Glen Oak is a small community in the Hunter Region of New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, shared between the Port Stephens and Dungog

Dungog Shire

Dungog Shire is a Local Government Area in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia. It is situated in the Barrington Tops region and consists predominantly of very rugged to hilly country which becomes less rugged from north to south.- Incomes :...

 Local Government Areas (LGA). Approximately two thirds of the suburb's 45.1 square kilometres (17.4 sq mi) is located within the Port Stephens LGA while the remaining third, which is sparsely populated, is located in Dungog Shire.
Glen Oak was originally a small town, settled in the 19th century as a river port. During the late 19th and early 20th century the town included a community hall, post office, public school and general store. Declining river trade affected Glen Oak and by the 1950s much of the village itself had been abandoned. Today, very little is left to indicate that a town ever existed. However, the School of Arts hall on Clarence Town Road, built in 1899 and possibly the last community-owned hall in Australia, still stands and is used for various social activities. At the entrance to the hall are two pillars commemorating local men from the area who fought in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

.

Only a handful of Glen Oak's original homesteads still exist, the oldest of which is Thomas Holmes' "Oakendale" (circa 1830, damaged by fire in 1909). Another attractive homestead once overlooked the Williams River

Williams River (New South Wales)

The Williams River is a river that flows through Dungog, Clarence Town and Seaham in New South Wales, Australia. The river flows generally south east and south for about to its confluence with the Hunter River, just to the west of the Fitzgerald Bridge at Raymond Terrace. Previously it was known...

at "Langlands", also an estate of note, (it was demolished in the 1970s).