Dundullimal Homestead is a heritage-listed former pastoral station and now cultural facility, house museum and events centre.

The Australian colonial slab hut-type homestead is located approximately 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) south of Dubbo in the Dubbo Regional Council local government area of New South Wales, on Obley Road, set on the bank of the Macquarie River.

Driving time is approximately eight minutes from the Dubbo central business district, and the property can also be accessed via the Tracker Riley cycle way.

Dundullimal Homestead and grounds are also booked extensively as a venue for weddings, art exhibitions, concerts and parties.

This area comprised 19 counties stretching from north of the Hunter Valley to Yass in the south and west to Wellington.

In 1848 following pressure from these licensees to have security of tenure, regulations were passed which granted leases of eight or fourteen years, depending on the district.

While maintaining the principle of free selection before survey, the Act gave fixity of tenure to the pastoral leases.

[1][3] Built around 1840 as the head station of this 6,500-hectare (16,000-acre) squatting run, the Dundullimal homestead is believed to be the oldest surviving slab hut house in Australia.

Its interior is relatively sophisticated for its type, with an imposing sitting room and is noted for its tent-shaped plaster ceiling, and wallpaper reproduced from an 1850 pattern.

This complex of buildings reflects the practical elements of rural life on a large, isolated property during the nineteenth century.

There was a slab hut and woolshed, 25 acres of wheat and stock consisting of 360 cattle, eight horses and 933 sheep.

[1][3] Dundullimal was advertised for sale in February and March 1858, though it was not until December of that year that ownership of Portion 159 transferred to E. B. Cornish and Walter W. Brockelhurst.

It was at this time that the Crown Land Act was passed requiring the lessee to divide the run (now a 'pastoral holding') into leasehold and resumed areas.

A watercolour painting by Miss Kennedy Baird and an 1860s photograph proved the houe had indeed been of Palladian composition with balancing pavilions.

The Baird family held the property until 1943 when Kennedy Fletcher's quarter share was purchased by Ralph (Pat) Palmer.

[1][3][5] The property with the exception of the portion on which the early head station stands is currently owned by the Palmer family and is managed by John Macarthur.

The family decided to grant the portion of land on which the early head station stands to the National Trust.

In c. 1985-6[6][7] the buildings and four hectares (nine point nine acres) were gifted to the National Trust by the Palmer family, descendants of Thomas Baird.

A Bicentennial Commonwealth government grant, together with the support of then Trust Director, the late Peter James, and builder Garry Waller, made it possible to restore the complex and it was opened to the public in 1988.

[1][8] In 2014 a bequest to the National Trust by Barbara West allowed restoration of the homestead and stables, and major upgrade works to create the Shed Function Centre.

In November 2013 the first wedding was held in the church, built by the paternal uncle of Saint Mary McKillop.

[9] The church relocation was funded by a Government of New South Wales community building partnerships grant and donations by Trust members including a targeted appeal.

A NSW Government community grant of $35,542 allowed the Trust to restore the stock yards and eastern skillion of the shed, which had been deteriorating and collapsed in the storms of 2013-14.

[1][5] The site is roughly rectangular and sits to the east of the Dubbo Railway line, with a level crossing half way along its length, south of the homestead and north of the stables.

The 19th century Wellington-Dubbo Road and former entrance run along (and inside) the site's southern boundary, parallel to it.

a kurrajong (Brachychiton acerifolium) east of the former kitchen's site, a silky oak (c.2.5m from the western wall of the homestead), a row of three peppercorns (Schinus molle var.

), tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima), canna lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica), iris sp., daisy, box elder (Acer negundo), apricot (Prunus armenaica cv.

The building is formed from yellow box vertical slabs fitted into a framework of posts and channelled plates.

[1][13] The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.

This sophistication results from its unique plan form, its unusual and extremely well executed joinery and finish, and its formal relationship to the stables immediately to the south.