Red Range

Postcode: 2370

Red Range is a village in the mountainous New England region of New South Wales, Australia in Glen Innes Severn Shire. lt is in the Parish of Rusden and the County of Gough.

Red Range was established in 1854. Four years earlier, George Kempton and his wife Harriat came from Ely in Cambridgeshire, England. They had come to Australia to make for themselves a new home. Now, in 1854, he made his first selection, "Rocky Valley", on the Red Range Road along the Mann River. A few years later, he made a second selection, a block of land he called "Splitters Home" at the site later to become Red Range. Within a few short years the village was to grow to consist of a church, a few houses, a general store and a school, surrounded by peppermint bushes.

The little slab cottage next to the shop was built around this time and was later used for produce storage for the shop. The cottage-like appearance is of more recent times and it had resembled a barn for most of its life. It has been built of pit-sawn vertical slabs and given a snow roof typical of the buildings of that time and this altitude.

Names associated with Red Range in those early days included Austin, Butcher, Cameron, Chapple, Cheney, Drew, Edwards, Enrights, Goodwin, Hagen, Hall, Hawker, Hollis, Hottes, Kraemer, Lowe, McCabe, McDonald, Madgwick, Mahoney, Mitchell, Morley, Penson, Perkins, Peters, Pogson. Potter, Rainbow, Rogers, Ross, Rush, Ryall, Rudd, Ted Sargeant, Taylor, Thompson, Tronier, Waimsley, Wells, Whan, Williams, Willis, Wilson, and Winn.

Sports have always played an important part in the village. The most recent noteworthy activity being the annual Red Range Carriage Riding Event established by Denise Lute and the late Denise Griffin.

The old Village Church was one of the first buildings in the village and it has been noted by residents that it boasted some beautifully crafted cedar pews made locally by a Mr Waimsley. The Village Church was used mostly by Anglican, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers, who in the early days came by sulky or rode a horse. Although it was not unusual for Canon Kemmis to arrive at the Village Church wearing leggings, having rode there on his horse, more fortunate was Reverent A. P. Cameron, who usually arrived in a sulky driven by a Mr. Lane. Portions of the old church have found their way to the Retreat House at the present Kingsgate Mines.

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