City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

VOLUME 2: THEMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORYbrickworks endured for another century. Most of the former clay holes were eventually turnedinto parks.Much of central Northcote was built on during the boom years of the 1880s, when middleclasssettlers built Victorian terraces and villas, and speculators built rows of workers houses inthe lower, less salubrious, areas. However, although most of Alphington was subdivided for saleduring the 1880s boom, much of it remained unsold, apart from a few large blocks in thechoicest parts, mainly near the Yarra River outside the City of Darebin. In 1900 Alphingtonwas still fairly rural, but some residential development took place following the opening of therailway line to Heidelberg in 1902, with most housing clustered near the station.Thornbury takes its name from Job Smith’s farm, established near the Merri Creek in the1850s, and subdivided for housing in the 1880s. The opening of the Whittlesea railway in1889, and the making of St George’s Road encouraged other rural landholders in the area tosubdivide during the land boom. By 1888 most of the land between High Street and StGeorge’s Road was sold. However little development in Thornbury ensued before the boomcollapsed. One successful boom-time development was the Prince of Wales Park to the east ofHigh Street, where a community with a school and a couple of churches was established by theearly 1890s.Further urban development took place in Northcote and Thornbury during the early years ofthe twentieth century and the post-war boom of the 1920s, by which time the suburb wasalmost fully built over, apart from the poorly drained land along the creek flats, most of whicheventually became parklands. Most of Alphington’s residential development took place duringthis time, which followed the electrification of the railway in 1921 when the north runningstreets filling up from the southern or railway end, and extending across Separation Street. By1930 Alphington was almost fully settled.PrestonPreston’s early European settlers clustered around two centres. The first cluster was on thecorner High and Wood Streets - where Wood’s store opened in 1850 - and extendednorthwards to Tyler Street and the area known as Irishtown, later Regent. The second focalpoint was at the junction of High Street and Plenty Road, South Preston where some ofDarebin earliest industries, including brickworks and bacon factories, were established in the1860s and 1870s.Entrepreneurs took advantage of Preston's isolation to set up industries that were classed asnoxious - industries, such as tanning, wool scouring, meat processing and boiling down works.The availability of water along the pipeline from the Yan Yean Reservoir from 1857 was also animportant incentive for these industries coming into the area. By the end of the nineteenthcentury a large number of tanneries and bacon factories occupied south central Preston. Theseindustries attracted workers and the beginnings of an urban population amongst the smallfarms in South Preston.Figure 37Woods General Store, Prestonc1900[DHE, ID 411]65