Qualla: Glen Innes, New South Wales

Glen Innes, New South Wales: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cgoodwin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Thirty-eight rough-hewn granite monoliths stand in a ring on a hilltop above Glen Innes, aligned to the solstices, the equinoxes, and the Southern Cross. They look as though they have brooded over the tableland for five thousand years. They have, in fact, stood since 1992, when the NSW Governor unveiled the Australian Standing Stones as the national monument to every Celtic people who helped build this country. It is an audacious thing for a country town of a few thousand to attempt, and Glen Innes carries it off with a straight face and street signs in Scottish Gaelic. But the older story is written in the land's first name. To the Ngarabal people, this place is Gindaaydjin, which means 'plenty of big round stones on clear plains.' The stones, it seems, were always here.

Image: Cgoodwin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Glen Innes, New South Wales: Gindaaydjin

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mattinbgn (talk · contribs), CC BY 3.0. The original owners of Glen Innes and the surrounding plains are the Ngarabal people, and their name for the township, Gindaaydjin, reads almost like a description of the view: big round stones scattered across open, clear country. Many Ngarabal families still live in the distric...

Image: Mattinbgn (talk · contribs) | CC BY 3.0

Glen Innes, New South Wales: The Land of the Beardies

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0. European settlement here begins with a piece of folklore. Around 1838, a Scottish barrister named Archibald Boyd was led to this district by two stockmen famous for their long, flowing beards. The pair, remembered as 'the Beardies,' went on to introduce other squatters to the bes...

Image: Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia | CC BY-SA 2.0

Glen Innes, New South Wales: A Scottish Town Built on Tin

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mattinbgn (talk · contribs), CC BY 3.0. The name Glen Innes honours Captain Archibald Clunes Innes, a Caithness-born soldier who sailed to Australia in 1822 in charge of 170 convicts and amassed New England properties on a baronial scale. The town was gazetted in 1852, but it was tin that made it boom. When the metal w...

Image: Mattinbgn (talk · contribs) | CC BY 3.0

Glen Innes, New South Wales: Cold Enough to Make Headlines

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit WikiWookie, CC BY-SA 3.0. Glen Innes specialises in being cold. The district records some of the lowest minimum temperatures anywhere in Australia outside the Snowy Mountains and Tasmania, with hard frosts, biting winds, and snowfalls that often refuse to settle. At 6:33 on a July morning in 2019, the tow...

Image: WikiWookie | CC BY-SA 3.0

Glen Innes, New South Wales: Festivals, Stones, and a Long Memory

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0. For a small town, Glen Innes throws an outsized calendar of events. The Australian Celtic Festival fills the streets with pipes and tartan each year; Minerama draws gem hunters and fossickers; the Land of the Beardies Festival and the agricultural show keep older traditions alive...

Image: Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia | CC BY-SA 2.0