Surrey Hills 3127 Surrey Hills 3127

Surrey Hills is a residential suburb 12 km. east of Melbourne, between Camberwell and Box Hill. Surrey Hills was in each of those former municipalities and remains divided between the amalgamated municipalities of Boroondara and Whitehorse. It wag named after Surrey County, England, by an estate agent and councillor, J.H. Knipe (1828 1895).

The part of Surrey Hills north of Canterbury Road was in Henry Elgar's Special Survey (1841), an area of 8 square miles, which was subdivided into small farms and grazing runs. The remainder of Surrey Hills was also rural when the railway was extended from Camberwell to Lilydale in 1883. By 1892 most of the land in Surrey Hills was subdivided for housing. A primary school had been opened in 1886, and the township had a post office and two churches. The land was described as "very suitable for suburban villa residences", and Surrey Hills was recorded as having a population of 352. Within the next ten years the population had nearly tripled.

Within eight years the population had tripled again, the 1911 census recording 2,703.

Surrey Hills' housing stock was slightly less opulent than the neighbouring Canterbury, apart from the Mont Albert district within its borders, which grew after housing was built around Surrey Hills railway station. The northern border of Surrey Hills has the Whitehorse Road tram and the southern border the Riversdale Road tram (1916). Thus Surrey Hills had three east-west public transport services, each about one kilometre apart, all providing an easy commuting distance to Melbourne. There are not many parks in Surrey Hills, but the tree-lined streets and relatively generous housing allotments provide a sense of open space. (Surrey Park. with the Surrey Dive and swimming pool is on the border in Box Hill). Community shopping centres along Whitehorse Road and Union Road are at a tram terminus and railway station respectively.

Surrey Hills' elevated aspect provided an ideal site for a water reservoir fed from Yan Yean and, later, Maroondah reservoirs. An obtrusive telecommunications tower is nearby.

There are five primary schools Two are Catholic and three are State (Surrey Hills (1886), Chatham (1927), and Mont Albert (1917).

Chatham is the name of a railway station and school, but scarcely exists as a locality Mont Albert, as well as having those things, has a community shopping centre near the railway station. The Salvation Army has its national headquarters in a new building in the shopping centre As its name implies, Mont Albert is elevated, and "Albert"derives from the name of Queen Victoria's consort.

In 1987 the median house price in Surrey Hills was 5090 above the median for metropolitan Melbourne, and in 1996 it was 90% above the metropolitan median.

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