Lyneham () is a suburb of
Canberra
Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...
,
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 ...
in the
North Canberra
North Canberra, or the Inner North, is a subdivision of Canberra Central in the Australian Capital Territory in Australia. Comprising 14 suburbs. At the , it had 26,699 dwellings housing 61,188 people of the 453,324 people in the Australian Capi ...
district. It is named after Sir
William Lyne
Sir William John Lyne Order of St Michael and St George, KCMG (6 April 1844 – 3 August 1913) was an Australian politician who served as Premier of New South Wales from 1899 to 1901, and later as a federal cabinet minister under Edmund Barton ...
, premier of
New South Wales
New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...
from 1899 to 1901. The suburb name was gazetted in 1928, but development did not commence until 1958. The streets of Lyneham are named after artists and people associated with the development of early Canberra.
Points of interest
Lyneham has many attractions including nature parks and bushland, proximity to the centre of Canberra, the
Old Canberra Inn (the earliest licensed pub in Canberra),
Tilley's Devine Cafe and Gallery, and a number of sporting facilities. Also located in Lyneham is
Exhibition Park in Canberra
Exhibition Park in Canberra (EPIC) is a 70 hectare showground and multi-building venue for exhibitions, conferences, and events located in the suburb of Lyneham, Australian Capital Territory, Lyneham (though commonly listed in the adjacent Mit ...
(EPIC), which annually hosts Australia's best known car festival,
Summernats, the
Royal Canberra Show and the
National Folk Festival.
St Ninian's Uniting Church in Brigalow Street is the second-oldest church in Canberra, opened in 1873. It was founded as a Presbyterian Church by the Scottish community, many of whom had come to the area as shepherds. It has been heritage-listed by the ACT Heritage Council. The Sakyamuni Buddhist Centre, also known as Van Hanh Temple is a large Vietnamese Buddhist temple located on Archibald St.
Character
The style of the suburb has been evolving since development commenced in 1958 at the north-western periphery of what is now 'inner' Canberra. The older homes built in 1958-59 (many of which catered to the sizeable influx of Commonwealth Public Servants' families, who were being relocated with their respective Departments' headquarters from Melbourne), now sit beside modern townhouse developments, while individual blocks are being 'gentrified' by either extensive renovation or demolition and rebuilt homes. Having mainly been substantially established since the 1960s, Lyneham residents enjoy its leafy streets and established gardens. A scenic wetland was built adjacent to
Sullivans Creek in Lyneham to improve downstream water quality. It was opened to the public in April 2012 and it is frequented by
wood ducks.
Many of the single houses between Sullivans Creek and
Northbourne Avenue
Northbourne Avenue is a major road in Canberra, Australia. It extends from City Hill in the south, to the Federal Highway in the north.
It is a north–south running road which has three lanes for motorised traffic, and one lane for bicycl ...
have been replaced by two and three-storey flats in recent years. Land adjoining Northbourne Avenue is now zoned to permit redevelopment with 25-metre (about 8 storeys) high flats or 32 metres (about 11 storeys) at the corners of Mouat Street and Macarthur Avenue with Northbourne Avenue and the first such flats were completed on the site of a two-storey motel on the corner of Northbourne Ave and Mouat St in 2013.
North Lyneham
The residential part of Lyneham built to the north of
Ginninderra Drive having been developed in the mid to late 1980s was a relatively recent addition to the original suburban homes of 1960s' Lyneham. The original residences on "old" Lyneham, contained within the area bounded by Wattle, Dryandra, Archibald and Mouat Streets and Northbourne Avenue mainly date back to the late 1950s. North Lyneham's main feeder road, Cossington Smith Crescent, loops through the area with other streets coming off it. North Lyneham also has a small shopping centre housing shops, a couple of restaurants and a number of small businesses. North Lyneham backs onto a bush reserve which separates it from the Belconnnen suburb of
Kaleen
Kaleen ( or ) is a suburb in the Belconnen district of Canberra, located within the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. The suburb's name is derived from the word for 'water' in the language of the Wiradjuri Aboriginal tribe of the Centr ...
. The walking trails in the reserve are popular with the local residents and provide scenic views of the inner northern suburbs of Canberra to the east and south and
Belconnen
Belconnen () is a Lands administrative divisions of Australia#Australian Capital Territory, district in the Australian Capital Territory in Australia. The district is subdivided into 27 divisions (suburbs), sections and blocks. As at the , the ...
and the
Brindabella Ranges
The Brindabella Range, commonly called The Brindabellas or The Brindies, is a mountain range located in Australia, on a state and territory border of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The range rises to the west of C ...
to the west.
File:Lyneham, the Pines.JPG, The Pines, townhouses built in the 1980s
File:North Lyneham, the Sanctuary 2.JPG, Town houses in the Sanctuary, north Lyneham
File:Lyneham high rise 2.JPG, First high-rise flats in Mouat St
File:Lyneham Flats.jpg, Lyneham Flats on Northbourne Avenue
File:Lyneham Wetlands.jpg, Lyneham Wetlands facing southward at night
Demographics
In the , the population of Lyneham was 5,703, including 69 (1.2%) Indigenous persons and 3,517 (61.7%) Australian-born persons. Only 26.8% (36.5% in 2011
) of dwellings were separate houses (compared to the Australian average of 72.3%), while 35.9% were semi-detached, row or terrace houses (Australian average: 12.7%) and 36.6% (24.0% in 2011
) were flats, units or apartments (Australian average: 14.2%).
37.9% of the population were professionals, compared to the Australian average of 24.0%. Notably 18.3% worked in government administration, compared to the Australian average of 1.1%, although the ACT-wide average is a very similar 17.1%. Lyneham is favoured by students and young adults with 34.5% of its population in the 20- to 34-year-old age group (compared to the Australian average of 20.5%).
The suburb has few children under 15: 11.4%, compared to 18.2% Australia-wide.
37.9% of the dwellings are occupied by single person households, compared to the Australian average of 25.6%.
51.6% of the population had no religion, while 12.4% were Catholic, 7.0% not stated, 5.9% Anglican and 4.6% Buddhist.
Politics
Lyneham is located within the federal
electorate
Electorate may refer to:
* The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate''
* The dominion of a prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806
* An electoral district
...
of
Canberra
Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...
and it is represented by
Alicia Payne
Alicia Emma Payne (born 24 July 1982) is an Australian politician who has been a member of the House of Representatives (Australia), House of Representatives since the 2019 Australian federal election, 2019 federal election. She is a member of th ...
for the
Labor Party. In the
ACT Legislative Assembly, Lyneham is part of the
electorate of Kurrajong, which elects five members on the basis of proportional representation, two Labor, one
Green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...
, one
Liberal and one
Independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States
* Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
. Polling place statistics are shown to the right for the ''Lyneham'' polling place at Lyneham Primary School in the
2025 federal[ and 2024 ACT] elections. The ''Lyneham East'' polling place was also established at Lyneham High School for the 2025 election.
Education
Lyneham is home to Lyneham High School, Lyneham Primary School and Brindabella Christian College Lyneham Campus.
Transport
Lyneham is served by five light rail stops: Macarthur Avenue, Dickson Interchange, Swinden Street, Phillip Avenue and EPIC and Racecourse. The first four are located on its eastern edge and only the first two are near the residential areas of Lyneham. It is also served by buses
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 ...
on routes R9, 30, 31, 50 and 51. The Sullivans Creek shared path traverses the suburb and is a busy commuter cycling route.
Sport
Sports facilities within Lyneham include the National Hockey Centre, Thoroughbred Park (Canberra Racecourse), the ACT Netball Centre and Yowani Country Club.
Geology
Silurian
The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the third and shortest period of t ...
calcareous shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...
s from the Canberra Formation is overlain by Quaternary alluvium.
This rock is the limestone
Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
of the original title of Canberra "Limestone Plains".
Greywacke
Greywacke or graywacke ( ) is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness (6–7 on Mohs scale), dark color, and Sorting (sediment), poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or sand-size Lith ...
from the Ordovician
The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...
age Pittman Formation is in the north west.[Henderson G A M and Matveev G, Geology of Canberra, Queanbeyan and Environs 1:50000 1980.]
Notes
External links and references
*
*
{{North Canberra Suburbs
Suburbs of Canberra