Glass Creek is a waterway flowing through the inner-eastern suburbs of

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 ...

. It is a minor tributary of the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, (Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stre ...

and now largely runs through a series of underground drains.

Etymology

The creek was named after

Hugh Glass Hugh Glass ( 1783 – 1833) was an American frontiersman, fur trapper, trader, hunter and explorer. He is best known for his story of survival and forgiveness after being left for dead by companions when he was mauled by a grizzly bear. No rec ...

, a land speculator in the early history of Melbourne, in 1844. It was originally referred to as Glass' Creek but the spelling gradually fell out of use in favour of the present-day Glass Creek.

Life

Glass Creek is known to have little other than plant-life as it is polluted. Within that, though there are some fish and crayfish including the

western mosquitofish The western Mosquitofish (''Gambusia affinis'') is a North American freshwater fish, also known commonly, if ambiguously, as simply Mosquitofish or by its generic name, ''Gambusia'', or by the common name gambezi. Its sister species, the easte ...

and the

Cherax ''Cherax'', commonly known as yabby/yabbies in Australia, is the most widespread genus of fully aquatic crayfish in the Southern Hemisphere. Various species of cherax may be found in both still and flowing bodies of freshwater across most of Au ...

(freshwater yabby).

Geography

Settlements

The creek passes through two eastern suburbs of Melbourne in the

City of Boroondara The City of Boroondara () is a local government area in Victoria, Australia. It is located in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. It was formed in June 1994 from the amalgamation of the Cities of Kew, Camberwell and Hawthorn. It has an area of . ...

: *

Kew East Kew East is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 8 km east from Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Boroondara Local government areas of Victori ...

Balwyn North Balwyn North, also known as North Balwyn, is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 10 km east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Cities of Boroondara and Whitehorse local government areas. Balwyn North recor ...

Parklands

Much of the former creek route is now open parkland: *Jacka Street Reserve * Gordon Barnard Reserve *

Hislop Park Hislop Park, also known as Hislop Reserve, is a park in the suburb of Balwyn North, Melbourne, Australia. It is situated between Balwyn Road and the North Balwyn Tennis Club in a portion of a valley through which the Glass Creek runs, now largel ...

* Macleay/Myrtle Park *Stradbroke Park * Hays Paddock *Kew Billabong Reserve

History

In the early

history of Melbourne The history of Melbourne details the city's growth from a fledgling settlement into a modern commercial and financial centre as Australia's second largest city, Melbourne, in the state of Victoria. Pre-European settlement The area around Port P ...

and during the indigenous settlement of the area, Glass Creek ran at-surface through what was then bushland. William Oswin is the first recorded owner of the land where Hays Paddock and Glass Creek flows into the Yarra on a property known as Kilby Farm. The first proposal to route the creek underground in its northern section was put forward by the

City of Kew The City of Kew was a local government area about east of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia, on the southeast bank of the Yarra River. The city covered an area of , and existed from 1860 until 1994. History Kew was first ...

town clerk, W.D.Birrell, in 1943, but the project was not pursued. The exact date of the rest of the creek's re-routing through the underground drainage system is unknown, but a

Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) was a public utility board in Melbourne, Australia, set up in 1891 to provide water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment functions for the city. In 1992, the MMBW was merged with a number of sm ...

map from the 1960s shows the creek entering the present-day drain near the southern entrance of Hays Paddock.

Route

The original route of the creek originated near Loma Linda Grove in Greythorn, the eastern part of Balwyn North. It flowed through present-day Jacka Street and Gordon Barnard Reserves, crossed Balwyn Road, through Hislop and Macleay/Myrtle Park, through the residential areas roughly following Maylands Avenue, through Stradbroke Park near present-day

Kew High School Kew High School is a co-educational school in suburban Melbourne for students in years 7–12. The school has an enrolment of approximately 1146 students from the suburbs of Kew, Balwyn North, Hawthorn, Ivanhoe, Kew East and Richmond. School g ...

, under High Street and along the present-day Glass Creek Trail before joining up to the current course near the southern entrance to Hays Paddock. Thence it flowed north-west into the Yarra River.