Peterborough () is a town on 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 ...

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, approximately three hours' drive from

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 ...

. The town is situated on land to the west side of the mouth of the Curdies River.

History

Aboriginal peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

occupied the area for thousands of years before European settlement. In 1845 Dr Daniel Curdie made the difficult journey from his homestead at Tandarook to follow the river to its mouth. He named the area Peterborough after his friend Dr Peter Reid of Richmond. The town was believed to have been founded when the schooner '' SS Schomberg'' was wrecked in the middle of the 19th century, though the town was not sufficiently populated to justify a post office until 10 April 1890. It has since become a fishing and holiday village. There are two public

tennis court A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the centre. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be u ...

s and beaches, and a nine-hole golf course at the Peterborough Golf Club on Schomberg Road. At the , Peterborough had a population of 178, which had grown to 247 at the 2016 census. The town is situated near

The Twelve Apostles The Twelve Apostles is a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of Port Campbell National Park, by the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia. Their proximity to one another has made the site a popular tourist attraction. Seven of the ...

and

London Arch London Arch (formerly London Bridge) is an offshore natural arch in the Port Campbell National Park, Australia. The arch is a significant tourist attraction along the Great Ocean Road near Port Campbell in Victoria. This stack was formed by ...

land formations, and is part of the

Shipwreck Coast The Shipwreck Coast of Victoria, Australia stretches from Cape Otway to Port Fairy, a distance of approximately 130 km. This coastline is accessible via the Great Ocean Road, and is home to the limestone formations called The Twelve Apos ...

. Many ships have been wrecked in the vicinity, due to

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

cliffs eroding away and leaving patches of harder rock concealed just under the waves quite a distance out to sea. This erosion continues, evidenced by the London Bridge formation collapsing in the early 1990s to form

. One of the most famous wrecks was the ''

Falls of Halladale ''Falls of Halladale'' was a four-masted iron-hulled barque, built at Greenock in Scotland in 1886 for the Falls Line of Glasgow. She was operated in the long-distance trades in bulk cargos. She was wrecked through negligence on 14 November 19 ...

'' which was wrecked in 1908 in thick fog, and became a tourist attraction for the next few years as it remained on the reef it was stuck on.

Traditional ownership

The formally recognised

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

for the area in which Peterborough sits are groups within the

Eastern Maar The Eastern Maar people are a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples whose traditional lands are in the south-western part of state of Victoria, Australia. It is a name adopted by a number of Aboriginal Victorian groups who identify as Maar, incl ...

people, who are represented by the

Eastern Maar Aboriginal Corporation The Eastern Maar people are a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples whose traditional lands are in the south-western part of state of Victoria, Australia. It is a name adopted by a number of Aboriginal Victorian groups who identify as Maar, incl ...

(EMAC).

Trivia

Former Australian Prime Minister

Malcolm Fraser John Malcolm Fraser (; 21 May 1930 – 20 March 2015) was an Australian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983, holding office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Fraser was raised on hi ...

owned a property in the town. Fraser was a keen fisherman.

References

External links

Towns in Victoria (Australia) Coastal towns in Victoria (Australia) {{VictoriaAU-geo-stub