Learning about where you live..
HISTORY OF WHERE WE LIVE.
Mernda History of the Area (Source Mernda Primary School Article)
Mernda was originally known as Morang until 1893. The name came from the Parish of Morang, which was named after an aboriginal word thought to mean cloud or sky. It was then known as South Yan Yean until it became known as Mernda in 1913 to distinguish the locality from the Yan Yean Reservoir. The name Mernda is derived from an aboriginal word thought to mean earth.
When Mernda was named in 1913 it had a school, a Methodist church, a store, a railway station and a mechanics institute. The institute was used as the Whittlesea shire council’s chambers until the 1920s. Mernda had several dairy farms for the metropolitan milk supply and a livestock sale yards operating beside the Bridge Inn, which had been built in 1841.
On the 21st February 1853 a meeting was held at Bridge Inn at the River Plenty to establish a National School.
Street Talk
(Information supplied by Whittlesea historian John Waghorn)
Spring Street, Thomastown.
Spring Street in Thomastown is shown and named on maps as early as 1865 having been created by the Thomas family (after whom Thomastown received its name) as an access road. It also allowed the family to lease or gradually sell off portions of their land.
More importantly, it accessed a fresh water spring on what is now called Edgars Creek. This spring probably prompted the Thomas family to buy the land originally in January 1853 as a good water supply was a decided asset for their market gardens on the banks of the creek.
Harvest Home Road, Epping North.
This road in Epping North is named after the old Harvest Home Hotel, a bluestone hotel built in 1869 by German immigrant Henry Ludeman who arrived in Victoria in 1854.
After the hotel closed in 1909, the building was used as a small store then a private house before it was abandoned and became derelict.
In January, 2005, the foundations of the old hotel were exposed during roadwork but all traces have since disappeared.