City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

DAREBIN HERITAGE STUDY STAGE 2As noted in Chapter 3 the Whittlesea railway through Northcote and Preston, opened in 1889,and the cable tram system to the Preston border at Dundas Street, also encouraged a littlesuburban development. Although Preston, like the rest of Melbourne, was swept up in theland boom of the 1880s, few of Preston’s boom subdivision were successful and many estatesremained as open paddocks for two or three decades more. Preston continued to be animportant agricultural district, particularly for dairying, market gardening and flower growing,supplying produce to Melbourne well into the twentieth century.Preston Shire Hall, later known as the Town Hall, was built in 1895 on a site that was centralto the two early settlement clusters and close to the Preston railway station. As the economyrecovered in the early twentieth century, commercial and residential development graduallybegan to fill in the gap between the two early clusters. Preston experienced much more rapidsuburban growth during the post First World War boom era of the 1920s. In this decadePreston experienced phenomenal growth, with the highest birth rate in Victoria in 1927 and alarge amount of migration, both from the inner suburbs of Melbourne and, to a lesser extent,from overseas, mainly Britain.Reservoir takes its name from the three service reservoirs that were built in the area in the midnineteenth and early twentieth century, as part of Melbourne’s Yan Yean water supply system.The area does not seem to have been referred to as Reservoir until the end of the 1920s. Beforethat it was considered part of Preston, and it shared the same development history as Preston— as a district of dairy farms, market gardens and flower gardens, supplying the Melbournemarket well into the twentieth century.Reservoir experienced two key periods of suburban expansion. The first was in the 1920s whenlike the rest of Preston, Reservoir shared in the post-First World War boom particularly in thecentral area along the axis of High Street that had access to the railway, which in 1921 waselectrified as far as Reservoir station as noted in Chapter 3. In that era small shopping stripstook shape along High Street and in the area surrounding Reservoir railway station. The firstsuburban development of weatherboard bungalows occurred along Edwardes Street and inadjoining streets to the north and south. However at that stage Reservoir still lacked thesecondary and extractive industries that characterised Preston.After a cessation in activity due to the 1930s depression and the Second World War,Reservoir’s second major period of urban expansion occurred began in the late 1940s, whenmost of the remaining farmland was converted into housing estates, including some largeHousing Commission of Victoria estates in the east and north. In this period an industrialprecinct was also commenced in the north west of Reservoir, and the Broadway shoppingcentre developed. In the northern part of Reservoir new residential development is still takingplace on land formerly used for psychiatric institutions.By the end of the inter-war period the two old hubs - South Preston at the junction of HighStreet and Plenty Road, and Preston at the corner of Wood and High Streets - were lost, asPreston’s main centre focused on the area bounded by Murray Road, Gower Street, PlentyRoad and the railway. This area included the civic centre and the growing High Streetshopping centre (Carroll & Rule, 1985:173). There was still little urban settlement north ofBroadhurst Avenue in Reservoir, where cows still roamed the paddocks, or to the east along theDarebin Creek valley.5.2 Creating early village settlementsAlphingtonAlphington village was a private village subdivision made by William Manning in 1854. Thevillage straddled Heidelberg Road, near the Darebin Creek crossing, and was a stopping placefor travellers. By the early 1860s, Alphington had a few shops, two hotels, including Freeman’sAlphington Hotel, and a Wesleyan Church. Apart from its main road location, AlphingtonVillage was isolated from the centre of Darebin’s development for many years. The only shop66