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Caldermeade

(3984, 70 km SE, Cardinia Shire)

Caldermeade is a farming district on the edge of the former Koo Wee Rup Swamp. In 1856 Scots pastoralist Archibald McMillan purchased Crown land which became the nucleus of his vast Caldermeade Estate, named with the Gaelic words calder (wood by a stream) and mead (meadow). When the Great Southern Railway from Melbourne to Port Albert opened in 1892, the station here was known as Mac's Lane, but was later changed to Caldermeade. The bulk of McMillan's estate was sold to the Closer Settlement Board in 1914 and subsequently turned over to 55 returned soldiers and their families, who concentrated mainly on dairying.

Jill Barnard