Melbourne Australia

PAKENHAM / PAKENHAM SOUTH / PAKENHAM UPPER
Pakenham is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 56 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Cardinia. At the 2006 Census, Pakenham had a population of 19,644. Pakenham is in some aspects still considered as a regional suburb. It was named after Sir Edward Pakenham, a British general who fought in the Peninsular War. Pakenham Post Office opened on 1 February 1859; Pakenham Railway Station Post Office opened on 11 June 1888 and was renamed Pakenham East in 1908.

PANTON HILL
Panton Hill is a mainly rural locality 32 km. north-east of Central Melbourne. It was named after Joseph Anderson Panton, Commissioner for the Anderson's Creek and other goldfields and later magistrate at Heidelberg. During time off from his magisterial duties he mapped the Yarra Valley (approx. 1862). In so doing he named Panton Hill, which had previously been Kingstown, a name shared with other places and a cause of some confusion.

Panton Hill was established as a goldfield in 1859 in the area generally called the Caledonia Diggings (1855). Its northern neighbour, Queenstown, is now St. Andrews. By the end of the 1860s the goldfield became less profitable and miners turned to farming. Several introduced viticulture and orchards to Panton Hill. A primary school was opened in 1865, and by 1880 there were two hotels and a Church of England. A mechanics' institute was opened in 1901. The railway extension from Heidelberg to Hurstbridge in 1912 provided quicker access for fruit-growers to the Melbourne markets.

PARK ORCHARDS
Park Orchards is a 23 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Manningham. At the 2006 Census, Park Orchards had a population of 3590. The circular design of the central area of Park Orchards was designed by Walter Burley Griffin who is best known in Australia for designing the layout of the capital, Canberra. The name was first used when the land which had been used for orchards was first subdivided for residential development.

PARKDALE
Parkdale is a residential suburb 23 km. south-east of Melbourne, occupying parts of the Mordialloc and Mentone postcode areas. It was named after W. Parker, an early landowner in the area, and was given when the Victorian Railways opened the station in 1920. Most early residential development favoured the area between the beach and the railway line. By 1933 there were over twenty-five shops near the railway station, mostly in Como Parade. In 1923 there had been about five shops. During the early postwar years residential subdivisions moved away from the beach and the railway station.


Parkville

PARKVILLE
Parkville, a residential suburb in three parts with Royal Park at its centre, is 4 km. north of Melbourne. On its west is North Melbourne and on its east is Carlton. Parkville is situated on a plateau with relatively shallow soils, which made it suitable for grazing but not agriculture. As the plateau is mostly mudstone or non-basaltic material it has not been wanted for quarrying, unlike Brunswick to its immediate north. In about 1845 a reservation for a park or open space was approved by the Governor of New South Wales (after a request for a smaller area by the Melbourne Town Council), extending from North Melbourne to Carlton and comprising 1,036 ha.

The population increases after the gold rushes resulted in severances from the reservation for urban growth, and Royal Park of about 283 ha. was proclaimed. In time further severances occurred: 1858, for an experimental farm of 575 ha. in the north-west: 1861, for a zoological garden of 20 ha., for the Acclimatization Society in the middle of Royal Park; 1868, three areas for houses, forming Parkville North, South and West; and 1875, a further area enlarging Parkville South from Park Drive to Gatehouse Street, which enclosed a watercourse which later formed the linear Ievers Reserve.

Parkville South is the largest of the three residential areas, and before its 1861 severance it included land and a showground used by the Port Phillip Farmers Association and Melbourne council markets for horses, pigs and cattle and for hay and corn. The pastoral activity at the south end and the model farm at the north end were linked by grazing and agistment over Royal Park which lasted until the 1920s, keeping up to four dairies going in Parkville.

PARLIAMENT
Parliament is the name of an underground railway station in the suburban train network. It is one of five stations (and one of three underground) on the City Loop, which encircles the central business district. The station services Melbourne's government district, and is underneath the Parliament House of Victoria and the intersection of busy Bourke Street with Spring Street, at the eastern end of the CBD.

PASCOE VALE
A residential area, west of Coburg, between 7 km. and 11 km. north of Melbourne. It is named after Pascoeville, the property owed by John Pascoe Fawkner and bounded approximately by the Moonee Ponds Creek, Gaffney Street, Northumberland Road and the western prolongation of Boundary Road. Fawkner acquired the property in 1839 as one of eleven lots in the subdivision of the Coburg district by the government surveyor, Robert Hoddle. In 1885 the Pascoe Vale railway station was built at the cost of the subdividers, and had a country rail timetable, the suburban service ending at Essendon. That was the westerly edge of the present Pascoe Vale. Well beyond Pascoe Vale's eastern edge was Coburg North with its railway line. The space in between was not filled by housing until the 1950s. Apart from the infrequency of trains the problems of unmade roads, unreticulated utilities and no sewerage deterred house builders. A primary school was not opened until 1911. On 26 June, 1927, the tram service along Melville Road to Bell Street, Pascoe Vale South, was opened, terminating at the main neighbourhood shopping centre for the area. Pascoe Vale's census population in 1921 was 348, and any substantial increase awaited post-war immigration and residential expansion.

THE PATCH
The Patch is a mainly rural locality, 40 km. east-south-east of Melbourne, next to the east side of the Sherbrooke Forest. In the 1860s a timber-getter felled a stand of black-butts for palings, and the cleared area ten years later was found to be a grassed patch of land. It was named The Patch. A part of Monbulk has come under the locality now considered to be The Patch.

Farming selections became available in the 1890s, many coming under berry production. A post office was opened in 1897. Berry growing supplied the Monbulk jam factory as well as metropolitan markets. The Anglican church was not built until 1934, the community hall in the 1950s and the primary school in 1983-4. The hall is near the post office, the general store and the school. The Patch contains area previously known as Coonan and Fairy Dell. Its census population in 1933 was 88 and in 1947 it was 195. It remains a small township and scenic area.


Patterson station

PATTERSON
Patterson is a railway station located in the suburb of Bentleigh on the Frankston railway line. Patterson station opened on May 28, 1961.

PATTERSON LAKES
Patterson Lakes is a residential suburb 32 km. south-east of Melbourne beside the Patterson River, upstream from where it discharges into Port Phillip Bay at Carrum. The "Patterson River" is a man-made drain through the former Carrum Swamp, named after J.B. Patterson, Minister for Public Works, who was involved with the project. Carrum is situated on a coastal dune system behind which was low-lying swampy ground either side of the "Patterson River". In the early 1970s a development company acquired 324 ha. of wetland south of the river and designed a raised residential estate set in man-made lakes or canals. Although the development has been less than originally planned, the Lakeview shopping centre and the National Water Sports Centre in neighbouring Bangholme have made the area more than just a dormitory suburb. A primary school was opened and St. Leonard's College (Brighton) established a second campus next to the Water Sports Centre in 1987. Some allotments without lakeside access were developed by the Housing Commission.

PEARCEDALE
Pearcedale is a small village on the northeast corner of Western Port, on the northern edge of the Mornington Peninsula, 50 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. It is surrounded by horse properties and market gardens. Its name recalls an early pioneer European settler.

PLENTY
Plenty, a rural district north of Greensborough, is 20 km. north-east of Melbourne. The name comes from the Plenty River, which was named by Joseph Tice Gellibrand, member of the Port Phillip Association, in 1835 because the surrounding country had such a promising aspect. The Plenty district has been larger than its present boundaries. When a school was opened at the Presbyterian church in Janefield, Bundoora, in 1850, it was named Plenty until 1853. Another school, opened in Mernda in 1853 was also called Plenty until 1864. The area now known as Plenty was opened for selection in 1913.

POINT LEO
Point Leo is a town in the Shire of Mornington Peninsula. Point Leo Foreshore Reserve provides excellent waves for surfing and is one of the closest surf beaches to Melbourne. At the 2006 census, Point Leo had a population of 329. The area was known as Bobbanaring to the local Bunurong people prior to European settlement. The area was first surveyed in 1841, and a town was proposed here in 1869, but the area did not develop until after World War II, when the Woods family built a house and store. Facilities were developed in the 1960s, including hot showers at Point Leo foreshore. The geograpgical feature Point Leo was possibly named after Leo Hemingway, who ran his tobacco van between Hastings and Flinders in the 1930s, but the link between him and the fishermen who had galvanised iron huts on the point at this time has not been established. Alternatively, some consider that the headland has the shape of a lion's face.


Station Pier, Port Melbourne

PORT MELBOURNE
Port Melbourne, a residential and industrial suburb, is 4 km. south-west of Melbourne. In 1839, four years after the first permanent settlement of Melbourne, Wilbraham Liardet settled at Port Melbourne, building a hotel and jetty on Hobsons Bay and operating a mail service to Melbourne. The area became known as Liardet's Beach, although the official district name was Sandridge. Land sales were delayed until 1850. The gold rush immigration brought passengers and freight which made use of a government pier on Hobsons Bay, served by Australia's first railway line from Melbourne to Hobsons Bay.

The first allotments surveyed in Sandridge were between Stokes Street and a linear lagoon on the east, now Esplanade East. (The lagoon was probably an ancient course of the Yarra River.) With the railway, the township was enlarged, westwards to the railway line and northwards to Raglan Street. A Wesleyan church was opened in 1853, and a Wesleyan school in the following year. By 1860 there were also Anglican, Catholic and Presbyterian churches, a Catholic school and a National school (1857). On 13 July, 1860, the Sandridge borough was created by severance from Melbourne City Council, its boundaries being the railway line and the lagoon, but further north to Bourndary Street. The borough remained confined between the railway line and the lagoon because of a planned canal between the Yarra River and the bay and the increasingly noxious condition of the lagoon, contributed to by the run-off from Emerald Hill, South Melbourne. The coast west of the railway Pier was Sandridge Beach or Fishermens Bend, which was added to the borugh in 1863. Its sand was extracted for Melbourne's building trade, and in some cases the excavations were used as night-soil dumps. Bone mills, goats and pig-keeping added to the effluvia.

PORT PHILLIP
Port Phillip is a municipality (city) formed on 22nd June, 1994, by the union of the former Port Melbourne, South Melbourne and St. Kilda cities and a small part of Prahran city. It was named after Port Phillip Bay, which ships en route to Melbourne must enter by passing between Queenscliff and Point Nepean. Port Phillip Bay was named after Captain Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales. The name was given by Governor King, shortly after the bay had been named after him in 1802. The three former municipalities all had foreshores to Port Phillip Bay or, more particularly, to Hobsons Bay at the head of Port Phillip Bay. They comprised a mixture of maritime/industrial (particularly Port Melbourne), industrial/residential (Port and South Melbourne) and residential (St. Kilda).


Portsea bayside

PORTSEA
Portsea was named by James Sandle Ford after a suburb in Portsmouth, the port he left England from. Portsea was an early community exploiting the limestone deposits for use on buildings in Melbourne. As the 1800s wore on, it became a rendezvous for those who could afford a country residence. This largely remains the case now.

PRAHRAN
Prahran, an inner suburb and a former municipality, is about 5 km. south-east of Melbourne, and was originally surveyed for farm allotments. Land sales occurred in 1840 and later in 1849-50. Although intended for farming the allotments attracted house construction - on large blocks in the north and east of the district, and on smaller, subdivided blocks in the south and west. The resulting distinction between grand residential (partially superseded by up-market apartments), and workmen's cottages remains. The latter was stimulated by the need to house gold-rush immigrants. The north and east are today's South Yarra and Toorak, and the south and west are today's Prahran and Windsor.

Prahran's name evolved from "purraran", understood to be an Aboriginal work for "almost surrounded by water". The proximity of the Yarra River and swamp to the south-west part (of which Albert Park Lake is a remnant), explain the description. Purraran was rendered as Prahran by Robert Hoddle, Government surveyor, in 1840. In 1859/60 a railway line was constructed through Prahran from Melbourne to Brighton. A second line branched westwards from Windsor to St. Kilda, Windsor being the station after Prahran. The Gippsland to Melbourne line traversed the northern localities of Prahran by 1879. Cable trams were opened in Toorak Road and Chapel Street in 1888 and 1891, and two major shopping strips grew along the tram routes. Chapel Street is the main one, with several large emporium buildings still standing.

PRESTON
Preston, a residential and industrial suburb 9 km. north of Melbourne, was also a municipality from 1885 to 1994. The area was surveyed by Robert Hoddle and subdivided into farm allotments in 1837. The origins of Preston's settlement were generally along the Plenty Road, from Melbourne to the Plenty Ranges. In 1850 Edward Wood opened a store at the corner of High and Wood Streets, High Street branching off Plenty Road and being a route to Sydney. Wood, who came from Sussex, England, is though to have given the name Preston, after Preston in Sussex. He was a founding member of the Baptist Church (1859). Hotels were established near Woods store and near the junction of High Street and Plenty Road, two kilometres to the south. Between these two localities is modern-day Preston central, known as Gowerville in the 1880s.

Not all of Preston's land was good for farming, dairying and market gardens. Building material was cut from the basalt and the non-basaltic areas yielded clay for potteries and bricks. A bacon-curing factory began in 1862 and a tannery in 1865. Several larger factories followed, notably Huttons Hams and Bacons and Zwar's Parkside Tannery. In 1889 a railway line from Collingwood was opened via Preston to Whittlesea. Stations were provided at Bell Street (now Bell), Preston (formerly Gowerville at Murray Road, where the town hall was to be built), Regent Street (now Regent) and at Reservoir.

PRINCES HILL
Princes Hill is 3 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra. At the 2006 Census, Princes Hill had a population of 2099. Demographer Bernard Salt dubbed Princes Hill "Chick City" in 2003, after the 2001 Census data revealed the suburb had the highest proportion of single women to men in Melbourne. Princes Hill and Princes Park were both named in honour of the son of Queen Victoria, Prince Alfred, The Duke of Edinburgh, on the occasion of his visit to Australia in 1868. During the visit, the first by a member of the British Royal Family to Australia, Alfred survived an assassination attempt while picnicking on the beach in the Sydney suburb of Clontarf while in New South Wales.