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Briar Hill

(3088, 18 km NE, Banyule City)

A small, mainly residential suburb that constitutes an outlying part of Greensborough towards Montmorency, Briar Hill occupies hilly land that is still well treed in its suburban streets. Farmed in small holdings in the second half of the 19th century, the land saw its first town allotment subdivision sales after the railway was extended to Eltham in 1902, but its remoteness and lack of amenities restricted settlement to only a few hundred residents by World War II. A progress association (1920) achieved a post office (1924) and state school (1927). Some small-scale industry centred on a sawmill. Relatively cheap land prices after the war encouraged housing development, particularly through to the 1970s. The suburb experienced a decrease and an ageing of its population in the latter decades of the 20th century.

Andrew Lemon