Niddrie is a suburb in

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

, north-west of Melbourne's

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...

, located within the

City of Moonee Valley The City of Moonee Valley is a Local government areas of Victoria, local government area located within the metropolitan area of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, on Wurundjeri, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country. It comprises th ...

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 ...

. Niddrie recorded a population of 5,901 at the 2021 census. Niddrie is bounded by the

Calder Freeway Calder Highway is a rural highway in Australia, linking Mildura and the Victoria/New South Wales border to Bendigo, in North Central Victoria. South of Bendigo, where the former highway has been upgraded to freeway-standard, Calder Freeway lin ...

to the north, Steele Creek to the west, Hoffmans Road to the east and Rosehill Road to the south.

History

Niddrie and the banks of the

Maribyrnong River The Maribyrnong River is a perennial river of the Port Phillip catchment, located in the northwestern suburbs of Melbourne, in the Australian state of Victoria. Course The Maribyrnong River draws its headwaters from near Mount Macedon within ...

were originally inhabited by the

Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Aboriginal peoples, Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language, Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of ...

clan of the

Kulin nation The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in the south of Australia - up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys - which shares Culture and Language. History Before British colonisation, the ...

. Between 1843 and 1851, the Scottish settler, Thomas Napier (1802–1881) purchased the Keilor Road land covering Niddrie and

Airport West Airport West is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's central business district, located within the City of Moonee Valley local government area. Airport West recorded a population of 8,173 at the . Bounded by th ...

. In 1869, Napier sold this land to Henry Stevenson (1810–1893). By 1871, Stevenson had built a house he named ''Niddrie'', after his birthplace of Niddrie, a suburb of

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. After his death in 1893, the property was transferred to his wife Elizabeth, who sold it to Patrick Morgan eight years later. A Keilor East Post Office opened on 1 July 1947 and was renamed Niddrie around 1956. The Niddrie North office opened in 1960, though it was known as Airport West from 1974 until 1982. Though not officially registered as a suburb until 26 May 1994, the Keilor Council initiated this in 1955. It is also a matter of record that in 1956 the Melbourne Olympic cauldron was built in work shops behind what later became the Ferguson Plarre site in Keilor Road.

Commerce

The main shopping centre is located on Keilor Road, which has a number of cafes and restaurants serving surrounding suburbs. The main industries of the suburb are construction (19%), property and business services (18%), retail trade (17%) and manufacturing (13%).

Transport

Tram route 59 travels from Westfield Shoppingtown - Airport West (at Matthews Avenue), then runs via Matthews Avenue, Keilor Road,

Mount Alexander Road Mount Alexander Road (and its northern section as Bulla Road) is a major road in Melbourne's inner northern suburbs, connecting the northern edges of the city district to just south of Essendon Airport. It was named after its original destina ...

, Fletcher Street,

Pascoe Vale Road Pascoe Vale Road is a major thoroughfare through the northern suburbs of Melbourne, connecting the outer northern fringe to the inner northern suburbs. Route Pascoe Vale Road starts at the intersection with Somerton Road in Coolaroo, Victoria ...

, Mount Alexander Road,

Flemington Road Flemington Road is a major thoroughfare in the inner suburbs of North Melbourne and Parkville in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It runs for 2 km in a northwest–southeast direction, from the southern end of Mount Alexander Road, Flemington, ...

and then terminates at the corner of Elizabeth Street and Flinders Street, Flinders Street station. Catch it at Stop 53 on Keilor Road, Niddrie. Seven

bus routes 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 in ...

also service the suburb.

Landmarks

The Niddrie Quarry was established in the 1940s to extract basalt for road paving from the vast lava plain that stretches from Melbourne to

Mount Gambier Mount Gambier is the second most populated city in South Australia, with a population of 25,591 as of the 2021 census. The city is located on the slopes of Mount Gambier (volcano), Mount Gambier, a volcano in the south east of the state, about ...

. Quarry operations continued to 1975. Since 1975 local residents have waged a campaign against use of the quarry as a waste dump or for landfill. The site was eventually purchased by the Urban Land Corporation in November 2000 for development of new housing estates with the retention of the quarry as a lake. Currently the site is almost fully developed into a residential housing estate 'Valley Lake', which has seen the lake retained and redeveloped, and a number of small wetlands established along with newly planted native vegetation. Steele Creek, with the Steele Creek Trail alongside runs through the suburb and is a tributary of the Maribyrnong River. To the North-East of Niddrie is a shopping centre named Direct Factory Outlet, or DFO.

Education

Within the area there are several schools including

Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School (abbreviated as PEGS) is a multi-campus Independent school, independent Uniting Church in Australia, Uniting Church Comprehensive School#Australia, comprehensive Mixed-sex education, co-educational Pre-school ...

, Niddrie Primary School, Essendon Keilor College, Keilor Heights Primary School, Ave Maria College, Rosehill Secondary College, St. Bernards College and St John Bosco's Primary.

Demographics and religion

The contains a full set of demographic data on Niddrie. Most of the reported data is comparable to the rest of Victoria, but of note, 47.5% of respondents described themselves as Catholics, compared to 23.2% for the whole of Victoria, and 22.6% for the whole of Australia.

References

External links

The Niddrie Quarry
{{City of Moonee Valley suburbs Suburbs of Melbourne Suburbs of the City of Moonee Valley