Dungog is a country town on the Williams River in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. Located in the middle of dairy and timber country, it is the centre of the Dungog Shire local government area and at the 2016 census it had a population of 2,025 people. The area includes the Fosterton Loop, of road, used in the annual Pedalfest. A small portion of Dungog lies in the Mid-Coast Council LGA. History The traditional owners of the area now known as Dungog are the Gringai clan of the Wonnarua people, a group of Aboriginal Australian people. By 1825 Robert Dawson had named the Barrington area, while surveyor Thomas Florance named the Chichester River in 1827. Two years later George Boyle White explored the sources of the Allyn and Williams rivers. Grants along the Williams followed to men such as Duncan Mackay, John Verge, James Dowling (later a NSW Chief Justice) and others, who, with their assigned convicts, began clearing land and building houses around a district that was by the early 1830s centered on a small settlement first known as Upper William. With a Court of Petty Sessions in 1833 and gazetted in 1838 as the village of Dungog (a local Gringai word), it had a court house, lockup and an increasing number of inns, shops and houses. Lord St, as were Dowling, Mackay, Chapman, Hooke, Brown and Myles, were all named after landowners at the time surveyor Francis Rusden drew up his generous 1838 grid plan of Dungog's streets. The descendants of some of these, notably the Dowlings, Mackays and Hookes, still live in and around Dungog. Others, such as John Lord, went bankrupt or, as did Myles, sold out early and moved to Sydney. Dungog village gradually grew from a mere 25 houses in the 1846 census (three of stone or brick). By 1854, four licences for publicans were granted in Dungog: James Stephenson, Dungog Inn; Joseph Finch, Settlers' Arms; Joseph Robson, Trades' Arms; and Edward Tate, Durham Hotel. Two of these continue to operate today. The plan and street pattern of 1838 gave Dungog generous sized lots that, over the years, have allowed people to build homes with ample space in between, as well as to enjoy cow and horse paddocks close by. Before the 1920s there was relatively little building beyond Lord St. John Wilson, born in Dungog in 1854, described the town