History & Heritagein Berry NSW

The indigenous people of the area were the Wodi Wodi people. In the 1810s, George William Evans, Government Surveyor, reported on the Berry district as a possible settlement 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 in 1822. The locality was known as Broughton Creek from its beginning in 1825 as a private town and part of a large rural grant holding called “Coolangatta”. The name was changed to Berry in 1889, following the death of David Berry, Alexander’s brother, to honour the Berry family. The local public hospital was also bequeathed by the Berry family, and is now named the David Berry Hospital – a rehabilitation hospital and palliative care hospice.

For much of its early history the town depended on timber cutting and dairy farming, with a tannery and boat building also present, but today, Berry is a town of thriving independent businesses and a unique blend of stylish boutiques, homewares stores, gourmet cafes and restaurants.