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Rye

(3941, 64 km S, Mornington Peninsula Shire)

Tootgarook, one of the earliest cattle runs on the Mornington Peninsula, was taken up near the site of Rye in 1838 by Edward Hobson. Lime-burners, who moved into the area in the 1840s, called it White Cliffs, and in the 1850s it became the largest of the lime-burning centres on the Mornington Peninsula, servicing the needs of the building trade in rapidly growing Melbourne. Many local buildings were constructed of limestone. Surveyed and gazetted as a town in 1861, Rye was named after one of the Cinque Ports in Sussex, England. There were attempts to promote it as a seaside resort like Portsea and Sorrento. Bounded by Bass Strait in the south and Port Phillip Bay in the north, Rye became popular as a camping resort in the 20th century, and is now mainly residential in its northern section.

Jill Barnard