Heatherton - Place - eMelbourne - The Encyclopedia of Melbourne Online (original) (raw)

(3202, 20 km SE, Kingston City)

Part of the agricultural district of Cheltenham for much of the 19th century, Heatherton was sometimes known as Kingstown or Kingston, reputedly after the King brothers, early squatters in the district. Kingston Heath, now a reserve, was the site of a government experimental farm during the 1850s. Heatherton remained a district of market gardens for over a century. To assist local gardeners in negotiating the unmade, sandy roads, special tram rails were installed along Centre and Centre Dandenong roads in 1908-09. In 1911 the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum moved from North Melbourne to the fresh country air. Two years later the Cheltenham Sanatorium for tuberculosis sufferers opened on the same site. These institutions were to become the Kingston Geriatric Centre and Heatherton Psychiatric Hospital. The establishment of Moorabbin Airport at Heatherton's southern edge in 1949 ensured that much of the area remained open space, as suburbia crept around it. Reserves, Kingston Heath Golf Club (1925), Capital Golf Course, Karkarook Park and Kingston Heath Reserve cover much of the former market gardens.