Woodville, New South Wales

Woodville is a very small township in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia that is shared between the Port Stephens and Maitland Local Government Areas (LGA). Most of the town lies to the east of the Paterson River in the Port Stephens LGA while a small area of approximately 1.3 km2, to the west of the Paterson, is within the boundaries of the Maitland LGA.

Land use
Woodville's primary land use is agricultural, although housing and small-acre rural residential lots are increasingly significant. Its agriculture consists mainly of broad-acre hay production, along with beef cattle grazing, turf-farming, poultry and olive production. It sits on the floodplains of the lower Hunter River and is subject to periodic flooding.

Township
The town's centre consists of only a few buildings: an old timber shop, a pretty stone church - no longer used for religious services - a pictureseque timber hall associated with the church and a few houses of mixed age and design.

History
The Woodville region was occupied originally by Aboriginals, most likely the Worimi people. It offered abundant natural resources, with rivers, extensive wetlands, lakes, open woodland and rainforest. In the early 1800s, the first Europeans known to enter the region were timber-getters seeking to exploit the extensive red cedar trees that grew on and near the banks of the Paterson and Hunter rivers. Felled trees were floated down-river to timber mills in Newcastle.

Woodville has some historical buildings, such as Dunmore House, the Woodville shop and the homestead of the historical property Stradbroke, which is listed in the Australian Heritage Database. Increasingly, traditional farms are being subdivided for semi-rural small holdings.

The Woodville School of Arts dates to 1877 and the Gothic Revival. All Saints Church features impressive arched and leadlight windows following its restoration work in 1922, and the Iona School dates to 1918.

Notable residents
Its most famous resident was the champion boxer Les Darcy, who was born either at Iona - a small hamlet within the Woodville area - or at the nearby estate Stradbroke, where he grew up.