Berry

Berry is a small Australian village in the Shoalhaven region of the New South Wales South Coast, located 143 km (89 mi) south of the state capital, Sydney.

Berry is a small Australian village in the Shoalhaven region of the New South Wales South Coast, located 143 km (89 mi) south of the state capital, Sydney. It has many historical buildings which are listed on the New South Wales Heritage Register. Berry attracts many tourists who come to enjoy the diversity of landscapes, including coastal beaches, rich dairy farming, and forested mountains. The village hosts a local Produce Market which is held twice each month on the second Saturday and fourth Sunday. Together with Kiama 23 km (14 mi) to the north, Berry acts as a gateway through to other towns and villages along the South Coast of NSW via the Princes Highway and the South Coast railway line. Major highway building projects in and around Berry have now bypassed the village, creating uninterrupted motorway conditions for coastal travel south to Nowra and the South Coast and north to Wollongong and Sydney. This has resulted in the removal of all but local and visitor traffic within the village. Planning is underway to create a pedestrian-friendly precinct in and around Queens Street (the main commercial street).

The Aboriginal people of the area were the Wodi Wodi people of the Dharawal nation, and the area was known as Boon-ga-ree. In the 1810s, George William Evans, Government Surveyor, reported on the Berry district as a possiblesettlement and on the good stands of red cedar. Subsequently, itinerant timber cutters visited to cut and send cedar to Sydney.

Alexander Berry, with his business partner Edward Wollstonecraft, pioneered European settlement in the Shoalhaven region from 1822, initially securing land grants to the south of the Shoalhaven River and later to the north (including the Berry district). The locality was known as Broughton Creek from its beginning in 1825 as a private town and part of a large pastoral holding called "Coolangatta". The first European settlers of this locality were seven free sawyers employed by Alexander Berry, who camped there in 1825. Soon after a tannery began operation. In the 1840s a saw mill powered by a water wheel started. By 1866, a very substantial town had grown on the either side of Broughton Creek. On the Pulman Street side a post office, school, tannery and store were established, while on the other side of the creek an Inn was opened. By this time the population had grown to 300 and the area was declared a Municipality.In 1873 Alexander Berry died and his brother David Berry became the owner of the estate. He encouraged the growth of the town by establishing an Agricultural Showground and giving land to four religious denominations to build churches in the town.

The name of the town was changed from Broughton Creek to Berry in 1889, following the death of David Berry, Alexander's brother, to honour the Berry family. After his death the outlying land of the Coolangatta Estate was gradually sold. The town continued to grow and flourish as a service centre for saw milling and dairying industries. From the 1980s, these industries have diminished, and tourism is now an important activity.