Rowville 3178 Rowville 3178

Rowville is a recent residential suburb 26 km. south-east of Melbourne. It is centered approximately on the intersection of Wellington and Stud Roads, where an electricity terminal station and the Stamford Hotel were built in the 1950/60s, in the midst of a rural landscape but heralding subsequent urbanisation.

Originally part of Narre Warren and later Lysterfield, Rowville was settled first in 1838. The undulating, lightly timbered land was good for grazing. No provision was made for a town or for a settlement, and a post office was not opened until 1902. A school was opened in . . . .

The name Rowville was given after the Row family which owned the Stamford Park property.

In 1938 part of the former Dandenong Police Paddock was set aside as a national park. In 1944 it was named Churchill National Park after the British wartime leader. The national park is partly in Rowville and partly in Endeavour Hills to the south. An earlier park created by the Fern Tree Gully shire is Heaney Park, named after the shire engineer. It contains a swimming lake and facilities for guides and scouts, and had originally been a water storage basin.

In 1942 a military training camp was placed on the site which later became the electricity terminal station. It accommodated tactical response Australian troops, American troops destined for war in the islands north of Australia, and finally prisoners of war.

Rowville's undulating landscape attracted housing and two golf links in the period from 1970. The Stud Park shopping area is a semi-regional centre, and the advancing new housing with a preponderance of young families has resulted in Rowville having three primary and two secondary schools. Rowville also has a community centre with a library, several child care and medical centres, and five tennis centres in a 3 kilometer radius.

The annual Stringybark Festival produced by the Knox City Council is held at the Rowville Community Centre in October. This festival is an opportuanity for the wider community to display arts, crafts and folk culture.

Rowville's census populations have been 109 (1933) and 190 (1954).

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