Burwood was ‘the bush’. Now it’s a university hub with towers to come

When Tom and Dorothy Thorpe moved to Burwood in 1953, there were farms all around, wandering cows and no sewers. Dogs could be heard barking during feeding time at the nearby RSPCA. The newlyweds could see Gardiner’s Creek, which had a pony club, and the towers on Mount Dandenong.

“There was land for sale, and it looked like a nice country area,” says Tom, who is now aged 98. “People said, ‘Why are you moving out to the bush?’ But now it’s far from bush.”

Grocers, greengrocers, milkmen and bakers delivered to their home on Melbourne’s eastern fringe. In 1954, the couple attended the opening of Australia’s first drive-in, the Burwood Drive-In Theatre, in a borrowed car.

Their four children grew, and so did their suburb. Tom and Dorothy attended the last session at Burwood Drive-In Theatre in their own car, in 1983. The 75 tram line along Burwood Highway eventually became the longest tram line in the world. Tom became mayor of Box Hill three times.

After 71 years, Tom and Dorothy believe they have lived in Burwood longer than just about anyone else.

“We built the house we wanted,” says Tom. “School was around the corner [Burwood Primary School] and we were active there. And then the high school was built up the road, which was handy, and the teachers’ college just up the road. They’ve all gone, of course.”

Dorothy says their children loved growing up in Burwood in the 1950s and ’60s, as they had plenty of friends nearby. “They say, ‘Thank you so much for the lovely experience of growing up,’” she says.

The young families of Burwood have largely been replaced by university students. “There are places with students in them dotted around all over the place,” she says. “There aren’t the young families now that there used to be.”

Tom wishes Burwood had kept more of its country charm. He’s not a fan of Deakin University’s expansion – it sits on the former sites of Burwood Secondary College, Burwood Teachers’ College and Bennettswood Primary School. And he doesn’t support government plans to build an underground train station in Burwood as part of the Suburban Rail Loop.

Under the project, buildings between five and 20 storeys will be allowed around the new station. Work has already begun in Burwood, although the station is not scheduled to open until 2035.

“The whole area will change again, for the worse, I think,” he says. “It won’t worry us, of course; we won’t be around. But it’s changing the whole landscape.”

Young, ethnically diverse and educated

Conservative, religious, culturally homogenous, rough in parts. Burwood was all these things in the past, say people who know it intimately. Not anymore. Official data shows Burwood is now young, ethnically diverse, educated and atheist.

Burwood has lower-than-usual numbers of preschool and primary school-aged kids but large numbers of young adults, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show. The median age of Burwood residents is 34, four years younger than the median Australian. These young people are drawn to Deakin University, which has 27,372 students and about 1500 staff at its Burwood campus.

One quarter of Burwood residents have Chinese ancestry, compared with 5.5 per cent nationwide. The next most common backgrounds are English, Australian, Irish and Indian.

Burwood residents have high levels of educational attainment: 42.3 per cent have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 26.3 per cent nationally. Religion has also declined. Two in five residents describe themselves as having no religion, up from 17 per cent two decades ago.

Current state MP Paul Hamer went to school in Burwood and says demographic change was inevitable given the suburb’s proximity to the city, jobs, transport and educational facilities.

In addition to Deakin, Burwood is home to Mount Scopus Memorial College and Presbyterian Ladies’ College (PLC), two of the state’s most expensive schools.

Chloe Yue left Hong Kong two years ago to board at PLC’s 15-hectare campus, where 68 per cent of students have a language background other than English. Chloe had some familiarity with Melbourne: she had been to Australia twice and her mother had studied at Monash.

“I felt like boarding would be a unique experience for me, especially because Hong Kong didn’t have too much to offer me,” says Chloe, who is now in year 11. “I found it a smooth transition.”

Chloe is one of about 80 boarders at the school, most of whom are from China and Hong Kong. After school they play sport, have dinner together, do homework, go out and have activities such as pizza nights.

So, what is Chloe’s impression of Burwood? It’s quiet, aside from the dinging sound of trams and cawing birds. It’s easy to get to the city on the 75 tram. And she likes eating at restaurants on Burwood Highway.

From Ballyshannassy to Suburban Rail Loop

It’s hard to believe now, looking at Box Hill’s skyscrapers, but there was a time when sleepy Burwood rivalled Box Hill.

From 1858, Burwood was known as the village of Ballyshannassy, after John O’Shanassy, who had campaigned for separation from NSW and became Victoria’s second premier. Ballyshannassy had a cemetery, police station and one of Victoria’s oldest public schools, which was eventually known as Burwood Primary School.

“In its heyday, Ballyshanassy rivalled Box Hill in importance and could have become the seat of local government,” the local Burwood Bulletin newspaper reported.

“In 1874 Nunawading Council resolved to change its name to Norwood but that never happened and five years later residents still complained about it. When Burwood was gazetted on 9 May 1879, Ballyshanassy disappeared into history.”

Ballyshannassy is no longer, and parts of Burwood disappeared 24 years ago when streets west of Warrigal Road changed names in exchange for higher property prices. Burwood train station, Burwood Reserve and Burwood Tennis Club? They are now in Glen Iris. Burwood Cellars and Burwood Junction Dental Group are in Camberwell.

Even the electoral district of Burwood has disappeared. The suburb is now covered by the seats of Box Hill (held by Labor’s Paul Hamer) and Ashwood (held by Labor’s Matt Fregon).

But Burwood has had moments in the spotlight. Then local Liberal member Jeff Kennett was state premier from 1992 and 1999. The man who replaced him, Bob Stensholt, introduces himself as “Burwood Bob” on the phone.

His 1999 campaign was led by a young Daniel Andrews – yes, that Daniel Andrews – and focused on health, education and public safety. “Actually, what we campaigned on was very modest, compared to these days when people say a billion dollars here or there,” he says.

There’s nothing modest about the Suburban Rail Loop, a 90-kilometre orbital rail loop linking Cheltenham in Melbourne’s south-east to Werribee in the south-west via Melbourne Airport. The 26-kilometre Cheltenham to Box Hill part, which includes Burwood station opposite Deakin, has a price tag of $32.8 billion. Opposition Leader John Pesutto has reserved the right to scrap the project if elected in 2026.

The Deakin factor

International politics expert Damien Kingsbury was there when Deakin bought its Burwood campus and left full-time academic work when the campus was at its peak, just before COVID. He says Burwood Deakin has evolved from feeling like a high school to being a fit-for-purpose campus with healthy numbers of international students. “Burwood has life of its own and a number of its facilities stay open in the evening,” he says.

But Kingsbury says public transport has always been a challenge for Deakin, despite the 75 and 70 tram routes, regular buses from Box Hill, and the 903 bus. The 903 is one of the largest urban bus routes in the southern hemisphere and travels 86 kilometres from Mordialloc to Altona – not dissimilar to the Suburban Rail Loop’s planned route.

Hamer was a civil engineer with expertise in public transport before entering parliament. He says the mega-project is not just a win for Deakin, which is “unrecognisable” from its humble beginnings, but for the area.

Under the radar

While education has become increasingly important in Burwood, not all schools have survived the test of time. In 2020, Catholic primary school St Benedict’s shut down after 79 years, due to declining enrolments. Mount Scopus, which has more than 1200 students, plans to move from Burwood to Caulfield in the coming years.

Burwood Primary, Burwood High, Bennettswood Primary, Wattle Park High, Burwood Teachers’ College – they have all been and gone. So have infant and child institutions Burwood Children’s Home and Allambie Reception Centre.

Wattle Park Primary has survived and is now a multicultural success story, says veteran teacher Annmaria Antonino. She says Burwood remains a hidden gem. “People say, ‘That’s where the Kmart is.’ But that’s Burwood East.”

Burwood was a little rough in parts when Leigh and Robin Pitt arrived more than 50 years ago. “Somers Street is the dividing part between the west side and the east side and always has been. When we first moved here, you wouldn’t walk through Faelen Street,” says Leigh.

Nowadays, the area near Wattle Park is labelled the “Paris end” of Burwood by real estate agents, who have done brisk trade selling original homes and rebuilds to education-focused buyers.

Dr Susan Schlicht, who has operated in Burwood for 37 years, has noticed significant changes in Burwood as residents have aged, and big business dominated and withdrew services.

“We had a small public hospital, Burwood Hospital, on the corner of Warrigal and Highwood roads. Before my time, they used to deliver babies there. The site is now an aged care home. There were a number of small private hospitals in the area as well. All of these are now aged care homes,” she says.

“A lot of the pharmacies have disappeared or become corporatised. There are now big type medical clinics dotted around. When I started, there was only five or so solo or small GP practices in the area.”

“Unfortunately, almost all the banks have gone and so has the post office, which has really reduced the amenities and made it much harder for the older residents.”

Burwood’s green lungs

It’s a chilly Saturday morning, and five members of the Friends of Wattle Park are ready to weed, plant and beautify Burwood’s most-loved green space.

Retired teacher and Friends of Wattle Park treasurer Euan Walmsley will plant a bush shrub to help native birds, whose numbers have fallen dramatically across the country.

The 41-hectare park feels not of this time and far from the city. Walmsley says he joined the Friends of Wattle Park at its inception in 1992 to fight plans to install an “American playground” and charge people for a “whizzy, exciting” time.

“A free park is better,” he says.

The park, on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country, 12 kilometres from town, was purchased by the Hawthorn Tramways Trust in 1915, becoming Australia’s only park owned and operated by a transport authority.

Now run by Parks Victoria, Wattle Park is the quiet heart of Burwood. Here, birdwatching ‘twitchers’ seek out tawny frogmouths and black cockatoos, while preschoolers build forts and climb trees during bush kinder.

The Basketweavers of Victoria operates out of an old cottage, as history buffs reflect by a tree planted 91 years ago from a seedling collected from the Lone Pine at Gallipoli.

The Melbourne Tramways Band still plays regularly inside the park, near two old trams that are regularly vandalised and sometimes set alight.

“The trams are a great puzzle because for the last 30, 40 years, every few months someone finds a new method of damaging them, including the fire down there.

“How do you think about curtailing that kind of wanton stupidity?” Walmsley laughs.

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