Melbourne Australia

BADGER CREEK
Badger Creek, a rural and urban settlement, is 53 km. north-east of Melbourne and 6 km. south of Healesville. It adjoins the Healesville Sanctuary and the former Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, now the Coranderrk Bushland. Badger Creek was surveyed as a village settlement in 1894, providing blocks of 8 ha. The name possibly arose from the early settlers confusing wombats with English badgers. Another account is that a horse named Badger, owned by one of the pioneering Ryrie brothers, became bogged in the creek. The earliest settlement in the area was the Coranderrk Aboriginal Station which was occupied in March, 1863, the year before Healesville township was surveyed. The Station, of 1,963 ha., had a population of 64 Aborigines, a peak figure of 148 in 1878 and 42 in 1922, the year before it was closed. The Coranderrk primary school was opened in 1890, and was replaced by the Badger Creek school in 1899, teaching both Aboriginal and white children.

BALACLAVA
Balaclava, part of St. Kilda East, is 7 km. south-east of Melbourne. It was named after the battlefield in the Crimean War (1853-6), and has street names such as Nightingale, Inkerman, Raglan and Sebastopol. It is well served by public transport, having trams in Chapel Street (1886) and Carlisle Street (1913) and a train line from Melbourne to Brighton (1859). There is also a busy tram route nearby in St. Kilda and Brighton Roads, running past the St. Kilda town hall (1890), now the council offices of Port Phillip city. The town hall is an impressive building in a garden setting, with a white portico added in 1925. The council library (1973) is in Carlisle Street.

BALNARRING / BALNARRING BEACH
Balnarring is located in the southeastern Mornington Peninsula about halfway between Hastings and Flinders. The name Balnarring is Bunurong in origin and means "camp in open place". The name, however, previously applied to the Parish of Balnarring (which included Merricks) and the town, previously called Tulum, was changed to Balnarring after World War II. Early reports of the area suggested the region was "thick with honeysuckle and sheoak", and that the area from Somers to Point Leo contained "good soil, good grass, and open forest timbered with Gums wattle and She Oak trees". Early settlers were involved in wattle bark stripping and cutting piles and sleepers for shipping to Melbourne via Shoreham to the southwest.

BALWYN
Balwyn is a residential suburb 10 km. east of Melbourne. Balwyn was part of Henry Elgar's Special Survey of 8 square miles (1841), which was subdivided into small farms and grazing runs. One of the subdivisions was bought by a Scots editor and journalist, Andrew Murray (1813-80), in the late 1850s. He built a house which he named Balwyn, approximately on the site of the present Fintona Girls' School in Balwyn Road. Murray planted a vineyard, and reputedly derived "Balwyn" from the Gaelic "bal" and the Saxon "wyn". Other vineyards prospered until the 1890s, and grape vine branches formed part of Camberwell city's crest. Balwyn was in the north of Camberwell city.
The southern part of Balwyn contains Deepdene, which in 1891 had a station on the Outer Circle railway running from Oakleigh to Fairfield via Camberwell. The railway was built with land subdivision sales in view, but its partial closure in a few years dampened prospects. A service continued from Camberwell to Deepdene until 1943, the last steam train service in metropolitan Melbourne, the "Deepdene Dasher". Deepdene's residential development awaited tramline extension in 1916 - northwards along Burke Road to Whitehorse Road and eastwards along Whitehorse Road to Surrey Hills. Further to the north Balwyn had neither train nor tram, and a tram extension along Doncaster Road did not come until 1938. The terminus, however, was short of Balwyn's easterly limit and the areas beyond the terminus (Balwyn North and Greythorn) awaited development in the 1950s and 1960s.

BANGHOLME
Bangholme, situated on the former Carrum Swamp, is between Keysborough and Chelsea Heights, 30 km. south-east of Melbourne. The name comes from a waterhole on the Eumemmerring Creek, somewhat east of the present Bangholme, where Joseph Hawdon pastured stock in 1837. The name of the waterhole, derived from the Aboriginal word Parnham, had various pronunciations, including Baungan. It is thought that the Aboriginal word means hut. In 1860 a lessee of the waterhole area attempted to gain a pre-emptive right to land nearer the middle of the present Bangholme by establishing a homestead and naming it Bangholm, combining "Bangan" (shortened from Baungan) and "holm", Norse for an islet in a river. That was appropriate for the sandy ridges in the swamp which were the dunes of an ancient shoreline. A school was opened in east Bangholme in 1915 on land donated by one of the Keys family who were prominent in Keysborough. A hall was opened in 1931 and a Methodist church in 1935.

BANYULE
The City of Banyule is a Local Government Area located in the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It has an area of 63 square kilometres (24.3 sq mi) and lies between 7 and 21 km from central Melbourne. The Yarra River runs along the City s south border while the west is defined by Darebin Creek. The City was named after the Indigenous Australian term Banyule or "Banyool", and was originally the name of a locality within the former City of Heidelberg before being adopted as the name of the new council during the amalgamation of local government areas in Victoria. It was formed in 1994 from the merger of the City of Heidelberg with parts of the Shire of Diamond Valley and Shire of Eltham. The area was originally occupied by the Wurundjeri, Indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation, who spoke variations of the Woiwurrung language group.

THE BASIN
The Basin is a rural and residential suburb 31 km. east of Melbourne in the western foothills of the Dandenong Ranges National Park. Several tributaries of the Dandenong Creek pass through The Basin, providing verdant water-course flats surrounded by rising land. The Governor Botanist Ferndinand von Mueller explored the area in 1853, and possibly gave it the name. "The Basin" is shown on a survey plan of 1868, by when settlers had taken licences or made freehold purchases of the land. Notable settlers were J.J. Miller, book-maker and publisher of Miller's Racing Guide and William Chandler, nurseryman and forebear of two local parliamentarians.

BATMAN
Batman is a railway station located in the suburb of North Coburg, on the Upfield railway line. Batman station opened on October 8, 1889 as Bell Park, but was closed in 1903. It was reopened as Batman in 1914, and named after the founder of Melbourne, John Batman.

BAXTER
Baxter is a suburb in the Shire of Mornington Peninsula. It is served by Baxter railway station on the Stony Point greater-metropolitan line. Originally named Baxter's Flat, Baxter was founded by pastoralist Benjamin Baxter, who lived in a property named Carrup Carrup - the Aboriginal name. The property still exists today on what is now the Frankston-Flinders road, as does the original cottage he and his wife Martha lived in. It is now owned by Gateway Family Church who plan to preserve the cottage. Benjamin Baxter died in 1892 and his gravestone, found in the Frankston Cemetery, reads "Benjamin Baxter, late of h. m. 50th regiment. Died at Currup Currup 15 May 1892, aged 87. Also Martha, beloved wife of above 31 January 1906 age 94 years". It was at Baxter's Flat that the railway to Mornington and Stony Point (built in the late 1880s) separated. The station was called Mornington Junction before being changed to Baxter, however its role as a junction ended in the 1980s with the closure of the Mornington line. The early township grew around the railway station and a Post Office named Mornington Junction opened on December 1, 1892 (Baxter from 1918).

BAYSWATER
Bayswater is a residential and industrial suburb 28 km. east of Melbourne. The area was originally part of Scoresby North and settlement began in the 1860s. Many settlers were German. A school was opened in 1874 in a building provided by the Lutheran Congregation. A State primary school was opened five years later. Some distance to the west at The Basin, James John Miller, bookmaker and publisher, had a substantial property named Bayswater House, in recognition of his birthplace. The name Bayswater was given to the school in 1890. When the railway line to Upper Ferntree Gully was opened in 1889 the station at Bayswater was named Macauley because that was the name of the post office. It was however superseded by Bayswater in 1894. The station was one of four from Ringwood to Upper Ferntree Gully. Today there are eight stations.
By the turn of the century the German community had diminished, The Bayswater district had several orchards and other agricultural holdings, and a populations of nearly 900 at the 1911 census. During the years leading up to the second world war Bayswater acquired a police station, a baby health centre and a shopping centre with a few storekeepers, a butcher, baker, wine saloon and a motor garage. It was patronised by orchardists, poultry keepers and nurserymen. Postwar growth was strongly signalled when Dunlop Rubber established a factory in Bayswater North in 1952 for making aviation products.

BEACON COVE
Beacon Cove is a locality within Port Melbourne and the City of Port Phillip. It comprises approximately 1100 dwellings in a mixture of low-rise medium density and high-rise housing with a small supermarket, some commercial space, a small number of cafes, restaurants and a gym. It was developed over the decade from 1996 by Australian developer Mirvac, following the collapse of the 'Sandridge City' scheme for a gated community featuring canalside housing. The site was formerly an industrial facility. Beacon Cove features a waterfront promenade, palm-lined boulevards and a layout that allows the retention of two operational shipping beacons. Most of the low-rise housing is arranged around a series of small parks, in a postmodern scaled-down Beaux-Arts plan. This sub-suburb is fashionable and expensive, although controversial amongst some members of the Port Melbourne community as it is of a completely different style to the surrounding areas, with upmarket residences giving the area the name 'legoland' in the Port Melbourne community.

BEACONSFIELD / BEACONSFIELD UPPER
Beaconsfield, forty six kilometres east of central Melbourne on Cardinia Creek, was originally known as Little Berwick. It is immediately to the east of Berwick. A small settlement grew up in the vicinity of Bowman's Inn, a coaching stop on the road to Gippsland. When gold was discovered at Wood's Point in the 1860s, Mrs Bowman employed men to cut a track from Beaconsfield north to the Yarra Track leading to Wood's Point. Miners using Bowman's Track increased her custom considerably. In the 1870s gold was found in the gullies north of Beaconsfield. Timber getters followed the prospectors. The foothills were found to be suitable for orchards and fruit trees, particularly apples and lemons, were planted. In 1881 a railway station was opened on the Gippsland line and named Beaconsfield after the prominent statesman Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield. The name had already been used for the post office at Beaconsfield Upper for several years but was transferred to the railway station and surrounding settlement.

BEAUMARIS
Beaumaris, a bayside residential suburb, is 20 km. south-east of Melbourne. In 1845 James Moysey leased grazing land in the area and shortly afterwards purchased 32 hectares. He named his property Beaumaris Park, which derives from the Welsh coastal resort where Edward I built the Beau Marais castle. (The reason for Moysey's choice is unclear as he came from Devon.) Beaumaris was beyond the railway extensions to Sandringham (1887) and Mordialloc (1881), but its coastal scenery drew the attention of entrepreneurs. In 1888 a Beaumaris Park Estate was auctioned, a horse tram service from Sandringham was provided and the Beaumaris Hotel was begun.

In 1914 the horse-tram service ended. An electric tram service from Sandringham, to Black Rock was opened in 1919, but the extension to Beaumaris did not come until 1926. It lasted only for five years. A school was opened in the Beaumaris hall in 1914, transferring to a permanent building on a site purchased from a market garden in 1917. Clarice Beckett painted many evocative canvasses of Beaumaris, 1918-35.

BEENAK
Beenak is a bounded rural locality to the north of the Bunyip State Park. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges. Beenak Post Office opened on 1 July 1878 and closed in 1951. Its name is of Aboriginal origin.


Puffing Billy Railway, Belgrave

BELGRAVE; BELGRAVE HEIGHTS; BELGRAVE SOUTH
Belgrave South was originally associated with Narre Warren North because mail deliveries came from that direction. The association with Belgrave began in 1908 when mail was delivered from that direction as a result of the railway coming to Belgrave. The area contained several large farms and estates, and in 1914 the Lockwood Estate was subdivided for home sites. The Belgrave South area contained the primary school and a store, but the subdivider provided a store at the Lockwood Estate and named it Belgrave Heights. Two "centres" developed about 700 metres apart, divided by the Zig Zag Road and mutually hostile local ambitions. Belgrave South kept the school but Belgrave Heights got most of the churches and the Mechanics' Institute/Progress Hall. Belgrave Heights also has several church camps and convention centres. Each has small shopping areas.

BELL
Bell is a railway station located in the suburb of Preston, on the Epping railway line. Bell station opened on October 8, 1889 as Preston - Bell Street. It was renamed Bell in 1905. The station has the only monosyllabic name in the entire Melbourne suburban rail system (depending upon how one says Jewell). It was thus named because it is on Bell Street.

BELL PARK
Bell Park is a residential suburb between Geelong North and Bell Post Hill. It was named after the Bell Park homestead, built by an early settler, John Bell. Part of the homestead is preserved in the buildings at the Grace McKellar Centre for Rehabilitation and Extended Care. The residential settlement of Bell Park began in the 1950s, and many of the new settlers were postwar European migrants. Two of the larger groups were Croatians and Italians. Many built make-do bungalows until they earned enough to build better finished dwellings.

BELL POST HILL
Bell Post Hill is a residential suburb north-west of Geelong, adjoining the Midland Highway or Ballarat Road. Its name is thought to have arisen from a look-out post or warning bell on a post which was erected on a prominent rise which has views over the surrounding countryside and out to Corio Bay. The earliest record of the look-out of warning bell was of an event in 1837 which involved conflict with local Aborigines. The prominent rise became the site of the Morongo homestead, built in 1859. The two storey stone building is on the Register of the National Estate. In 1926 the property became the Presbyterian Morongo Girls' School but because of financial difficulties it was disposed of by the Uniting church in 1996 to the Kardinia International College.

BELLFIELD
Bellfield is 9 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Bellfield is primarily residential but includes the Banyule Waste Recovery Centre? on Waterdale Road and sporting fields in Ford Park and Liberty Park Reserve on Banksia Street towards Darebin Creek.

BENNETTSWOOD
Bennettswood is a locality located in Burwood, in Melbourne's eastern suburbs.


Free Shop, Bentleigh

BENTLEIGH
Bentleigh is a residential suburb 12 km. south-east of Melbourne, immediately to the north of Moorabbin.. Bentleigh and Bentleigh East lie along the axes of Henry Dendy's Special Survey of 1841 when he took eight square miles extending inland form the Brighton shoreline. The northern boundary was North Road, the southern boundary South Road and the eastern boundary East Boundary road. Centre Road was a convenient centre line through the survey. Bentleigh's shopping centre runs along Centre Road, and Bentleigh East's centre is at Centre and East Boundary Roads.
The area was known as East Brighton before being named Bentleigh in 1908 after the Victorian Premier, Sir Thomas Bent. East Brighton was occupied by stock runs until the early 1850s, when the increasing metropolitan population resulted in market gardens being established. The sandy soil was easily worked and there were springs in several places, part of the chain of water courses extending through the area to Cheltenham.

BERWICK
Berwick, once a small agricultural town, now an outer suburb, is located 43 kilometres south-east of Melbourne. The area was part of Cardinia Creek run and was named by an early leaseholder, Robert Gardiner, after his birthplace, Berwick-on-Tweed. Land was subdivided in 1854 and soon a store, post office, hotel and other businesses were established. Wheat, barley and potatoes were grown on the fertile soil, with a flour mill operating for a while. Later dairy farming and cheese making became the main activities. The Berwick Agricultural Society started in 1848 as the Mornington Farmers' Society and is one of the oldest farmers' society in Victoria. The construction of a coach road from Melbourne to Gippsland, and then the railway from Melbourne in 1877, spurred continued development. Wilson's quarry, opened in 1859, supplied ballast for the railway line. A spur line connected with Berwick railway station to transport the metal. The quarry was an important industry, working fairly continuously over the years. The original quarry was given to the City of Berwick and has been developed as a botanic park.

BITTERN
Bittern is a small country town on the Mornington Peninsula. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Mornington Peninsula. It is served by Bittern railway station on the Stony Point greater-metropolitan line. Bittern Post Office opened on 5 January 1891.

BLACK ROCK
Black Rock is 18 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Bayside. At the 2006 Census, Black Rock had a population of 5796. The suburb was named after Black Rock House, a grand residence built by Charles Hotson Ebden in 1856, who had taken the name from Black Rock, Dublin. Ebden was an early Port Phillip pastoralist as well as being a businessman and parliamentarian representing the seat of Brighton in the Victorian Parliament. Black Rock House is on the Register of the National Estate. The northern part of the suburb between Beach Road and Bluff Road was one of the early estates in the parish of Moorabbin developed by Josiah Holloway in the 1850s. Named Bluff Town, sales were slower than in other areas and the suburb grew slowly.


Cootamundra Walk, Blackburn Creek

BLACKBURN
Blackburn is a residential suburb 17 km. east of Melbourne, between Box Hill and Nunawading. About 400 metres south of the township is the Blackburn Creek, thought to have been named after an early settler or after James Blackburn, the designer of Melbourne's Yan Yean water supply. The first settlement was along the creek and was called Blackburn Creek.
A hotel was built on the site of the present Blackburn Hotel in Whitehorse Road in 1861, serving travellers to Healesville and the Gippsland goldfields around Woods Point. Another was opened near the creek in 1865. A post office was opened in 1876 and the Box Hill to Lilydale railway in 1882. The 1880s saw a spate of development, partly induced by the railway and strongly promoted by subdividers. The most active was the Freehold Investment and Banking Company which acquired thirty small farms and laid out a model township distinguishable by the triangular street design south of the railway station. The company is credited with building the public hall (1888), and damming the creek to form the Blackburn Lake (1889).

BLACKBURN NORTH
Blackburn North is a residential area 17 km, east of Melbourne extending from Blackburn to the Koonung Creek. The rural background to Blackburn North was much like that of Blackburn's. Its residential development came as urbanisation spread from Blackburn. In 1954 the primary school was opened, on the southern border of the area. The Blackburn technical school (now a secondary college), is in Blackburn North, and was opened in 1959. Another primary school on the eastern boundary, Springview, was opened in 1964.

BLACKBURN SOUTH
Blackburn South, a residential suburb 17 km, east of Melbourne. Its residential development preceded that of Blackburn North although both are equidistant from Blackburn and its railway line. The reason appears to be that Blackburn South has two eastwards arterial roads, Canterbury Road and Burwood Highway, whereas Blackburn North had only the sub-arterial Springfield Road.

BLAIRGOWRIE
Blairgowrie is in the Shire of Mornington Peninsula. Blairgowrie is located near the western tip of the Mornington Peninsula, between Sorrento and Rye, and is one of many popular holiday destinations for Melburnians along this narrow peninsula strip. Blairgowrie was named after the Burgh of Blairgowrie, 2nd largest town in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. A Post Office was not opened until 1 November 1947.

BONBEACH
Bonbeach is 31 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Kingston. At the 2006 Census, Bonbeach had a population of 4992. Bonbeach Post Office opened on 19 November 1922 (closing in 1923, then reopening in 1926 on the opening of the railway station) and finally closing in 1985. The name is somewhat descriptive, having been coined by developers when the area was first subdivided for residential use.

BONEO
Boneo is located south of and inland from Rosebud on the Mornington Peninsula. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Mornington Peninsula. It is dominated by the Boneo Flats, where market gardens and pastures are located. It contains a recreation reserve, community hall and primary school. The name is of Aboriginal origin.

BOOROONDARA
The Parish of Boroondara, covering the aces comprising Kew, Hawthorn, Box Hill and Camberwell, was named by the Government surveyor, Robert Hoddle. In 1856 the Boroondara Road Board was created, a precursor Of local government, with responsibilities for the areas administered by the later Camberwell, Hawthorn and Kew municipalities It is thought that Boroondara is an Aboriginal Word meaning shady place. Hawthorn and Kew were created separate municipalities in 1860 and the remaining area of the Road Board became Boroondara shire on 17 November, 1871. The name was changed to Camberwell and Boroondara on 16 May, 1902, and Boroondara dropped from the title on 15 May, 1906. Boroondara continued to be the name of the cemetery in Kew, a park on the former Outer Circle railway and a primary school in Balwyn was given that name in 1957. On 22 June, 1994, the State Government amalgamated Camberwell Hawthorn and Kew cities to form Boroondara city.

BORONIA
Boronia is a residential suburb 29 km. east of Melbourne near Ferntree Gully. Land selections began in the Boronia area in the 1870s, and the Ringwood to Upper Ferntree Gully railway was built in 1889, passing through Boronia, but not providing it with a station. The nearest station was Bayswater, now the immediate city-side neighbour. In 1920 a railway station was opened at Boronia, at which time the place name was five years old. The name arose when the Fern Tree Gully shire council asked the local councillor, Albert Chandler, to propose a name for the locality where he had established a large horticultural nursery in 1895. At the time Chandler grew Boronia plants as one the main nursery products, and the Council agreed with the name he suggested.
Boronia railway station was neatly situated within twenty miles of Melbourne, attracting concessional trainfares for workmen. The Boronia landscape in turn attracted housing subdividers, Chandler offering his Boronia Station Estate four months after the station was opened. Others followed, one even offering a free block for the purchase of one over 50 pounds. Five years before, when Boronia was named, a progress association had been formed, and its early task was lobbying for the railway station. It built a public hall on land donated by Chandler and gained the opening of a primary school in 1923. Boronia's first general store opened in the same year. Between 1921 and 1923 three churches were opened, the first being the Church of Christ where Chandler's son Gilbert, was Sunday School superintendent. During the 1930s Boronia's population increased despite the depression. There was an ample supply of land for housing, and city families could move out and live relatively cheaply. Land remained plentiful for the postwar expansion of metropolitan Melbourne.


Box Hill

BOX HILL
Box Hill, a residential area 14 km. east of Melbourne, is between Camberwell and Blackburn. Box Hill is one of those suburbs that started as a country town and was then swallowed up by the Melbourne metropolis. It's 'centre' on Whitehorse Road still has that country-town feel to it, with a wide tree-filled median strip with the obligatory civic monuments and war memorials.
About one-third of the western part of Box Hill was in Henry Elgar's Special Survey of 8 square miles (1841). In 1875 it was part of the Nunawading shire, which stretched from Camberwell to Ringwood. After 1850, settlers came to Box Hill as Crown lands were subdivided and sold. There was a three-chain wide road planned as the route to Gippsland from Melbourne. The road ultimately went as far as Healesville via Lilydale, but traffic along it encouraged the building of a hotel at Box Hill in 1853. Its owner named it the White Horse hotel, and the name was bestowed on the three-chain road. The hotel was on the corner of Whitehorse and Elgar Roads, the latter running along the eastern side of Elgar's Special Survey. Ballyshannassy, 4 km. south of Box Hill was the only official surveyed town in the area, but it was small. In 1861 a post office was opened at Box Hill, the first official use of the name. The postmaster proposed the name, derived from Box Hill in Surrey, England, near his birthplace.
Agriculture around Box Hill was in an early stage of development as fire-wood cutting gave way to orchards, vineyards and mixed farming which gave meagre returns. The extension of the railway form Camberwell to Lilydale in 1882 included a station at Box Hill but there were also stations at Canterbury and Surrey Hill, to the west. They attracted subdivisions and development ahead of Box Hill. Growth came, though, with a school opening in Box Hill in 1887 and the Nunawading shire deciding to meet in the Box Hill court house.

BRAESIDE
Braeside is a predominantly industrial suburb with a metropolitan park, 26 km. south-east of Melbourne and immediately east of Mordialloc. The name came from a farm property, Braeside, owned by members of the Keys family (see Keysborough), east of the present Epsom Training track, Mordialloc. Braeside is on the former Carrum Swamp, which was gradually drained and brought into year-round farm land from 1868. The Braeside farm was sold by the Keys family to Dr. Arthur Syme, the son of David Syme, owner of The Age newspaper. Syme developed it as a horse-breeding property. Adjoining Braeside there were small closer-settlement blocks (1908-9), which together with other local population resulted in a primary school being opened in 1915. The area was used for dairying and market gardens.

BRANDON PARK
A locality around the border of Glen Waverley and Mulgrave used to describe the area around Brandon Park Reserve. Brandon Park was the name of a residential subdivision centred around Brandon Park Reserve. It is believed the park and subdivision were nsmed after one of the developers.

BRAYBROOK
Braybrook is a suburb 11km west of Melbourne, its Local Government Area is the City of Maribyrnong. At the 2006 Census, Braybrook had a population of 6940. Braybrook Post Office opened on 1 December 1860. It has been an industrial suburb for most of its existence. It derives its name from the property of an early European settler.

BRIAR HILL
Briar Hill, 18 km. north-east of Melbourne, is a residential and light industrial area bout a kilometre east of Greensborough. Its name possibly derives from the type of tangled vegetation which covered the hill which ascends to its north. Its growth was tied to Greensborough's, which was a township set in rural surrounds until the 1970s. A Briar Hill Progress Association agitated for a primary school in 1924, and it was opened in 1927.


Brighton Beach

BRIGHTON
Brighton is a residential bayside suburb 11 km. south-east of Melbourne. In 1840 the British Government's Land and Emigration Commission approved procedures for the sale of "Special Survey" land allotments of eight square miles (5,120 acres at one pound each - 2,072 ha.), chiefly as a revenue-raising arrangement. There were three such sales in the area of future metropolitan Melbourne before special surveys were stopped, they being Dendy's at Brighton (March, 1841), Unwin's at Bulleen and Templestowe and Elgar's at Box Hill. All were five miles from the centre of Melbourne, as required by regulations made by the New South Wales Executive Council. Henry Dendy (1809-81) employed Jonathan Binns Were (1809-85), later a prominent stockbroker, as his agent. His special-survey land was bounded by the coastline, North Road, East Boundary Road and South Road. A town was surveyed in the Spring of 1841, defined by the crescent-shaped street layout which remains today, and subdivided allotments offered for sale. Purchasers were few, a financial depression came and Dendy's scheme for emigration and land sales failed. He died a pauper and the Were family acquired the land for highly profitable resale after the depression.
Dendy's town site was initially marketed as Waterville, perhaps because an early settler at Port Melbourne called his area Brighton, probably after the coastal watering place in Sussex, England. However, Dendy soon renamed his land the Brighton Estate, and Dendy's site for his own home was named "Brighton park". Dendy's choice of land was done carefully, avoiding the swamp at Elsternwick and consisting mainly of good undulating land. After the depression sales of land resulted in Brighton becoming the third most populated town in Port Phillip (after Melbourne and Portland), by 1846. The farming land was sought to supply agricultural produce for Melbourne, so as to lessen imports from Tasmania. Brighton attracted wealthy residents who wanted generous building sites and the prospect of sea bathing.


Broadmeadows

BROADMEADOWS
Broadmeadows is a residential and industrial suburb 16 km. north of Melbourne and until 1994 it was a municipality. The lightly wooded landscape between the Merri and Moonee Ponds Creeks attracted pastoralists in the 1840s. In 1850 a Government survey laid out a township in an area along the Moonee Ponds Creek valley, now known as Westmeadows, but then named Broadmeadow. An Anglican church was built in 1850, and the church, police station and Broadmeadows hotel (now Westmeadows Tavern), in Ardlie Street were the first village centre. East of the old village is today's Broadmeadows, for which the early town centre was Campbellfield. In 1857 the Broadmeadows District Road Board was formed.
A primary school was established by the Anglican church in 1851, becoming a State school in 1870 (now Westmeadows). In 1872 the railway line was extended form Essendon to Seymour, creating a station about 2 km. east of the village. At the height of the landboom in 1889 another line was opened from Coburg, joining the Seymour line at Somerton. A station was provided at Campbellfield. These lines tended to draw subdivision and speculation eastwards, away from the Broadmeadows village. Hence the naming of the local municipal council as Broadmeadows shire on 27 January, 1871, did not reflect where the district's future prosperity lay. The village was isolated westwards, separated from the railway areas by open grass lands. Broadmeadows consisted of farms, many of them dairying, and the few large holdings were subject to closer settlement subdivision during the early 1900s.

BROOKFIELD
Brookfield is 43 km west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Melton. At the 2006 Census, Brookfield had a population of 3168.

BROOKLYN
Brooklyn is 10 km west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Hobsons Bay and Brimbank. At the 2006 Census, Brooklyn had a population of 1583. Brooklyn is largely an industrial suburb, with a small pocket of low-density residential in the south. Brooklyn is notorious for industrial pollution and sewer issues due to the high clay content in the soil causing trouble with the foundation.


Brunswick

BRUNSWICK
Brunswick is an inner-urban suburb 6 km. north of Melbourne. It is bounded on the west and the east by the Moonee Ponds and Merri Creeks respectively. Brunswick was subdivided into farm allotments which were sold in 1839. Most purchasers were speculators who looked forward to further subdivision. The allotments ran east and west from the main thoroughfare, Sydney Road. One of them was resold to Thomas Wilkinson and a partner. They named the property Brunswick Park, in honour either of the late Princess Caroline of Brunswick (late wife of King George IV), or in honour of the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert of the royal house of Brunswick. The streets each side of Wilkinson's property are Victoria and Albert. Wilkinson became Brunswick's first mayor.
Within ten years of Brunswick's farming activities the gold rushes caused a demand for building material. Bluestone was found mainly throughout the eastern half of Brunswick and clay west of Sydney Road. An early site of brick and pottery products was at the village of Phillipstown, just east of Grantham Street (1852). A school was opened there in 1853. Sydney Road was the main route to several gold fields, and attracted commercial and civic development. In 1840 Wilkinson donated land in Sydney Road for Brunswick's first (Wesleyan) church, which provided the first school in 1849. The Presbyterians opened a primary school in 1855 and the Catholics in 1860. In 1875 the Presbyterians and the Wesleyans combined to open a larger school, which became the Albert Street or Central Brunswick School.

BRUNSWICK EAST
Brunswick East is an inner-urban suburb 6 km north of Melbourne. It lies between Lygon Street and the Merri Creek, and adjoins Carlton North and Fitzroy North at its southern border. Brunswick East is within 900 metres of Sydney Road which formed the spine of Brunswick when it was first settled. An early industry in Brunswick East was bluestone quarrying, and there were numerous farms. In 1882 land subdivision centered on Evans Street was released for residential purposes. The swampiness of some of the land was modified by drainage works, and a primary school near Lygon Street (named Brunswick South), was opened in 1886. Another subdivisional sale at the northern end of Lygon Street occurred in 1887, and another school opened in 1888, and the East Brunswick Omnibus Company began its horse bus service along Lygon Street the next year.
Lygon Street became a successful shopping strip, wider than Sydney road, and retaining its period character one-hundred years later. An old stone quarry was filled in and became Fleming Park, the home of the East Brunswick cricket and football clubs (1919). In 1916 the tram along Lygon Street was electrified, putting the site of Brunswick's first textile factory, Prestige Hosiery (1922), within easier reach of its workforce. A returned servicemen's housing area was begun in 1923, identifiable by the Maori Street names, probably in acknowledgment of the Anzac War tradition.

BRUNSWICK WEST
Brunswick West is a residential suburb 6 km. north of Melbourne. It lies between the Moonee Ponds Creek and central Brunswick with the Royal Park lands at its southern border. It was the last area to be settled residentially in the former Brunswick municipality, being somewhat remote from north-south public transport services. Settlement in fact predated the opening of the Melville Road tram line in 1925-7. The area's first primary school, west of Hoffman's brickyard, opened in 1888. An early, although unsuccessful, residential subdivision was in the north-west, at the Hopetoun Estate in 1892. Ten years later the area came under a State Government Closer Settlement Scheme, attracting about 200 residents. It was named Moonee Vale. The south-west was more attractive, being closer to Melbourne and less flood prone. Subdivision lots were larger then in Brunswick central and Brunswick East, and the predominant house design was the Californian bungalow. The last area to be subdivided into its present allotments was the Closer Settlement area at Moonee Vale, during the 1940s and early 1950s.

BULLA
Bulla is a township with rural surrounds, immediately north-west of the Melbourne Airport, Tullamarine, and 25 km. north-west of Melbourne. The township is on Deep Creek, a tributary of the Maribyrnong River, and the creek has carved a sinuous course through a valleyed landscape. An early settler in the Bulla township area was William "Tulip" Wright, former Chief Constable of the Melbourne township. He built the "Settlers Home", later the "Bridge Inn" near Deep Creek in 1843. In the same year the "Woodlands" homestead was built by William Greene, to the east at Oaklands Junction. It is on the Victorian Heritage Register, along with stables and outbuildings, situated in the Gellibrand Hill Park. The Bulla village was surveyed in 1851. The name is derived from an Aboriginal word of uncertain meaning. A church and a government school were opened in 1854.

BULLEEN
Bulleen adjoins the eastern side of the Yarra River, opposite Heidelberg, 13 km. north - east of Melbourne. The land adjoining the river which curves around as a northern boundary of Bulleen, is open space comprising public and private recreational facilities. The remainder of Bulleen is residential, where it merges with Templestowe Lower and Doncaster. It is flanked by the Koonung Koonung Creek on the south, on the other side of which is Balwyn North. The name Bulleen is derived from a Yarra billabong, characterised as Lake Bolin Bolin, thought to be Aboriginal for a place of loneliness. That does not square with the billabong flood plains being an important food source for the Aboriginal population. The name was given by Frederic Unwin to his Special Survey of eight square miles in 1841. The land was suitable for dairying and cereals, and formed several prosperous holdings with spacious homesteads. Being bordered on all but its eastern side by watercourses, with only two bridges (from Heidelberg and Balwyn North), Bulleen was cut off from central Melbourne. There was no public transport which came near it. Bulleen retained its rural landscape until well into the present century, and the few land subdivisions sold poorly. Bulleen was a source of fresh vegetables for the armed forces during the second world war, but dairying predominated from 1900s to the 1930s. Residential subdivisions began to be taken up in the 1950s, and a primary school was opened in 1957.


Bundoora

BUNDOORA
Bundoora is an extensive suburb comprising residential, community-service and educational areas 15 km. north-east of Melbourne. It is bordered on the west by the Darebin Creek and on the east by the Plenty River, Greensborough and Macleod (going from north to south). Bundoora contains part of Kingsbury (on its western side) and Mont Park on the other side. The name cones from Keelbundoora the parish enclosing Bundoora and adjoining areas. Bundoora is thought to be Aboriginal for a plain where kangaroos live, where one may camp or top of a plain. Land subdivided into about 400 ha., lots was auctioned in 1838, and a census three years later showed that most areas were being farmed. The first centre of settlement in Bundoora was Janefield, on Plenty Road, thought to be named after the burial place of Jane Brock who died in 1851. She was the wife of James Brock who was the son of John Brock who bought a flour mill on the Plenty River at Janefield. The mill was important because much of the lightly forested land was suitable for wheat. A Church of Scotland was built on Brock's land and a school incorporated with it in 1848. There were also an inn and a post office (1853). Janefield township was virtually abandoned after closure of the mill (1862) and school (1877), and agricultural pursuits continued until 1912 when the Victorian Government acquired the land, which it rented to the Red Cross Society in 1920 as a sanitarium for tuberculosis patients. Thus began the complex of buildings and grounds which became the Janefield Colony for children.

BUNYIP / BUNYIP NORTH
Bunyip is located on the Gippsland railway line, 77 kilometres east of Melbourne. The name Bunyip, or Buneep, originates from a creature of Aboriginal myths supposed to inhabit the swampland. The name was used for the area as early as 1847 when a route was surveyed from Dandenong into Gippsland. The Buneep Buneep run, taken up in 1851, was bordered by the Bunyip and Tarago Rivers. A township, known as Buneep, was surveyed beside the Bunyip River. An improved route to Buneep was surveyed in1859. However, by the 1860s another track, Old Sale Road, was opened further south. New Bunyip was situated where the princes Highway now crosses the Bunyip River. The New Bunyip Hotel was built here in 1867.

BURNLEY
Burnley is a residential suburb in the southern and eastern parts of Richmond, 4 km. east-south-east of Melbourne. Half of the Burnley area is public space and ground occupied by the Burnley campus of the Victorian College of Agriculture and Horticulture. The area was named after William Burnley, pioneer land purchaser in Richmond, local councillor and parliamentarian.
In 1838 the area approximating Burnley's present open space lying in a loop of the Yarra River was reserved as the Survey Paddock. It is bisected by Swan Street (1880s), trisected by railway lines diverging at Burnley (to Hawthorn, 1861 and to Glen Iris, 1890), and skirted on its eastern edge by the Yarra Boulevard (1930s) and on its southern edge by the South Eastern Freeway (1962). The Horticultural Society of Victoria was granted 12 ha. in the Survey Paddock in 1862 for experimental gardens, mainly for acclimatization of exotic fruits, vegetables and flowers. The site was taken over by the State Department of Agriculture in 1891. The balance of the Survey Paddock became Richmond Park, containing the Picnic railway station, east of the present Burnley station, as the entry to a landscaped pleasure ground.

BURNSIDE
Burnside is 22 km west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Melton. At the 2006 Census, Burnside had a population of 5792. Burnside is located beside the upper end of the Kororoit Creek which is famous for still having healthy populations of native reptiles, including Tiger snake, Eastern Blue-tongued Lizard, Common snakeneck turtle and Eastern brown snake.

BURWOOD
Burwood and Burwood East extend eastwards from Melbourne, beginning at a distance of about 11 km. from Melbourne's centre and ending 17 km. from the centre, roughly from Warrigal Road to Springvale Road. Burwood's origins were in the village of Ballyshanassy, which was about one kilometre east of Warrigal Road and which was surveyed in 1858. Ballyshanassy's location is identifiable by the Burwood Cemetery, police station and state school (1865-1992, Victorian Heritage Register), along with an unusual road layout off the south side of Burwood Highway. The commercial hub, however, grew around the intersection of Warrigal Road and Burwood Highway, which survives as a strip shopping centre. "Burwood" spread one kilometre westwards from Warrigal Road when the Hartwell Railway Station was renamed Burwood in 1909.
Ballyshanassy surrendered its name to Norwood, which in turn surrendered its name to Burwood in 1879. Burwood was the name of a house now known as Invergowie, built by Sir James Palmer in 1852 in Hawthorn West. The track to present-day Burwood was Burwood Road (Hawthorn), Camberwell Road , and Toorak Road which becomes the Burwood Highway. The name travelled eastwards along the track.