Alfredton is a suburb of

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...

, Victoria,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, west of the CBD. The population at the was 11,822 making it the most populated in the Ballarat urban area. Alfredton is located west of

Lake Wendouree Lake Wendouree () is an artificial lake, artificially created and maintained shallow urban lake located adjacent to the Lake Wendouree, Victoria, suburb of the same name in the city of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The name Wendouree comes fro ...

along Sturt Street. The suburb has some of Ballarat's best known landmarks, including the Arch of Victory and a World War I memorial which once marked the entrance to Ballarat and the start of Ballarat's Avenue of Honour. The Avenue of Honour is the longest war memorial roadside plantation in Australia, which extends 18 km to the Western Freeway. Originally part of Cardigan and known by that name, the present area was named in honour of

Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh Alfred (Alfred Ernest Albert; 6 August 184430 July 1900) was sovereign Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 22 August 1893 until his death in 1900. He was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He was known as the Du ...

following his visit to Ballarat in 1867. The artists and illustrators

Ambrose Ambrose of Milan (; 4 April 397), venerated as Saint Ambrose, was a theologian and statesman who served as Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397. He expressed himself prominently as a public figure, fiercely promoting Roman Christianity against Ari ...

and Will Dyson were born and lived in Alfredton as did their brother the journalist Edward Dyson. The Alfredton area is central to Western Ballarat's growth corridor, an area where suburban development is encouraged by the

City of Ballarat The City of Ballarat is a local government area in the west of the state of Victoria, Australia. It covers an area of and, in June 2023, had a population of 118,137. It is primarily urban with the vast majority of its population living in the ...

and

State Government of Victoria The Victoria State Government, also referred to as the Victorian Government, is the executive government of the Australian state of Victoria. As a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, the State Government was first formed in 1851 when Vic ...

. Most of urban Ballarat's

subdivision Subdivision may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Subdivision (metre), in music * ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009 * "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2) * ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005 * "Subdivisions" (song), by Rush ...

for new housing estates is happening in

greenfield land Greenfield land is a British English term referring to undeveloped land in an urban or rural area either used for agriculture or landscape design, or left to evolve naturally. These areas of land are usually agricultural or amenity properties ...

to the south, north and west of the Avenue of Honour. Large estates include ''Balymanus, Alfredton Central, The Chase'' and ''Insignia''.

History

The Post Office opened on 1 August 1868. However, there is currently no Post Office in Alfredton and the Alfredton PO Boxes were relocated to the neighbouring suburb of Lucas. Originally part of Cardigan and known by that name, the present area was named in honour of

following the royal visit to Ballarat in 1867.

Urban form and housing

While a small section of the original township and main roads are

grid plan In urban planning, the grid plan, grid street plan, or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid. Two inherent characteristics of the grid plan, frequent intersections and orthogon ...

, the majority of Alfredton's residential areas have been developed under the concepts of

street hierarchy The street hierarchy is an urban planning technique for laying out road networks that exclude automobile through-traffic from developed areas. It is conceived as a hierarchy of roads that embeds the link importance of each road type in the ne ...

with looped streets and culs-de-sac and almost all

single-family detached home A single-family detached home, also called a single-detached dwelling, single-family residence (SFR) or separate house is a free-standing residential building. It is defined in opposition to a multi-family residential dwelling. Definitions ...

s. As a result, while the suburban streets are quiet the main roads around Alfredton are particularly busy.

Transport

The main form of transport in Alfredton is the private

motor car A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one bil ...

and Alfredton can be classed as a car dependent suburb. Effort has been made by the Ballarat City Council over the years to provide a network of bicycle lanes on major roads, to encourage the use of bicycles; and to increase the safety of bicyclists. There are two different urban bus services servicing the suburb, both of which run regularly to the city. Route 10 is from Ballarat Station to Alfredton via Howitt Street and loops around Robertson Drive via Dyson Drive and Cuthberts Road. Route 26 is Ballarat Station to Alfredton via Sturt Street and Cuthberts Road. The suburb is serviced by Ballarat Taxis, a co-operative taxi network. The former Redan Junction railway line servicing the Ballarat Saleyards and the Redan industrial precinct previously bisected the suburb, but this line was closed in 1997. The line has since been completely lifted, though the reservation remains unoccupied, and is generally now used as a walking trail. The nearest railway station is

Wendouree Wendouree () is a large suburb on the north western rural-urban fringe of the city of Ballarat, in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. It is the second most populated suburb in the City of Ballarat with a total of 10,376 inhabitants at ...

3 km to the north.

Parks and open space

Golfers play at the course of the Ballarat Golf Club on Sturt Street in the suburb. A network of walking and cycling tracks begin at the R.J. Cameron Reserve (bordered by Learmonth Street to the east and Portsea Street to the south), and extends west, crossing the aforementioned Redan Junction railway line, through the Alfredton Recreational Reserve, and on until Dyson Drive in Lucas. More parks, playgrounds, and open spaces are being developed in some of the newer housing estates that are currently in different stages of being built (as of 2020).

References

{{Ballarat_suburbs Suburbs of Ballarat