Ashwood 3147 Ashwood 3147

Ashwood, 14 km. south-east of Melbourne, is a residential suburb adjoining Ashburton and Burwood. Its name derives from its two neighbours.

Ashwood's western boundary is Warrigal Road, the boundary between the former Oakleigh city and the Mulgrave shire. In the early postwar years Warrigal Road was the dividing line between the built-up metropolis and the shire with unmade raids shading into market gardens and poultry farms.

The railway line to Glen Waverley crossed Warrigal Road near Ashwood, and Ashwood underwent residential development in the early 1950s. The Victorian Municipal Directory in 1951 described it as a rapidly developing area with an estimated population of 1,500.

Ashwood was part of the postwar cream-brick frontier of double-fronted houses on comfortable allotments. A primary school was opened in 1953 and a high school five years later.

The shopping centre on Warrigal Road was one of the first in Melbourne designed with cars in mind, the buildings being set back to allow angle parking behind the kerb alignment. Across the road is a free-standing Safeway supermarket.

A short way east is the Stockville shopping centre with an unusal igloo-shaped shop made of patterned concrete. It was designed by architect Robin Boyd for use as a supermarket, 1953-4.

Gardiners Creek runs through Ashwood, along which is the Ashwood reserve. The high school, later the Ashwood College, had two adjoining primary schools in the mid 1990s.

The median house prices in Ashwood were the same as the metropolitan median prices in 1987 and 1996.

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