City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

VOLUME 2: THEMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY9.3 Why is it Significant?The natural and cultural heritage places within the City of Darebin are significant for theaesthetic, historic, scientific, social and spiritual values at a local and sometimes State level.Creating Darebin (pre 1835)The places associated with the pre-contact Aboriginal history of Darebin are significant asevidence of the enduring spiritual and cultural associations of local Aboriginal people with thelandscape and its features. The environment was (and continues to be) inherent to the groups’spiritual and social traditions, and the local Aboriginal people’s traditions about how the landand its features were created are unique to the area and of great cultural significance.(Note: These aspects will be further explored and documented in Stage 6 of the DarebinHeritage Study)First contact and pastoral era (c.1860s-1870s)Darebin contains places that are historically and spiritually significant for their associationswith the first contact between Aboriginal communities and European settler, and maintainingtraditional lifestyles after settlement began. Although the exact location of the first contact siteis contested and no physical evidence remains, the symbolism and consequences of the treatyform an important component of Darebin’s (and Victoria’s) cultural identity, which iscommemorated in local histories.Other places associated with this era are historically important as evidence of the pastoral andfarming communities that developed in the time after first contact. The earliest survivingbuildings in Darebin are historically significant as an illustration of the land boom thataccompanied Victoria’s gold rushes in the early 1850s, which brought new optimism and ademand for farm land close to Melbourne. Places such as churches and cemeteries are ofparticular social and historic significance as they provide evidence of the different immigrantgroups that were among the early settlers in Darebin. The early importance of HeidelbergRoad and High Street as main roads connecting Melbourne to its hinterland is demonstratedby the cluster of early buildings along these thoroughfares.Because so little of the physical fabric of this early phase of Darebin’s history remains, anytraces of this formative period (including archaeological sites) are considered to be of primaryheritage significance to the city. (AHC criterion A4, B2, C2, D2, G1 and H1)Boom, bust and recovery (1870s-1910s)The places associated with this era are significant as an illustration of the period ofunprecedented prosperity, growth and development in Melbourne in the late nineteenthcentury, known as the land boom. They illustrate how the urban boundaries were pushed outas people sharing in the general prosperity sought new residential lands in which to buildhomes, despite the fact that Darebin, up to the 1880s, was disadvantaged by a lack of goodtransport facilities. The places also provide evidence of the devastating consequences of the1890s economic depression, which effectively halted development for more than a decade andof the recovery that followed in the early twentieth century.The nineteenth century industrial places within Darebin are significant of the large and smallrural and extractive industries that existed prior to suburban development and the noxioustrades that took advantage of the area’s nineteenth century isolation. These industries were vitalto servicing both the local population and Melbourne, and the employment opportunities theyoffered attracted people to live and work in the area.145