Leonards Hill is a village located in the
Shire of Hepburn
The Shire of Hepburn is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the central part of the state. It covers an area of and, in the 2021 Census the shire had a population of 16,604.
It includes the towns of Clunes, Creswick, Da ...
,
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. At the , Leonards Hill had a population of 45.
South of
Daylesford on the
Ballan road, the town takes its name from timber splitter, W P Leonard who took up of land on the hill in the 1860s.
The village first started as a saw milling settlement satisfying the demand for timber required in the mining industry in the then nearby goldfields of Daylesford, Smeaton, Allendale, Creswick and Ballarat. By the 1860s, there were four sawmills operating in the area. At its height, the then much larger village, had a school, blacksmiths shop, bakery, hotel, butchers shop, several churches, 3 general stores and a post office, now all closed with little evidence remaining of their locations.
Leonards Hill was, until 1915, a part of the Shire of Mt Franklin which then merged with the nearby Shire of Glenlyon in that year. The Shire of Glenlyon itself was to merge with the Borough of Daylesford in 1966 to become the Shire of Daylesford and Glenlyon (which itself was forced to merge with several surrounding Shires into the Shire of Hepburn in 1995).
Leonards Hill Post Office opened on 1 January 1868 and closed in 1971.
The Leonards Hill railway station was a stage of the Daylesford to North Creswick line until services were withdrawn in July 1953. The rails remained in place until 1959 but no further scheduled trains ran on them.
The town was chosen as the location for the
Hepburn Wind Project
The Hepburn Wind Project is a wind farm built and owned by Hepburn Wind, a community co-operative, and supported by the Victorian Government. The location of the project is Leonards Hill, south of Daylesford, Victoria, north-west of Melbourne ...
.
References
External links
Towns in Victoria (state)
{{VictoriaAU-geo-stub