Alphington

Alphington is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 7 km north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District.

Alphington is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 7 km north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government area are the Cities of Darebin and Yarra. At the 2016 census, Alphington had a population of 5,080.

Alphington shares a postcode with neighbouring suburb Fairfield, and is bounded by the Yarra River in the south and the Darebin Creek in the east.

Darebin Creek area is the traditional country of the Wurundjeri-willam people who are part of the Woiworung clan of the Kulin Nation, who are traditional owners of the country from west of Melbourne along to the Darebin Creek and to outer eastern Melbourne. For the Wurundjeri-willam people, the fertile Alphington region provided fresh water from the Darebin Creek and seasonal fish, tubers and shoots from water plants; while birds and animals provided clothing and food, trees and plants provided food and tools.The genesis of Alphington was the Bridge Hotel and Darebin Creek Bridge on Heidelberg Road, both commenced in the 1840s, with a new stone arch bridge erected in 1864.Alphington was named by Sir William Manning after his birthplace, Alphington in Devon, England.Alphington Post Office opened on 2 February 1858.Alphington was originally part of the Jika Jika Parish, bounded by Rathmines Street to the west, Darebin Creek to the east, and the Yarra River to the south.

'[T]he Alphington East character is dominated by detached housing, garden settings, Edwardian and inter-war houses. This area has little remaining industrial or commercial development and relied on easy access to railway lines and coach ways such as Heidelberg Road.

As with Richmond most of the subdivision of this area arose in the boom era of the late 19th century but with only a few Victorian-era houses evident now.

The Yarra-side and hillside allotments could still, however, attract those gentlemen who owned a carriage. Hence when C.B. James and Percy Dobson released their Fulham Grange estate (the former Perry Brothers' orchards), they proclaimed that the acre lots on the Yarra were 'ideal for Gentlemen's Residences'. The St James Park estate, formed around Alphington St and Park Crescent, was also launched in the late Victorian-era.

Meanwhile, gas companies distributed their domestic gas supply over an ever wider area: the Northern Gas Co. was floated in 1887 and the Heidelberg Gas Co. commenced laying mains, in 1889, as the Heidelberg, Ivanhoe, Alphington and Fairfield Gas Co. Reticulated water was extended to Alphington in 1887. The bulk of housing development arose once efficient and cheap public transport was provided by the upgrade of the Heidelberg railway line in the Edwardian-era.

The Clifton Hill to Alphington railway line, isolated as it was from the main system, was built in 1883 but this was the only gesture from a Government which had been extending lines in every other direction across the Colony. It was not until 1889, near the end of the land boom, that a branch railway line was extended from Royal Park to Preston and later to Whittlesea, as well as across to the marooned 'Nowhere to Nowhere' line from Clifton Hill to Alphington. A new line was built from Clifton Hill to Princes Bridge 1901 to allow more direct rail access from Alphington and Fairfield (as well as Collingwood, Abbotsford and West Richmond) to the growing City of Melbourne and its industrial heartland in Richmond and Collingwood. Hence it was the Edwardian-era that allowed the potential for houses to be built in the Alphington area, often in the Queen Anne or Federation Bungalow Styles.

This was followed by the short-lived catch-up house boom, after the First War, in the Californian Bungalow style when emerging use of the motor car allowed less residential density further from main centres of industrial and commercial employment.

The small commercial group at the Yarralea Street and Heidelberg Road corner is part of a village that once had a church, hall and church school, bakery (in the City of Darebin) and the nearby Tower Hotel as its key structures. The two-storey stone shop & residence and the old butcher's shop in Heidelberg Road are contemporary with the stone church and form the beginning of a commercial area that today reflects the key period of development in that area, as also reflected by the housing to the south, with its early 20th century shops.'City of Yarra Heritage Gap Study Stage Two, 2009.[2]