Many townships were planned and drawn on survey maps during the land boom of the 1850's. New areas were being opened up to provide small farms for the settlers attracted to Victoria by the gold rush. Some of these townships grew and became local centres, others were forgotten.
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| Noonan's Hut |
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| Smedleys Forge |
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| Morning Star Hotel |
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| Tom Petty's House |
The Township of Doncaster was planned for the intersection of Blackburn and Doncaster Roads. The nearest it came to being a township was one church. At the west end of Doncaster a township was planned at the intersection of Doncaster Road and High Street. This was to be the centre for the eight square mile Carlton Estate. It was given the name Carlton and was listed in the 1864 Gazetteer:
"CARLTON (Co. Bourke), a small hamlet in the parish of Bulleen, and electoral district of S. Bourke, situated on the Koonong-Koonong creek, 3 miles S. of Templestowe, with which it has communication by a dray track. The population is poor and scattered, being occupied on small farms and in wood cutting. Upper silurian."This small hamlet had a store, blacksmith, bootmaker, school and hotel. The name CarIton was never used, it was always called Kennedy's Creek. In the 1840's, James Kennedy had a grazing run in the area. His hut and stockyard was west of the creek. Although Koonung Creek was the official name, during the first years it was referred to as Kennedy's Creek. Hender Street was intended to be the residential area, with small blocks. There was also a residential area across the creek in Elgar's Estate. Across Doncaster Road were three acre blocks and further away from the centre the land was divided into farms of up to twenty acres.
At first, travellers on Doncaster Road had to ford Kennedy's Creek. In 1856 the Boroondara Roads Board built a bridge over the creek. The contractor was William Williams who had built a hut in Doncaster Road in one of the small blocks between Hender Street and the creek. Two poplar trees alongside Williams hut still stand today. Williams had a store in his small hut and sold supplies to the few farmers in the area and timber cutters working nearby. The store did not last long for Williams left for New Zealand in the early 1870's. The school was run by Miss Finch in a house in High Street. It was said to be the first school in Doncaster but closed down when Max Von Schramm opened his school in Doncaster Road.
John Broadbent purchased a clock of land at the corner of Doncaster Road and High Street - the sight of the present Jewish Memorial Centre. Broadbent was the bootmaker. At that time boots and shoes were made by individuals who made one pair at a time. He only stayed about ten years. His primitive hut disappeared soon after.
John Smedley with his wife and family of five sons and two daughters came to Australia in the ship Altonvar in the year 1855. The ship used to creak and groan to such an extent that John could not sleep at night for fear that it would break up and sink. It used to be a great relief to him to hear the sailors come on deck and haul in sails singing such songs as "Pretty is my Darling". The ship left Melbourne to return to England but was never heard of again.
On arriving in Melbourne, Smedley set up a wheelwright and Blacksmith business in Richmond. Three years later, he came to Doncaster and built a house and blacksmith shop on the site of Doncaster Park Primary School. The house was in the middle of the land and the Smithy alongside the Doncaster Road fence. 0n the door of the Smithy, Smedley nailed his emblem - a large horse-shoe encircling a smaller one. Smedley called his house ìJourneys Endî. The name painted on a tin tray remained on the gate until 1960.
The roads of the Carlton Estate were planned to follow high land that would remain dry during winter. High Street was named for this reason, but last century it was called Sweeny's Lane, after Jeremiah Sweeney whose farm was on the road.
Other Kennedys Creek farmers in High Street during the 1860's were Patrick Conale, Jacob Hogg, Gottlieb Berger, and Martin Lyons.
Alfred Caldecott owned a large area of land west of Ayre Street. Caldecott was a senior government official who built a large house called Glenfern (Classified by the National Trust).
Settlers, Bayer, a farmer, and Essing, a blacksmith in Doncaster Road west of the creek, were also part of Kennedy's Creek Village.
Edward Noonan, an Irishman, bought Williams' hut. Noonan, now a carter, had been licensee of the Boroondara Hotel in 1873-4. Noonan had two sons, Michael who became one of Doncaster's successful orchardists, and Denis, known as Dinny. Dinny stayed in Kennedy's Creek for many years living in Noonan's hut.
One hundred and twenty years ago the Gazeteer listed a small hamlet, called Carlton, where Doncaster Road crossed Koonung Creek. The township, which disappeared during the last century, was known locally as Kennedy's Creek. On the south of Doncaster Road, alongside the creek, a small water reserve allowed access to the creek where drovers could water their thirsty cattle, and travellers had the opportunity of giving their horses a much needed drink.
Alongside this reserve William Bogle built a four-roamed house, and opened a beer shop in 1869. Three years later, Mary Meagher enlarged Bogle's house. She built a large dining room and kitchen on the east and extra bedrooms on the west. A brick parapet wall along the front completed the building. She named it the "Morning Star Hotel".
Mary Meagher applied for a publican's licence in December 1872. Harry Ogburn, who owned the "Long Hill Hotel", entered an objection. However, the licence was granted and Ogburn was fined for prevarication. Four years later a new publican took over the hotel and during the next years it changed hands almost every year. The "Morning Star" led a colourful existence. Rousing songs at the bar filled the evenings and drinkers who stayed on after closing time risked a visit by the police.
Being on low-lying land next to the creek, the hotel was often flooded. On several of these occasions the residents had to sleep on the dining tables.
On the north of Doncaster Road, past Smedley's, Griffin built a wattle and daub hut with a chimney of hand-made bricks. Griffin called his 3 acre block "Tiny Farm". Later, he added to the building, making it a five room weatherboard dwelling. Griffin was Doncasterës first baker. His bake oven was at the rear of Pickeringís Post Office on the site of the present Doncaster Arcade.
Colin Phillips cane to Kennedy's Creek in the 1850's and bought a 9 acre farm for 102 pounds next to Griffin. Phillips' house was a weatherboard building with a gable roof and small porch at the front. In later years, the home was surrounded by an old-world garden with climbing roses, spring bulbs, and an ivy creeper on the walls. When the toll gate was moved to the corner of High Street, Phillips became toll-keeper. Later, when he was made rate collector, Phillips was the first council officer.
His son, Thomas, owed the wheelwright shop that is now located at Schramm's Cottage.
The next house along the road was owned by James Smith, the father of Laurie Smith, Doncaster's drawing teacher. James Smith was an engineer. It was probably his plan for a cable tram that the council planned to run along this section of Doncaster Road in 1885.
Across the road was Thomas Petty's house. This was as far east as the Kennedy Creek Village extended.
Thomas Petty founded one of Doncaster's leading families. He settled on 48 acres south of Doncaster Road in 1853. Petty had come out from England with his eldest son to get established in Australia. Four years later he had built a 2 storey brick house and wrote to his wife to come out with the rest of the family. It was an attractive, Flemish bond house, with a paved terrace at the front. Petty boasted that it was the only house in Doncaster with a timber floor. The building stood well back from Doncaster road where Harcourt Street now runs.
Wilsons Road was named after August Wilson's family. In 1860, the two Wilson sisters conducted a school in a log cabin on the family lamd. Log School road commemorates this school. Alfred Hummel also lived in Wilsons Road in 1863. Hummel moved to Doncaster Road opposite the school and in 1877 built the first of 3 towers alongside his home.
Kennedy's Creek became a forgotten township in the new century. The schools closed in 1864 when Schramm's common school opened, the bootmaker had left by 1870, the hotel closed in 1920, the forge closed in 1890, and Edward Noonan stopped supplying goods from his store.
In the new century, when Dennis Noonan married, he moved across the road to Smedley's Journeys End, where he ran an orchard. Here the ìNoman Peach", which is still grown, was developed. We drive on to Doncaster road from the Freeway and travel up the wide graded road of today, it is hard to visualise the narrow steep road of those early years. Horses strained to haul carts up the steep hill. To ease their burden, a cutting was made in 1876. While the road was closed, many vehicles avoided the long detour by paying a toll to cross Pettyís land.
So this was the township of Kennedy's Creek, 120 years ago, with its few houses spread over a large area. It was a quiet, peaceful town, with only an occasional cart slowly moving along the road. A far cry from the same area today!
Irvine Green writing in 1983 09 DTHS Newsletter and 1983 12 DTHS Newsletter
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