Nelligen, New South Wales

Nelligen is a village on the Clyde River on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Kings Highway.Location and servicesThe village is situated on the western bank of the River near a junction with Nelligen Creek, and 8km inland from Batemans Bay.Local services include a general store, hotel, and general cemetery.HistoryThe original inhabitants of the land were Aborigines of the Walbanga, Murrinjari and Bergalia clans. The origin of the name is unclear and was already in use at the time of the first survey in 1828. The surveyor Robert Hoddle described the site of the future township as 640acre of "good forest land at Nellican Creek" and by the 1830s timber cutters had cleared a site for settlement and work had begun on a road to Batemans Bay.The village of Nelligen was gazetted in 1854 and a road inland to Braidwood was completed two years later. No bridges existed across the Clyde at the time, so produce and minerals from southern New South Wales were delivered to Nelligen for transport by twice-weekly steamer to Sydney; the town was serviced by the Illawarra Steam Navigation Company. The post office opened in 1858 and a Protestant church was constructed in 1872. The existing Roman Catholic church dates from 1895.