Wollombi is an Aboriginal word for ‘meeting place’. The North and south arms of Wollombi Brook converge here. the area has a rich Aboriginal History, and was the meeting place for several tribes.

Wollombi developed as a township through its key location on the Great North Road, where the two northern branches diverge. It became the centre of a very productive agricultural area, initially relying on wheat and cereals, although settlers diversified onto other industries such as timber-getting and collecting wattle bark for use on tanning leather. In 1862 over 200 people lived in Wollombi township, with almost 2000 in the Wollombi Valley. At that time less than a dozen people lived in Cessnock.The Colonial Government saw the Great North Road as one of the finest achievements - a busy artery to the rich lands of the north, swarming with stock on the move to new pastures, packed with people on business. In the Sydney Morning Herald of August 4, 1841 a staff writer who had toured the road referred enthusiastically to Wollombi at the junction of the road to Cessnock and Newcastle and that further north to Singleton, as ‘the Thermopylae of international intercourse’. At that time Wollombi township boasted one of the best inns in the Colony, the Sir George Gipps. As well it had two fine sandstone buildings in a courthouse, a post office and two churches. These structures still stand today.

Wollombi Township was offered for sale in the Government Gazette in 1833,  and in 1840 the description on the right appeared in
the Australian.

On a site that was formally a Police Barracks structure of a third sandstone building commenced in the late 1880’s by one of the towns colourful characters Denis Kenny who also operated the town’s family hotel and racecourse. It appears Kenny ran out of money before it was finished, likely influenced by the depression of the 1890’s. The building subsequently became known  by the local community as ‘Kenny’s Folly’.

During the late 1800’s the Department of works established an office at Wollombi to manage road maintenance from Wiseman’s Ferry to Broke, to Wyong and towards Maitland. Around 1900 Gordon Edgell occupied this post, and rented this house as his residence. Later in his life he founded the Edgell canning business.

During the 1920’s Wollombi had a period of greater prosperity that during the 50 year periods before or after, and the best road to the North was from Sydney to Windsor, then Wiseman’s Ferry & St Albans to Wollombi. This changed in the early 1930s with the opening of the Pacific Highway from Sydney to Newcastle via Gosford, which combined with the Depression gave the town a setback from which it did not recover until the 1990s.

Mrs. Stevenson was the owner of this building for some years, and operated a business comprising of Tea Rooms and petrol sales in the 1920’s.

From the pioneering days of the 1800’s Wollombi was the gate-way to the Hunter Valley. Today some two hundred years later, Wollombi with all it’s history and charm, still remains the Gate-way to wine country with traveller’s taking the scenic route along what was the old Convict Trail or Great North Road.