Baskerville

Baskerville is an outer northeastern rural suburb of Perth, Western Australia, in the Swan Valley region, 31 km from Perth's central business district via Midland and Great Northern Highway.

Baskerville is an outer northeastern rural suburb of Perth, Western Australia, in the Swan Valley region, 31 km from Perth's central business district via Midland and Great Northern Highway. Nearly all of it is under cultivation with viticulture being the main economic activity, and several well-established Swan Valley wineries are based here. Its local government area is the City of Swan.

The name Baskerville was given by William Tanner, a prominent Perth citizen and landowner, to Swan Location 5 when he took up a grant there in 1831. He never lived on the properties, however, and left the Swan River Colony in 1835. In the 1880s, the land was acquired by Walter Padbury, who employed his relative, Henry Hardwick, to manage it. In 1886 a homestead was built for him on what is now Memorial Avenue in the west of the suburb.After World War I, the Government decided to commence a soldier resettlement scheme in the Swan Valley region, and subdivided it into lots of about 10-50 acres which would be operated as small farms. However, many of the soldiers had no agricultural experience, and sold the land to new migrants, particularly those from Yugoslavia and Italy who had experience in viticulture. A 1953 map by a CSIRO viticultural expert shows nearly all of Baskerville was used for grape growing, with some citrus orchards on the riverfront near what is now Amiens Crescent.In 1989, the white-berried seedling of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cygne blanc, was discovered growing in a Baskerville garden planted next to a Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard.Although the name of Baskerville was commonly in use for the area, it was not approved for the suburb until 1992.