Gordon, Victoria
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Gordon is a town in 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 ...
, named after settler George Gordon. The town is located on the Old Melbourne Road in the
Shire of Moorabool The Shire of Moorabool is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the western part of the state. It covers an area of and, in June 2018, had a population of 34,158. It includes the towns of Ballan, Bacchus Marsh, Balliang, ...
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 federated state, state, province, division (politica ...
, west of the state capital,
Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
. At the , Gordon had a population of 1,393.


History

George Gordon settled the area in 1838 with a 30,000 acre stock farming run which was known to outsiders as "Gordons". During the
Victorian gold rush The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia, approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony and an influx of population growth and financial capi ...
it prospered due to being at the main road junction to the nearby goldfields of All Nation's Gully and Mount Egerton. Gold was discovered in the district in 1853 including around the town itself and several
gold mining Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from Alluvium, alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to mor ...
operations continued extracting in the subsequent decades. The fledgling town had many
Irish Australian Irish Australians () are ‌‍‍‍‍residents of Australia who are either fully or partially of Irish people, Irish descent. Irish immigrants and their descendants have had a prominent presence in Australian society since the First Fle ...
settlers and those not involved in mining or commerce took up agriculture, notably
potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...
farming. The local
Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
opened on 1 July 1858 and was known as Gordon's until 1887. At the peak of its boom, the town had as many as eight hotels, with banks and several stores. The local railway station on the Melbourne - Ballarat railway opened in 1879 and closed in 1981. With the cessation of commercial mining in 1910, the town began to decline. The railway was closed in 1981 and the Western Freeway was built, bypassing the township. Since the 1990s, Gordon has experienced a revival due to the tree change phenomenon with its large semi-rural blocks, quiet rural aspect and driving proximity to Ballan,
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 ...
and the railway to Melbourne. House and Land prices have soared during recent years, leading to Gordon being named in the top five of the ''Bulletproof suburbs'' nationwide in a recent study of real estate values.


Heritage listed sites

Gordon contains a number of heritage listed sites, including: * Gordon-Egerton Road, Gordon railway station * Portland Flat Road, Portland Flat Road Bridge


Geography and township

Gordon is situated on the undulating foothills of the Paddock Creek valley. The valley contains a reservoir and public park, and there are a number of walking and jogging paths through this area. The commercial area is situated along Main Street (Old Melbourne Road) and consists of a single hotel with accommodation,
general store A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...
, a licensed cafe, pharmacy, gift store, hat shop, post office/store as well as several heritage buildings including St Patrick's Church and others adapted for residential purposes including a bank and an old store. There are also a number of tourist-oriented ventures operating within the township. The township is also serviced by a small government primary school, a small Roman Catholic primary school, a police station, and a community hall. The town is laid out in
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 ...
with a network of wide
single carriageway A single carriageway (British English) is a road with one, two or more lanes arranged within a one carriageway with no central reservation, central reservation/median strip to separate opposing flows of traffic. A single-track road is a type of ...
streets interrupted only by the topography including the curve of the creek and the peaks of the surrounding hills. This geography also defines the location and provision of sewerage network to the township provided Central Highlands Water in which properties are added to the reticulated service, and those that have septic or treatment plants. The cemetery is located on the eastern edge of township, and contains the relocated remains of the original cemetery that was initially located at the western edge of the town. Internet connectivity is provided from the shared Gordon-Egerton ADSL2+ enabled Telstra exchange, and wirelessly by the National Broadband Network from either the Springbank and Mount Egerton towers. The northern and western outskirts of town near the Western Freeway are forested with bush and
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.


Transport

Gordon is an automobile dependent community. The Western Highway passes through Gordon and, though bypassing the centre of town, it provides a connection to the major cities of Melbourne and Ballarat. The Old Western Highway connects the town to the highway via
road interchange In the field of road transport, an interchange (American English) or a grade-separated junction (British English) is a road junction that uses grade separations to allow for the movement of traffic between two or more roadways or highways, using ...
s directly to the north and via Wallace further to the east. The Old Melbourne Road continues to provide an alternative route to both Ballarat to the west and Ballan to the east. The Gordon-Edgerton Road provides a direct connection to Mount Egerton to the south. The only public transport is a
bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...
link connecting Gordon to both Ballarat and Ballan, these services only operate once in the morning and once in the evening. It is approximately a $10AUD taxi fare (5 minutes) to the nearest train station Ballan. Since the success of the Regional fast rail project, the local community lobbied for the reopening of its station or improved access to Ballan Station. To date, however, their efforts have been unsuccessful. A bus route has since been introduced to counteract this problem with several buses running at intervals throughout the day to local towns including Ballarat and Ballan.


Culture and sport

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...
is the most popular participation and spectator sport. The Gordon Football and Netball Club (known as the Eagles and formed in 1979) plays out of the Gordon Recreational Reserve on Old Melbourne Road at the east of town and compete in the
Central Highlands Football League The Central Highlands Football Netball League is an Australian Rules Football & Netball League in the Ballarat, Victoria, Ballarat region. The league coordinates Senior, Reserve, Under 18, Under 15 and Under 12 grades. History ;Central Highla ...
. The football is men's and mixed sex junior teams, with the club's only senior football premiership being in 1988 and has both junior and senior teams; and the netball teams being women's and girls teams. Plans are currently underway to construct a new sporting complex to service the town which will also allow a broader range of sporting and recreation activities. Spudfest, held annually since 2009, was inspired by the success of a similar festival in Trentham. It is a festival celebrating the town's history and culture with such events as potato peeling competitions, spud and spoon races and spud golf. Fishing is another popular attraction to the town, with many waterways providing ideal breeding locations for trout and other species.


References


External links


Gordon community website
{{authority control Towns in Victoria (state)