The historic village of Murringo lies some 24 kilometres due east of Young where the Boorowa Road drops gently to a well-watered valley. First settled in 1827, it was one of the earliest settlements west of the Great Dividing Range and the buildings that remain are a realistic reminder of those days. After Surveyor Larmer's visit of 1849 Murringo, then known as Marengo, was gazetted as a village in 1850 and a surveyed plan drawn up for its future growth.

This included a market place near where the old police station now stands, and a common reserve for water and recreation which remains untouched to this day.

The plan was based on a system of small blocks for service functions in the middle of the village, graduating to larger blocks of fifteen acres on the edge. After gold was discovered at Young, a large town grew up there and took many of the planned service functions from Murringo, relegating it to a small pastoral centre.

Edwin Richens, who moved from Sydney to Young in the goldrush days, opened a blacksmith's shop at Murringo in 1879. The blacksmith's shop and his cottage have been restored and are now craft workshops.

There are facilities for the practice of pottery, china painting, rug making, painting, sketching and other handcrafts in the cottage.

Next door in the large slab building on the right there is smithy equipment.

Much is being done by the local residents to foster these older crafts and encourage resettlement in the area, so that the village will survive as a living monument to our heritage.

The historic buildings of Murringo include the Christ Church Anglican Church, built in the 1860's; the Marengo Hotel, licenced in 1856; the police station built in 1880; the public school built in 1870 with a stone residence completed in 1879; the Plough Inn built some time before 1860; and the post office next door which was opened in 1857 and which in the 1880's also had a telegraph office.

The whole village is a unique historic enclave well worth preserving, hence the determined efforts to breathe new life into the old buildings.

Some of the delightful scenery which surrounds the village of Murringo