Aberdeen, New South Wales

Aberdeen is a small town in the upper Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, Australia, in Upper Hunter Shire. It is located about 12 kilometres north of Muswellbrook on the New England Highway. Aberdeen is named after Aberdeen, Scotland. It is home to the blue heeler dog, also known as the Australian cattle dog.

Aberdeen is possibly best-known for the former abbatoirs in the town centre, which operated for well over 100 years, before the most recent owners - an American company called Conagra - decided to close down their New South Wales abbatoirs and concentrate on their Queensland operations. One factor in closing down what was once a very important abbatoir for Conagra, was that the financial cost of upgrading the Aberdeen Abattoir was deemed too high, thus the abattoir - which was the largest single employer in Aberdeen - was closed in 1999. Hundreds of people were left without work, and despite promises from both the New South Wales and Federal governments to encourage new businesses to open up in the area, nothing of note eventuated.

Aberdeen has its own pre-school, which was founded in 1977. The town contains two schools: the Aberdeen Public School, catering from kindergarten to Grade 6; and St. Joseph's High School, a Catholic co-educational high school catering for Grades 7 through to 12.

Aberdeen has two churches - St Thomas Catholic Church, and St Marks Anglican Church. It once had a third church, St Pauls Uniting Church, which has now been turned into an art gallery called the Artemis Gallery.

Right next to St Thomas Catholic Church, is located St Joseph's Aberdeen High School. [http://www.abrdn.mn.catholic.edu.au St Joseph's Aberdeen School Website]

The town has a local rugby league team, the Aberdeen Tigers.

In the year 2000, Aberdeen was the location of the infamous murder of John Price, a former abattoir worker. Price was murdered by his ex-partner Katherine Knight, in circumstances so shocking that Knight became the first Australian woman to be jailed for the term of her natural life.

Aberdeen is on the Main North railway line, and is serviced by a daily CountryLink Xplorer service from Sydney, and several daily Cityrail services from Newcastle.

For travellers, there are two main areas for accommodation in the town: the Aberdeen Motel, which is on the southern edge of the town; and the Segenhoe Inn, which is situated towards the northern end of town. The Commercial Hotel is also available for budget accommodation.

Blues artist Adam Feeble was born in Aberdeen in 1979.