Homebush West

Homebush West is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Homebush West is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Homebush West is located 13 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Strathfield, with a small unpopulated strip in the northwest in Cumberland Council. The suburb is commonly referred to as Flemington, even in official contexts. This was the old name of the suburb before the establishment of Sydney Markets in 1975. Subsequently, "Flemington" was confined to the area occupied by the markets, whereas the residential part of the suburb was renamed "Homebush West", after the suburb of Homebush immediately to the east. Both the railway station and various organisations and businesses in the suburb still carry the name "Flemington". Homebush Bay was formerly a separate suburbs to the north.

The area was called Flemington by John Fleming, who was granted 200 acres (0.81 km2) here in 1806.

A loosely defined area in the vicinity had earlier been called "Liberty Plains", because it was granted to the first free settlers "Liberty Plains" survives as the name of the Parish of Liberty Plains, a cadastral unit for land titles. Homebush West is at the eastern extremity of the Parish of Liberty Plaints - neighbouring Homebush is in the Parish of Concord. The neighbouring suburb of Homebush is named after a nearby estate called "Home Bush", around today's Sydney Olympic Park,established in the 1800s by the colony's then assistant surgeon D'arcy Wentworth. According to local government historian Michael Jones, "Wentworth is popularly credited with having called the area after his 'home in the bush', although Homebush is also a place in Kent." Wentworth's estate did not include the village of "Homebush" south of the railway: the name came to the village indirectly, via Homebush railway station, built in 1855 and named after Wentworth's estate further to the north.

The part of the Fleming estate south of the railway was acquired by the Underwood Estate and subdivided in 1882, with streets laid out in a grid pattern that survives to this day. The streets in the grid are named after various locations in southern England, such as Richmond, Henley, Hampstead, Exeter, Tavistock and Eastbourne.

North of the railway, the bush was turned into paddocks and from 1883 was the site of a cattle saleyard, relocated from North Homebush, further east.In 1892, Strathfield Municipality expanded west, taking in a large area including the part of Flemington south of the railway, after which homes in this part of the suburb became listed in directories under "Strathfield". The part of the suburb north of the railway was incorporated into the Municipality of Homebush (which also covered the part of modern-day Homebush north of the railway), which was eventually incorporated into Strathfield Municipality in 1947.

In the early 1970s, the Sydney Markets were built at Flemington to relieve the Paddy's Markets at Haymarket, in the city. Since the establishment of Sydney Markets at Flemington in 1975, the residential part of the suburb, south of the railway line became known as Homebush West.The Chinese community in Sydney has long had a strong presence in the market gardening sector in Sydney as well as the fruit and vegetable trade, which resulted in the development of a Chinatown at Haymarket. A number of these trading firms owned by members of the Chinese community developed into international conglomerates operating across the Asia-Pacific. When the markets, together with these trading firms, moved to Flemington, it brought a large ethnically Chinese presence to Homebush West in the form of Chinese grocery stores, restaurants and Chinese-speaking doctors and pharmacists to service the market traders and their customers. The move of the markets coincided with the start of the wave of Vietnamese migration to Australia in the 1970s. Many of these immigrants also moved into the market garden trade. With a concentration of Chinese, Vietnamese-Chinese and Vietnamese businesses, Homebush West village centre acquired a cosmopolitan character with a southeast Asian flavour which it has retained to this day.

West of Flemington markets, separated from the rest of the suburb by the A3 arterial road and the railway, the Ford car factory was built in 1935 and closed in 1994. The residential area around the factory site were originally mostly built for Ford employees. The Ford factory site was part of the Borough of Rookwood, which became the Municipality of Lidcombe, which merged in turn into Auburn Council. In 1992, this area was transferred to Strathfield Council in exchange for an area to the north that was transferred to Auburn Council, in anticipation of the development of Sydney Olympic Park. A small, unpopulated strip of land in the northwest of the suburb immediately to the north of the Ford factory site, which lies between Parramatta Road and the M4 motorway, remained in Auburn Council and (after the abolition of Auburn Council) is now in Cumberland Council.