Dartmoor is a rural township on the

Princes Highway Princes Highway is a major road in Australia, extending from Sydney via Melbourne to Adelaide through the states of New South Wales, Victoria (Australia), Victoria and South Australia. It has a length of (along Highway 1) or via the former ...

and the Glenelg River between Heywood and the

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

n border, in southwestern

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

. At the 2011 census, Dartmoor had a population of 263.

History

Before the township was established the location was known as Woodford Inn. The township was settled in the late 1850s, a post office opening on 1 April 1860. The town was serviced by the

Mount Gambier-Heywood railway line Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

, which ceased operation on 11 April 1995.

Traditional ownership

The formally recognised

traditional owners Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...

for the area in which Dartmoor sits are the

Gunditjmara The Gunditjmara or Gunditjamara, also known as Dhauwurd Wurrung, are an Aboriginal people of southwestern Victoria in Australia. They are the Traditional Owners of the areas now encompassing Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Woolsthorpe and Portland. ...

people. The Gunditjmara people are represented by the

Gunditj Mirring Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation The Gunditjmara or Gunditjamara, also known as Dhauwurd Wurrung, are an Aboriginal people of southwestern Victoria in Australia. They are the Traditional Owners of the areas now encompassing Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Woolsthorpe and Portland. T ...

Demographics

As of the 2016

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, 322 people resided in Dartmoor. The

median The median of a set of numbers is the value separating the higher half from the lower half of a Sample (statistics), data sample, a statistical population, population, or a probability distribution. For a data set, it may be thought of as the “ ...

age of persons in Dartmoor was 50 years. Children aged 0–14 years made up 15.0% of the population. People over the age of 65 years made up 24.3% of the population. There were slightly more males than females with 50.6% of the population male and 49.4% female. The average household size is 2.3 people per household. The average number of children per family for families with children is 2. 76.2% of people in Dartmoor were born in Australia. Of all persons living in Dartmoor, 0.9% (3 persons) were Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people. This is higher than for the state of Victoria (0.8%) and lower than the national average (2.8%). The most common ancestries in Dartmoor were Australian 34.4%, English 27.0%, Scottish 10.7%, Irish 6.4% and German 5.9%.

Today

The main industry in the area is the processing of

timber Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...

from the extensive

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

plantations. Dartmoor has a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

team playing in the South West District Football League. Golfers play at the Dartmoor Golf Club on Wapling Avenue.

Notable residents

Jeremy Cameron Jeremy Cameron (born 1 April 1993) is a professional footballer with the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He previously played for the Greater Western Sydney Giants from 2010 to 2020. Cameron has List of VFL/AFL p ...

, Australian rules footballerSydney Is Home Says Cameron
''GWS Giants official website'', 27 May 2014 *

References

External links

Towns in Victoria (state) Western District (Victoria) {{BarwonSouthWest-geo-stub