The original inhabitants of the Dural area were the Darug people. Dural is derived from Dooral-Dooral, an Aboriginal name meaning a smoking hollow tree.[2]

The name Dooral appeared on Surveyor Richard Dundiate's map of April 1817 and originally covered the whole area including present day Glenorie, Galston, Arcadia and Middle Dural. Located on the Old Northern Road, a historic road built by convicts between 1825 and 1836 to link early Sydney, in the Colony of New South Wales, with the fertile Hunter Valley to the north. The first grant in the area was made to George Hall in 1879.[3] At an earlier stage, a local settler, James Roughley, had donated land to be used for the building of a church. A sandstone chapel was built on Old Northern Road circa 1846, with a vestry, apse and shingle roof, plus a bell turret on the western gable. A porch was added soon after. The chapel—known as St Jude's Church—is now listed on the Register of the National Estate.[4]

Dural Post Office opened on 1 August 1864.  (Wikipedia)