Melbourne Australia

UPFIELD
Upfield is a residential and industrial locality 17 km. north of Melbourne, situated in Campbellfield. The name is descriptive of the area's open country. In 1956 the Ford motor car factory was begun on land between the Hume Highway and the railway line from Coburg to Somerton. The State Government announced its intention to construct a railway station (Upfield), and the line was electrified in 1959. South of the Ford factory housing was built and a high school opened in 1968.

UPWEY
Upwey is a residential suburb in hilly surrounds 34 km. east-south-east of Melbourne and 2 km. west of Belgrave. Until the turn of the century Upwey did not have a separate identity. In the middle 1890s the part of the locality was divided into ten-acre blocks as part of the "Scoresby" village settlement scheme, which extended northwards to Ferny Creek. Notwithstanding the "Scoresby appelation, Upwey was known as Mast Gully, after several ship masts had been cut from the gully in 1850. (Mast Gully Creek and Mast Gully Road remain.

In 1897 three sisters, Misses Tullidge, bought a homestead and named it Upwey, after the English village on the River Wey. They persuaded the Victorian Railways to approve a stopping place near their house, and the name Upwey was given to it. The name was adopted by common usage, the Upwey Church of England being built in 1904 (now in the nieghbouring locality of Tecoma).

VERMONT / VERMONT SOUTH
Vermont is a residential suburb 21 km. east of Melbourne, south of Mitcham and the Maroondah Highway and railway line Ringwood. The name seems to have been bestowed either by derivation from Limerick County in Ireland or by the Government Botanist von Mueller who named the surrounding green hills Vermont. The Vermont countryside was well timbered, providing employment for wood cutters in the 1850s. During the late 1850s land allotments of about 50 to 200 ha. were offered to settlers. The first primary school in the district opened in Mt. Pleasant, near the present Uniting Church in Canterbury Road at the border between Forest Hill and Vermont. Seven years later a permanent school site was functioning in Vermont proper, and the single room structure remained in use 100 years later. Vermont was also known as L.L. Vale, after the model farm owned by Dr L.L. Smith, medico and parliamentarian. The name persisted for a while, despite the school site being named Vermont in 1870: the post office was L.L. Vale from its opening in 1881 until 1885. By 1913 Vermont was described as a prosperous fruit-growing district. The area's relative remoteness from land-subdivision activity kept it a mainly rural area with local organisations such as the football club, scouts and a horticultural society (1937).

VIEWBANK
Viewbank is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 14 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Banyule. At the 2006 Census, Viewbank had a population of 6614. The Yarra River and large tracts of Yarra Valley parkland run along one border of the suburb. The Plenty River forms Viewbank's eastern boundary, whilst its northern boundary is defined by Lower Plenty Road (a main road linking Heidelberg and Eltham). Viewbank was named after a farming property (since demolished) built at the junction of the Yarra and Plenty River during the 1840s, and was thus named in response to its outlook. Remnants of Viewbank's farming past can be seen from the historic silos still standing on Banyule Road. The area was primarily developed around the 1960s.


Restaurants, Knox City, Wantirna

WANTIRNA
Wantirna is a residential locality 23 km. east of Melbourne, a few kilometres west of Bayswater. It is neither on a railway line nor on a radiating main road from Melbourne, and consequently underwent residential development later than some of its neighbouring areas. The area attracted settlement as one of the district's earliest cattle runs, Bushy Park, in 1841, which was situated on a track from Melbourne to the Dandenong Ranges. The area underwent closer settlement and orchards were established. In 1889 the railway line from Ringwood to Upper Ferntree Gully was opened, and one of the original stations was Bayswater. The Wantirna area became known as Bayswater West. In 1913 the Bayswater West Progressive Association wanted an original name, and chose Wantirna, an Aboriginal word thought to mean "gurgling stream". A newly opened postal receiving office was named Wantirna. Wantirna South was recognised as a locality in 1928 when a mail service was begun. A post office was opened in 1933 and a primary school in 1940.

WARRANWOOD
Warranwood is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 27 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Maroondah. At the 2006 Census, Warranwood had a population of 4593. Warranwood is situated on the border of Warrandyte South and Ringwood, hence its name is a conjunction of the two words. It has been said that "Ringdyte" just didn't sound right.

WARRANDYTE
Warrandyte is a residential and rural locality 24 km. east-north-east of Melbourne. The original township is on the south side of the river, and is adjoined by Warrandyte South. Warrandyte North is on the other side of the river, extending northwards to Kangaroo Ground. About two kilometres south of the township is Andersons Creek, the site of the first gold discovery in Victoria, for which a government reward was paid, in 1851. The approximate spot is marked with a memorial cairn. The Andersons Creek diggings received a slight setback when richer finds were to be had a Bendigo and elsewhere, but mining picked up by 1856. A township formed and a post office was opened in 1857. It was served by a coach service from Melbourne via Doncaster. By then the locality was named Warrandyte, thought to be a combination of Aboriginal words "warran" (throw) and "dyte" (the object aimed at), although this has been put in doubt.

The 1870s and 1880s were filled with hopes for large gold mining ventures, but small-scale mining was the usual outcome. A mechanics' institute and library were opened in 1882. South Warrandyte had undulating land with better soil, and settlers established orchards (mainly apples, pears, lemons and strawberries), in common with the farming communities of Doncaster and Ringwood. Warrandyte's traditional road communication with Doncaster was lessened, though, when the railway line from Melbourne to Lilydale, via Ringwood, was opened in 1889. In 1905 there was a revival of gold mining, which coincided with increasing numbers of tourists and visitors coming to Warrandyte.

WATERWAYS
Waterways, located in Melbourne's southern suburbs, was originally a housing development, and is now an official suburb just east of Mordialloc. Construction had started on Waterways Estate in May 2000. Waterways, used as the name for the original subdivision, got its name from the waterways due to the number of manmade wetlands and giant lakes in the middle of the estate.


Open Day, Watsonia Army Base

WATSONIA
Watsonia, a residential suburb south-west of Greensborough, is 15 km. north-east of Melbourne. Like Heidelberg and Greensborough, Watsonia was surveyed in 1838 for subdivisional sale as farms. The area remained rural well beyond the extension of the railway through the area (1902), as a station was not built until 1924. In that year local land owners, of whom one was Frank Watson, marketed the Grace Park Station Estate, Grace Park being the property from which Watson's land was subdivided. The station was paid for by the promoters and the Heidelberg council named the station Watsonia.

The area became best known for the Watsonia Military Camp during the second world war. The camp was handed over to the State Housing Commission for emergency housing and in 1947 a temporary primary school was opened. In 1952 the Department of the Army resumed the camp for National Service Training. The area is now known as the Simpson Army Barracks, Yallambie, and is divided from Watsonia by a postcode boundary and previously by the boundary between Heidelberg city and Diamond Valley Shire (1963-94). During the 1980s the barracks came under protest as a site for the American military space satellite network.

WATSONS CREEK
Watsons Creek is a bounded locality, its Local Government Area is the Shire of Nillumbik. It lies to the north and west of the Eltham-Yarra Glen Road. Its name recalls an early European settler whose name was given to a creek which ran through his property.

WATTLE GLEN
Wattle Glen, a mostly rural locality on the Diamond Creek, is 25 km. north-east of Melbourne, between Diamond Creek and Hurstbridge. Its name arose from the wattle trees which are still profuse in the area. It is on the railway line which was extended from Eltham to Hurstbridge in 1912 and electrified in 1926. A primary school was opened in 1922. Until the 1980s Wattle Glen was rural. The local commercial and shopping centre was at Diamond Creek or Hurstbridge, and by the mid 1990s only a general store was available for closer shopping. Nevertheless, residential subdivision was filling the space between Wattle Glen and Diamond Creek, whilst the sparser housing northwards remained much the same. The name us descriptive and was first used for the residential subdivision.

WAVERLEY
Waverley city was a municipality south-east of Melbourne between Oakleigh and Scoresby. It came into being on 14 April, 1961, and ceased on 15 December, 1994, when it was amalgamated with most of Oakleigh city to form Monash City. It had an area of 61 sq. km. The name came from a privately surveyed township (1853) at the south-east corner of High Street Road and Stephensons Road, named by its owner after Sir Walter Scott's Waverley novels. Although the township was not successfully settled the name was used when Glen Waverley and Mount Waverley were named. When Waverley city was created in 1961 postwar residential growth was occurring in rapidly in its western sector and along the railway line to Glen Waverley. The change from shire to city status signalled its change form rural to urban. Apart from the railway line the area relies on car-based transport. Shopping centres are drive-in, and the Mulgrave Freeway, linked to the South-Eastern Freeway, bisects the former municipality. Waverley's housing was predominantly of brick on generous allotments, a product of the prosperous postwar years which extended to the 1970s.

WERRIBEE
Werribee, about 27 km south-west of Melbourne, is midway on the Princes Highway to Geelong. It is situated on the Werribee River, which has its headwaters north of Ballan. Early pastoral leaseholds included members of John Batman's Port Phillip Association. Rural amalgamation began in the early 1850s, shortly after a village reserve was surveyed. The village was named Wyndham, apparently at the suggestion of the owner of the new village inn, Elliott Armstrong, who knew Sir Henry Wyndham, a soldier who had distinguished himself at Waterloo. The name Werribee had already been given to the river, however, and overtook Wyndham as the town name (1884) and the shire name (1909). Werribee is though to be derived from an Aboriginal word for spine or backbone, which describes the strong visual curve of the river over the nearly treeless plain.

WEST MELBOURNE
West Melbourne, an industrial, commercial and residential suburb, adjoins the north-west corner of Melbourne's central business area. The Flagstaff Gardens and the Queen Victoria Market are included in West Melbourne's postcode area. West Melbourne is generally associated with North Melbourne, as both were surveyed and proposed for sale at the same time. The dividing line between them, however, is Victoria Street and its westerly prolongation to the Moonee Ponds Creek.

In 1842 the first institution of significance erected in the West Melbourne area was a cattle yard at the corner of Elizabeth and Victoria streets (now the Queen Victoria Market). In 1851 a Benevolent Asylum was built between Abbotsford and Curzon Streets, straddling Victoria Street and thus partly in West Melbourne. The opening of the asylum coincided with the Melbourne Town Council's overtures for a new township to accommodate the gold-rush population influx. A site for the township was found by severance from an open-space reserve of 1,035 ha. that had been approved by the Governor of New South Wales in 1845. The result was a smaller reserve - now Royal Park - and a township called Parkside which now comprises North and West Melbourne. Town allotments were put up for sale in September, 1852. The western extremity of West Melbourne's subdivided area was Adderely Street. Beyond there the land was low-lying, with a lagoon about one kilometre across, into which flowed the Moonee Ponds watercourse and a stream from Parkville which runs through Ievers Reserve in that suburb. The lagoon dried out in Summer, but during wet spells the vista was park-like.

WESTERN GARDENS
Western Gardens is a residential suburb between Laverton and Hoppers Crossing, 21 km. west-south-west of Melbourne. Its northern boundary is the Princes Freeway and its southern boundary is the Point Cook area. The residential settlement of Western Gardens began during the mid 1980s, as an adjunct to Laverton. It grew westwards and was given its name about ten years later. Substantial subdivisions remained unfilled (1997). The Seabrook primary school was opened in 1997, and a site reserved for post-primary education. In addition to small neighbourhood reserves, there is a linear park along Skeleton Creek.

WESTALL
Westall is a railway station located in the suburb of Clayton South, on the Pakenham and Cranbourne railway lines. Westall station was opened as a workers only platform on October 16, 1954. It was provided for the adjacent Martin and King railway coachbuilding factory. The station was opened to the public on June 1, 1959 when all trains on the line were altered to stop there. In 1997 the Westall train maintenance centre was opened in the former goods yard, as part of the decentralisation of train stabling and maintenance from the former Jolimont Yards.


The Palace, Westgarth

WESTGARTH
Westgarth is a residential suburb where the tram and train services cross the Merri Creek, south of Northcote, 5 km. north-east of Melbourne. Land sales occurred in Northcote in 1840, but the land between Westgarth Street and the Merri Creek was withheld, probably as a reserve for a township in view of its proximity to water. In 1853 a township was gazetted, to be called Northcote. The cross streets, Cunningham, Urquhart and Walker, were named after three of the purchasers in the 1840 land sale. The northern-most Westgarth Street was named after William Westgarth (1815-89), merchant, politician and historian of colonial Victoria. Between 1845 and 1854 he owned land on the other side of Merri Creek. Northcote by the Merri Creek, however, did not attract settlementas quickly as the more elevated Ruckers Hill up High Street, which was the place to which the Northcote name migrated. Northcote-by-the-Merri became Northcote South.

The village, however, attracted some settlement, notably All Saints Anglican church (1860) and the Bridge Hotel (1864). The present church was built in 1870. To the west of the village the Jika Jika reserve was set aside, later to be Northcote Park and home for the Northcote Football Club. A railway line was opened in 1884 from Clifton Hill to Alphington, via Northcote South. Four years later it was linked to Melbourne, although by a circuitous westerly loop that terminated at Spencer Street. Two years later the High Street tramline opened, only to close twice before reopening permanently in 1901. During the period 1906-10 the railway station was named Westgarth, and the area took on that name. Being only a short way beyond Clifton Hill, and having rail and tram services, Westgarth was eminently suitable for residential settlement by the turn of the century. Its housing is mostly Victorian and Edwardian, with a smattering of California bungalows.

WESTMEADOWS
Westmeadows contains the original Broadmeadows village on the Moonee Ponds Creek, but is now west of the present Broadmeadows. It is north of Tullamarine/Gladstone Park, and is 17 km. north of Melbourne. The first Broadmeadows township was laid out by a Government survey in 1850. Audlie Street was its commercial centre with a hotel, the police station and the shire office (1866). The Anglican church was opened in 1850 a little to the east, and a school begun the following year. The present primary school site dates from 1870. The shire offices and a bluestone bridge over the Moonee Ponds creek are on the Register of the National Estate.

Broadmeadows township and the urban centre began to be moved two kilometres eastwards when the railway line and station were opened in 1872. Shire loyalties clung to the old township until new civic offices were built near the railway station in 1928. The Housing Commission began the building of a 2,226 ha. estate in the Broadmeadows area in 1949. Not until 1975 did it begin building in the vicinity of the old township, which it called Westmeadows Heights. Between 1975 and 1979 it built over 900 houses in the area. To the north of Westmeadows is the east-west flight path for the Melbourne International Airport, Tullamarine. The land under the flight path has been kept undeveloped and is the Broadmeadows Valley Park. It contains two streams which flow into the Moonee Ponds Creek.

WHEELERS HILL
Wheelers Hill, between Glen Waverley and Scoresby, is a residential area 22 km. south-east of Melbourne. Its origin was a farm taken by a John Wheeler near Ferntree Gully Road, extending eastwards to the Dandenong Creek (the present boundary of Scoresby). The prolonged rise along which the road runs gave the area its name. A hotel was erected at Wheelers Hill, as Ferntree Gully Road was a relatively busy access road to the Dandenong Ranges. It was also the site of the Mulgrave post office. To avoid confusion with the township of Mulgrave to the south-east, the post office was renamed Wheelers Hill in 1888.

In common with the surrounding district Wheelers Hill was a farming community. An Anglican church was opened in 1869 and a Presbyterian church in 1891. The hill was an attraction for early motoring rallies and hill climbs - motor cars in 1905 and motor cycles in 1911. The population of the Wheelers Hill area was rural until well into the 1950s, as there was ample land available for postwar housing westwards, particularly along the railway line to Glen Waverley. Although Wheelers Hill was in a municipality that was predominantly urban in character, it was described in 1970 as being a mainly rural area with some lovely home sites and reached by an infrequent bus service form the Glen Waverley station. The following decade, however, saw Wheelers Hill's urbanisation.

WHITTLESEA
Whittlesea is a township with surrounding rural area 36 km. north-north-east of Melbourne on the Plenty River. It was also a municipality extending southwards to Preston in metropolitan Melbourne. Whittlesea was probably named by a local surveyor who had lived in Whittlesey, England, when he surveyed the township's site in 1853. An alternative reason for the name is the presence of a swamp near the township, which may have reminded engineers/surveyors of swamp-draining works recently carried out in Whittlesey, England. Settlers penetrated the Plenty Valley to the Whittlesea township area by 1837. The town survey of 1853 was followed by the building of an Anglican church and school two years later. In 1865 Whittlesea was described as having mostly flat but deteriorated farmland caused by inattention to manuring, being suitable only for grazing in most places despite the confluence of three streams near the headwaters of the Plenty river. In 1863 the Whittlesea Road District Board was formed.


Time ball tower, Gellibrand Point

WILLIAMSTOWN
In September, 1836, Sydney's Governor Richard Bourke sent Captain William Lonsdale to the Port Phillip district, thereby acknowledging that settlement beyond the permitted boundaries had occurred. Lonsdale selected Gellibrand Point at the north-west of Port Phillip Bay as the place for the official settlement, but the better situated Melbourne overtook it in his later estimation. Nevertheless a town was surveyed and named William's Town (after King William IV), on 10 April, 1837. Land in Nelson Place, Williamstown, was sold two months later. William's Town's pre-gold rush role in Port Phillip was farming and maritime activities. It was Melbourne's port, with ship mooring and repair facilities.

The time ball tower at Gellibrand Point (1852) was for the synchronisation of ships' chronometers, and the Naval Dock Yards and Hobsons Bay dredges were installed in the 1850s. Williamstown's shoreline features remained much the same from 1900 to the present day: numerous piers and recreational sailing facilities facing the calmer waters of Hobsons Bay, the Williamstown Cricket Ground and football club on Gellibrand Point, facing Port Phillip Bay and the beach (served by Williamstown Beach railway Station) a little to the west. The web of railway lines serving four piers and the graving dock were dismantled in the 1960s.

WILLISON
Willison is a railway station on the Alamein line, located adjacent to Stodart Street, in the suburb of Camberwell near its border with Canterbury. While Willison was never part of the original Outer Circle line, it was built not long afterwards, on June 8, 1908, as part of the Deepdene Dasher service. This remnant of the Outer Circle went from Ashburton to Deepdene. When it first opened, the station was known as Golf Links, and existed to serve the Riversdale Golf Club, which was originally adjacent to the site. It has been said that influential members of the club did not appreciate having to walk to either Riversdale or Hartwell stations, and pressed for a closer alternative. This may explain why Willison was built so close to Riversdale station - only 400 metres away. The station was originally just a siding where members could embark after a game. The golf club moved from the site in 1927, and on July 23, 1936, the station was renamed Willison. By this time, the Deepdene Dasher service had ceased operations, and Willison was served only by the Ashburton line. Twelve years later, this was extended to Alamein - the service which still exists today.

WINDSOR
Windsor, a residential suburb south of Prahran, is 5 km. south-south-east of Melbourne. It is bounded by High Street, Punt Road, Wellington Street/Dandenong Road and (notionally) Williams Road on its east. Known at first as Prahran South, it was connected by railway to Melbourne and Brighton in 1860 and by a loop line to St. Kilda the year before. (The latter ceased service in 1862, and is traceable today by the linear reserve which runs into Gladstone street.) The locality was settled with small farms and a scatter of houses and business premises. There was a Windsor Castle hotel, from which the area's name may have originated, and the name of the railway station was changed form Chapel Street to Windsor in 1867.

WOLLERT
Wollert is 27 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Whittlesea. At the 2006 Census, Wollert had a population of 348. Wollert is an Aboriginal word meaning where possums abound , and the suburb takes its name from the land parish in which part of it is situated. From 1836 until the early 1850s, sheep raising was the main activity. In 1853, much of the land was subdivided into smaller farm lots, and necessary access roads laid out. During this period Wollert became a dairying community, with significant dairy production continuing for the Melbourne market until the 1960s.

WONGA PARK
Wonga Park is a rural town and urban locality 29 km. east-north-east of Melbourne, between the southern bank of the Yarra River and Croydon North. The name comes for the Wonga Park grazing property, where the 1867 Melbourne Cup winner had been trained. Generally, though, the area was part of Mooroolbark until the 1890s. In 1889 the Wonga Park property came into the hands of an insurance company and, along with other holdings, the land was sold by the Wonga Park Land Co. Four years later, when small settlements were a way of relieving unemployment after the failure of the land boom, about twenty members of an Eight Hours Pioneer Memorial Association took up small holdings on a former timber reserve. They succeeded in having a primary school opened in 1895, first called Warrandyte East, but Wonga Park in 1898. The area was a mixture of orchards and grazing properties and timbered land. Most smaller properties had been started with income from firewood that came from clearing the land.

WOODSTOCK
Woodstock is a rural locality 30 km. north of Melbourne on the road from Epping. The developing towns of Cragieburn and Whittlesea lie west and east respectively of the rural corridor occupied by Woodstock. The name was given to the area in 1841, being the name of a farm. it is Anglo-Saxon for a clearing in the wood. The area attracted settlers in the 1850s, many of them Catholic. A Catholic primary school was opened in 1854 and a hotel two years later. A post office was opened in 1858, the same year as the formation of the Woodstock District Road Board. During the 1860s and 1870s the District had a population of between 500 and 700, with the village as the administrative centre. However, the incorporation of the District in the Darebin shire in 1870 overshadowed Woodstock's early prominence.


Woori Yallock station

WOORI YALLOCK
Woori Yallock is a rural township 50 km. east of Melbourne on the road between Lilydale and Warburton. The township is two kilometres from the Woori Yallock Creek which rises from the south in the Yarra Ranges near Emerald and enters the Yarra River a few kilometres north of the township. The land north of the township comprises river flats with several billabongs whereas southwards it is hilly to undulating. In the early 1860s the Wooriallock pastoral station (12,950 ha.) was on the creek, and it is thought that the name is derived from Aboriginal words meaning "running creek" or "plenty water", a reference either to the creek of the Yarra River flats. Farmers took up selections in the 1870s and a primary school was opened in 1874. A hotel was opened near the Woori Yallock Creek, and a post office in 1886. The railway line to Warburton passed through the township when it began service in 1901, with stations at Killara (a property of David Syme's) and at the township. It ushered in a period of tourist excursions to the district. The railway line also provided an incentive for timber milling at Woori Yallock with saw logs brought by narrow-gauge trams from the south-easterly hill country.

WYNDHAM VALE
Wyndham Vale, a residential suburb immediately west of Werribee, is 30 km. west-south-west of Melbourne. Its name is derived form the Werribee district's original name, Wyndham shire. Wyndham Vale's residential development began in the early 1980s. It has the Iramoo primary school (Iramoo being the name given to the district by John Batman when it was first settled), and a neighbourhood shopping centre. Wyndham Vale shares a linear park with Werribee along a floodway reserve, and has another linear park along the Lollypop Creek, with lakes, sports facilities and a walking trail. Newly subdivided land and adjoining unsubdivided land (1997) indicate future expansion of the suburb.

YALLAMBIE
Yallambie consists of a large Army Barracks and residential areas 16 km. north-east of Melbourne. It is part of the Macleod post code area. The name is derived form an Aboriginal word "nglambi", meaning to rest or to remain. It was given to a farm of 245 ha., consolidated in 1842 by John and Robert Bakewell from an unsuccessful subdivision. They called the farm Yallambie Park, and the name was kept when it was sold to Thomas Wragge in 1872. Wragge was a successful pastoralist, an active local shire councillor and built a house at 8-14 Tarcoola Drive which still stands.


Yan Yean

YAN YEAN
Yan Yean, best known for its domestic-water reservoir, is on the Plenty River 30 km. north of Melbourne. The name is thought to be of Aboriginal origin, possibly meaning young man (Yan Yean is recorded as an initiation place), or deriving from the name of one of the signatories to the Batman "land treaty". The location of the reservoir was a swamp, and Yan Yean was known as Ryder's Swamp until the 1850s. Settlement of the Yan Yean district began in 1839, and most of the land was occupied by pastoralists by the mid 1840s. In 1850 the Melbourne City Council directed its surveyor, James Blackburn, to investigate an improved supply of water. He chose the Plenty River. Subsequently the colonial government took over Blackburn's proposal, and decided to use the natural basin, Ryder's Swamp, east of the river for a reservoir. It was fed by streams flowing off the impervious range south of Mt. Disappointment. Upwards of 1,000 people were at Yan Yean during the construction works, which were completed in 1857.

YARRAMAN
Yarraman is a railway station located in the suburb of Noble Park, on the Pakenham and Cranbourne railway lines. Yarraman station opened on December 21, 1976. Yarraman Park was the name of the local subdivision when the area was opened for residential development in the late 1950s. Australian entertainer John Farnham received some of his schooling at Yarraman Park primary school.

YARRAMBAT
Yarrambat is a rural district 24 km. north-north-east of Melbourne, east of Morang South and the Plenty river. To its east is Hurstbridge. The area was first settled in 1840 and farm selections occurred in the 1870s to bring about the nucleus of a township. In 1891 Frederick Tanck acquired land near the present small township, and the locality was called Tanck's Corner. When the primary school opened in 1878 it had that name, which it kept until 1929. The headteacher's wife persuaded the local inhabitants to replace the name with Yarrambat, thought to be Aboriginal for high hills or pleasant view. Yarrambat was a place of small farms and orchards, in keeping with much of the farmland in the Diamond Valley area. The land clearing yielded income from firewood. At various intervals there have been minor gold explorations and some successful mining of broken reefs. Some farmers supplemented their income from alluvial mining.


Yarraville

YARRAVILLE
Yarraville is a suburb 6km west of Melbourne, its Local Government Area is the City of Maribyrnong. At the 2006 Census, Yarraville had a population of 12,726. Formerly a working-class suburb, in recent years Yarraville has experienced rapid gentrification due to its close proximity to the Melbourne city centre. The suburb lies immediately north of the West Gate Bridge, and immediately west of its namesake, the Yarra River. It was named in the 1860s due to its proximity to the Yarra River. Located near Yarraville railway station on Anderson and Ballarat Streets, this area of the suburb is renowned in Melbourne for its unique character, architecture and quality of village life. Yarraville railway station is on the Werribee and Williamstown railway lines of the Melbourne train network.

YUROKE
Yuroke is 29 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Hume. Yuroke is located between Mickleham and Greenvale, on Mickleham Road. Yuroke Post Office opened around 1902 and closed in 1975. The name is of Aboriginal origin.