Warrenheip is a suburb of

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 ...

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 ...

on the eastern

rural-urban fringe Peri-urbanisation relates to the processes of scattered and dispersive urban growth that create hybrid landscapes of fragmented and mixed urban and rural characteristics. Such areas may be referred to as the rural–urban fringe, the outskirts ...

named after nearby

Mount Warrenheip Mount Warrenheip (Wathawurrung language, Wathawarrung: ''Warrengeep'') is an inactive scoria volcanic cone in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia.Victorian VolcanoesMt Warrenheip , Victorian Volcanoes accessdate: December 16, 2017 The mo ...

. At the , Warrenheip had a population of 721.

Precolonial history and name origins

Mount Warrenheip is situated on the traditional country of the

Wathaurong The Wadawurrung nation, also called the Wathaurong, or Wathaurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people living in the area near Melbourne, Geelong, and the Bellarine Peninsula in the state of Victoria. They are part of the Kulin alliance. The ...

people to whom it holds significant cultural, social and spiritual significance. The name Warrenheip is taken from the Wathaurong word Warrengeep, meaning “emu feathers”, believed to relate to the appearance of ferns on the side of the mountain which look like emu feathers.

Colonial era and the Victorian Gold Rush

Gold prospectors from nearby goldfields in Ballarat were present around Warrenheip by the 1860s there was a predominantly Irish farming community by the early 1870s and a primary school was opened in 1876. Warrenheip was established as an electoral division, the

Electoral district of Warrenheip The electoral district of Warrenheip was an electorate of the Victorian Legislative Assembly in the British colony, and later Australian state, of Victoria. Created in 1889, the electorate was abolished in 1927 when it became the electoral distr ...

in 1889, the electorate was abolished in 1927 when it became the

electoral district of Warrenheip and Grenville The electoral district of Warrenheip and Grenville was an electorate of the Victorian Legislative Assembly The Victorian Legislative Assembly is the states and territories of Australia, state lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Victori ...

. A train line from Geelong to Ballarat was built nearby and

Warrenheip railway station Warrenheip is a closed station located in the town of Warrenheip, on the Serviceton line in Victoria, Australia. The junction of the Geelong-Ballarat line is at the up end of the former station site. The double track Geelong to Ballarat li ...

opened in 1873.

Modern history

As Ballarat expanded eastward during the 1980s, the junction of the Western Highway became a location for light industry. Today industry dominates Warrenheip and continues to expand with the development of business parks. Residential Warrenheip consists mainly of large semi-rural blocks.

References

Suburbs of Ballarat {{GrampiansAU-geo-stub