Wattle Grove is a suburb of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Western Australia, located within the City of Kalamunda.

Description

Wattle Grove is approximately 2/3 semi-rural, and 1/3 suburban development. It contains some of Hartfield Park, and extends from Crystal Brook Road to

Roe Highway Roe Highway is a limited-access highway and partial freeway in Perth, Western Australia, linking Kewdale with the city's north-eastern and south-western suburbs. The northern terminus is at Reid Highway and Great Northern Highway in Middle S ...

. Major transport routes through the suburb are

Welshpool Road Welshpool Road is a major arterial road running through the metropolitan area of Perth, Western Australia. Although the road is now split in two, having had its western and eastern sections disconnected due to the extension of Roe Highway, it r ...

, Hale Road,

Tonkin Highway Tonkin Highway is an north–south highway and partial freeway in Perth, Western Australia, linking Perth Airport and Kewdale with the city's north-eastern and south-eastern suburbs. As of April 2020, the northern terminus is at the intercha ...

and Roe Highway.

Public transport

Bus routes A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

are: * 294 to Midland Train Station or to Cannington Train Station via Hale Road * 282 to and from Lesmurdie and the

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

via Welshpool Road * 283 to and from Kalamunda and the

via Crystal Brook Road The nearest train stations are: * Kenwick railway station on the

Armadale line The Armadale line is a suburban rail service in Western Australia that runs from Perth to Armadale on the South Western Railway. This service is planned to extend to the suburb of Byford over an new railway line constructed as part of the By ...

Beckenham railway station Beckenham Station is a railway station on the Australian Transperth network in Western Australia. It is located on the Armadale/Thornlie Line, Armadale Line, from Perth railway station, Perth Station serving the suburb of Beckenham, Western Au ...

on the Armadale line *

Cannington railway station Cannington Station is a railway station serving the suburb of Cannington south of Perth, Western Australia. It is located from Perth Station on the Armadale/Thornlie Line, part of the Transperth network. History The original Cannington stati ...

on the Armadale line

Facilities

Playgrounds are located throughout the new subdivisions in the suburb, as well as walking and bike paths leading to newly created artificial lakes. Wattle Grove is served by Wattle Grove Primary School, and a Community

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE (), is the common name in English-speaking countries in Oceania for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational cours ...

Centre in Lewis Road and the Bible College of Western Australia (private). The primary school built on the area bordered by St John Road, Tomah Road, and Acastus Road opened to students in 2011. The previous primary school on Welshpool Road was mothballed with no alternative usage envisioned. Hartfield Recreation Centre, located nearby, provides gymnasium facilities as well as opportunities for playing rugby league, soccer, baseball, cricket and tennis. Hartfield Park also contains the Darling Range Horse and Pony Club, the Hartfield Country Club (golf course), boy scouts, and car club rooms. Wattle Grove is well connected to other regions of Perth due to its proximity to the Roe Highway and Tonkin Highway. The most direct route to the

Perth central business district Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is p ...

is via Welshpool and

Shepperton Road Shepperton Road is a single carriageway four lane road in Perth, Western Australia. Counterintuitively, the road provides a higher-capacity alternative for the northernmost section of Albany Highway due to the latter forming the high street o ...

s (12 km all in 60 km/h zones), however alternative routes are available via

Orrong Road Orrong Road is a major arterial road servicing the metropolitan area of Perth, Western Australia as well as the south-eastern continuation of the Graham Farmer Freeway. It is a dual carriageway for its entire length, with multiple sets of traffic ...

Graham Farmer Freeway Graham Farmer Freeway is a inner-city freeway in Perth, Western Australia. It links Rivervale and Burswood with West Perth and Leederville, providing an east-west bypass of Perth's central business district. The freeway, in conjunction wi ...

(14 km in 70 & 80 km/h zones), Tonkin Highway /

Great Eastern Highway Great Eastern Highway is a road that links the Western Australian capital of Perth with the city of Kalgoorlie. A key route for road vehicles accessing the eastern Wheatbelt and the Goldfields, it is the western portion of the main road link ...

(18 km in 100 & 60 km/h zones), and Roe Highway /

Kwinana Freeway The Kwinana Freeway is a freeway in and beyond the southern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia, linking central Perth with Mandurah to the south. It is the central section of State Route 2, which continues north as Mitchell Freeway to Cl ...

(23 km all in 100 km/h zone and the only route without traffic lights). Wattle Grove has one major retail facility within its boundaries, containing

Aldi Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when t ...

7-Eleven 7-Eleven, Inc., stylized as 7-ELEVE, is a multinational chain of retail convenience stores, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The chain was founded in 1927 as an ice house storefront in Dallas. It was named Tote'm Stores between 1928 and 1946. A ...

and various other stores e.g. a bakery, a sushi shop and a gym. It has two vets, a motel, a number of nurseries, landscape suppliers, agistment paddocks, boarding kennels and a bird, fish and reptile shop. The nearest police station is at Forrestfield, and public hospitals are available at

Bentley Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded as Bentley Motors Limited by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Cricklewood, North ...

and Kalamunda.

History

Prior to European settlement the Beeloo

Whadjuk Whadjuk, alternatively Witjari, are Noongar (Aboriginal Australian) people of the Western Australian region of the Perth bioregion of the Swan Coastal Plain. Name The ethnonym appears to derive from ''whad'', the Whadjuk word for "no". Countr ...

people occupied much of Wattle Grove. In 1827 the colonial botanist Charles Fraser and Captain James Stirling explored the region to evaluate its suitability for farming. Initially the area was used for forestry and orchards; fruit growing continues to be one of the major industries in Wattle Grove,

Bickley Bickley is a district and a local government electoral ward in South East London, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is located 10.4 miles (16.7 km) south east of Charing Cross, bordering Elmstead, London, Elmstead to the north, Chis ...

and

Orange Grove Orange Grove may refer to: General *An orchard of cultivated orange trees, in the United States often called an orange grove Places and buildings Australia * Orange Grove, New South Wales * Orange Grove, Western Australia South Africa * Orange ...

today. This suburb name may have come from a property that was in the area around 1920, or the name may have come about in the early 1900s from wattle trees that lined Welshpool Road; the district was described by the European settlers as "where the groves of wattle are". Much of Wattle Grove has developed into other agricultural uses such as poultry farms, equestrian studs, agistment paddocks, horticultural nurseries, pet kennels, hobby farms and cattle breeders. 20 residents of Wattle Grove were killed in action during World War One (1914–1918), 5 of whom were from the one family.

Notable people

David Birnie David John Birnie (16 February 1951 – 7 October 2005) and Catherine Margaret Birnie ( née Harrison; born 23 May 1951) were an Australian couple from Perth, Western Australia, who murdered four women at their home in 1986, and attempted to m ...

, serial killer

Recent events

After a concerted campaign was lost during the 1980s by the Save our Foothills action group a quarter of the suburb bounded by Welshpool Road, Tonkin Highway and Roe Highway has been rezoned as "urban development" by what was then the

Shire of Kalamunda The City of Kalamunda is a local government area in the eastern metropolitan region of the Western Australian capital city of Perth about east of Perth's central business district. The area covers , much of which is state forest rising into ...

and is known as "cell 9" in the Kalamunda Shire Plans. This area of Wattle Grove is now a hive of activity as land is subdivided and houses built. The price of land in cell 9 has subsequently risen exponentially since the first subdivision in 1999.

References

{{City of Kalamunda suburbs Suburbs of Perth, Western Australia Suburbs in the City of Kalamunda