed in 1912 to agitate for improved roads and rural infrastructure. In the early 60s, after the community purchased Ellengrove School, the PPA built a hall onto the schoolroom and ran social activities there. Incorporated early this century, it exists to foster a sense of community in the Valley and to maintain our communityowned Hollisdale Hall. From the 70s, ‘Pitt Street farmers’, by default, changed the Valley, purchasing large, viable properties, spending on fencing and pasture improvement as a tax incentive, then subdividing and selling to make significant profits.

 

‘Lifestyle’ blocks were bought by newcomers with often little consideration of the rigours and demands of country living, and sometimes little idea of community obligations. The wave of ‘tree changers’, more in tune with the environment, wanting to make a life here, and passionate about conservation, were also viewed with suspicion by old settlers, but embraced the community spirit and forged on.

 

The former Field Studies Centre was built by Regional Employment Development (RED) Scheme workers in 1975, renovated in 1986, given a facelift in 1996 and closed c. 2006 after schools stopped coming and insurance went through the roof.

 

All Saints’ Church was built by the community and opened in 1931 with regular services untill 1983. In 1987, Sunday school was started up, and the Anglicans and Catholics resumed monthly services about a year later.

 

The first fire-fighting efforts were informal and community-based. Hollisdale Rural Fire Brigade (RFB) was officially set up in the mid-1950s and the Pappinbarra RFB a couple of years later. In 2017, they were assisted by units from far afield in the catastrophic bushfires in the lower Valley. Our RFB volunteers play a vital part in firefighting both locally and further afield.