Locksley is a town in northern

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 town is located on the Longwood - Avenel Road (former

Hume Highway Hume Highway, inclusive of the sections now known as Hume Freeway and Hume Motorway, is one of Australia's major inter-city national highways, running for between Melbourne in the southwest and Sydney in the northeast. Upgrading of the route ...

in the

Shire of Strathbogie The Shire of Strathbogie is a local government area in the Hume region of Victoria, Australia, located in the north-east part of the state. It covers an area of and in June 2018 had a population of 10,645. It includes the towns of Avenel, Eur ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

, from the state capital,

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

). Locksley and the surrounding area have a population of 110. The town was originally called Burnt Creek and takes its name from Tennyson's Poem '

Locksley Hall "Locksley Hall" is a poem written by Alfred Tennyson in 1835 and published in his 1842 collection of ''Poems''. It narrates the emotions of a rejected suitor upon coming to his childhood home, an apparently fictional Locksley Hall, though in fac ...

History

Locksley was initially part of Henry Kent Hughes' Avenel pastoral station, taken up in the 1830s and early settlement occurred along Burnt Creek and the hills of Teneriffe. A

Cobb & Co Cobb & Co was the name used by many successful sometimes quite independent Australian coaching businesses. The first was established in 1853 by American Freeman Cobb and his partners. The name Cobb & Co grew to great prominence in the late 19th ...

coach service along the Sydney to Melbourne road was established with a horse changing station at Barlow's Lagoon, about a mile from Locksley. The Locksley railway station opened in 1882 as Burnt Creek, (changing its name the following year as there was another station of that name in Victoria), with sidings serving up to five sawmills, which were supplying fire wood to Melbourne, and a local hall was built in 1887. In the summer of 1901 a large bush fire started near Locksley which resulted in destruction of many properties and in the following autumn and winter, severe soil erosion was caused in many of the creeks. A post office opened on 1 May 1886, and briefly operated from the Railway station from 1910 to 1914, but closed on 29 September 1973. A butter factory operated for a short while but was closed down and finally sold for removal in 1899. The Locksley School (No 2648) opened in 1884, originally known as Monea North. The school closed for three weeks in 1899 due to a measles epidemic. It also experienced tragedy in 1898, when the 6-year-old son of Mr. J. H. Sharp died following being struck in the head by a makeshift see-saw.

Today

There are only a few buildings in the town today, with the station and school having closed in the 1970s. Locksley has a CFA rural Fire Brigade. Locksley Bushland Reserve has the southernmost occurrence of the rare plant ''Brachyscome muelleroides'' (Mueller Daisy).Alicia Lucas, 2010, National Recovery Plan for the Mueller Daisy Brachyscome muelleroides
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References

External links

{{authority control Towns in Victoria (Australia) Shire of Strathbogie