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Produced and published by the School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne
Published July 2008
Published July 2008
Partners
(3078, 7 km NE, Darebin City, Yarra City)
At land sales in June 1840, brothers Richard and Godfrey Howitt purchased a section with a Yarra River frontage at present-day Alphington, Richard recording the following year that 'the situation is delicious; the soil tolerably rich; the slopes most graceful'. Sydney merchant Charles Roemer's original 1840 holding came into the possession of William Manning, solicitor-general of New South Wales, who noted the locality's potential as a resting place en route to Heidelberg.
In 1854 lots were sold at the Village of Alphington, named after Manning's Devon birthplace. Located between Heidelberg Road and the Yarra parklands, Alphington was formerly a part of Heidelberg and Ivanhoe, later merging into Fairfield and Northcote. Alphington Park was popular as a picnic and swimming area from the 1920s to the 1950s, and a predecessor of the Australian Paper Manufacturers Ltd paper mill was opened in 1919 on the site of Woodlands. Artists William McInnes, William Frater and Napier Waller painted scenes around Lucerne Farm in the 1920s. Lucerne Crescent in the Lucerne Estate (1885) has a number of significant Federation-style suburban villas, and many of the area's leafy streets are characterised by period weatherboard houses.