Big Hill is a coastal

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...

in the

Surf Coast Shire The Surf Coast Shire is a local government area in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia, located in the south-western part of the state. It covers an area of and in June 2018 had a population of 32,251. It includes the towns of A ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. The locality was first developed with the construction of the

Great Ocean Road The Great Ocean Road is an Australian National Heritage listed stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Allansford. Built by returned soldiers between 1919 and 1932 and dedicated t ...

over the eponymous hill in 1920-21, when 100 returned soldiers were employed cutting a road through the area. The Great Ocean Road Trust opened up a subdivision of 140 allotments named the "Big Hill Estate" in 1924 to raise funding for the continued construction of the road; while these were sold, a township never developed. A guest house, "Iluka", was built on the new road, but burned down in 1926. Nationally renowned landscape designer

Edna Walling Edna Margaret Walling (4 December 1896 – 8 August 1973) was one of Australia's most influential landscape designers. Early years and migration Walling was born in Yorkshire and grew up in the village of Bickleigh in Devon, England, seco ...

bought 12 acres of the Big Hill Estate in the late 1940s with a view to creating a village there, but decided that it would spoil the location, and built a home, "East Point", there instead. Walling moved to Queensland in 1967, and the house burned down in a bushfire the same year; the ruins are listed on the Surf Coast Shire heritage inventory. Big Hill today is a little-developed stretch of the Great Ocean Road, with much of the locality being within the

Great Otway National Park The Great Otway National Park is a national park located in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia. The national park is situated approximately southwest of Melbourne, in the Otway Ranges, a low coastal mountain range. It conta ...

. The

House at Big Hill The House at Big Hill, was completed in 2011, designed by Kerstin Thompson Architects. This project is located at Big Hill, Victoria (Surf Coast Shire), Big Hill, on the Great Ocean Road, near Lorne, Victoria, Lorne. It addresses the site and a ...

, which won numerous architecture awards, was built there in 2011. Although the Big Hill campsite is a popular camping destination in the area, it is formally in adjacent Lorne.

References

{{authority control Towns in Victoria (Australia) Surf Coast Shire Coastal towns in Victoria (Australia)