Elwood

Elwood is an inner suburban area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 8 km south of Melbourne's Central Business District.

Elwood is an inner suburban area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 8 km south of Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government area is the City of Port Phillip. At the 2011 Census, Elwood had a population of 14,638.

Elwood Beach is a popular bayside beach destination during summer, where the beaches are used recreationally for windsurfing, cycling, cricket and walking.

The suburb is known for its mix of Edwardian and Interwar architecture character, its beaches and its leafy streets, many of which are lined by London Plane trees.

The earliest inhabitants and traditional owners of the area now covered by the City of Port Phillip were the Yalukit Wilum, one of the five clans of the Boon Wurrung, known as the coastal tribe, and who were members of the Kulin nation. They inhabited the swampy areas below Emerald Hill and the sandy-ridged ti-tree covered coastline, which extended from St Kilda to Fishermans Bend (Port Melbourne). The Aboriginal inhabitants knew the St Kilda area as Euro-Yroke a name they used to describe the red-brown sandstone found along the beach. Yalukit Willam: The river people of Port Phillip, provides an Aboriginal history of the area.

On 17 April 1840, the ship Glen Huntly carrying 157 settlers, arrived in Port Phillip flying the yellow fever flag, indicating disease on board. At least 50 of its passengers were sick with typhus fever. A quarantine station, comprising two tent camps, was quickly set up at Point Ormond (then known as Little Red Bluff) for the arrivals, one camp for the sick ones and one for the others. The arrivals were release from quarantine in June. At least three arrivals died at the camp and were buried on the bluff. They were moved to St Kilda cemetery in 1898.Point Ormond had for centuries been the home of the Yalukit Willam clan. “The nearby Elwood swamp provided vegetables, wildfowl and eels. The reef which extends from the base of the Point into the sea provided shellfish, fish and crustaceans. Point Ormond was a very important source of seafood as Aboriginal women were visiting there three times per week in the autumn of 1840 to collect shellfish.” The quarantine station was set up right alongside these wetlands. However, Aboriginal people, not aware of the establishment of the dangerous camp, made a routine visit to these wetlands to harvest shellfish. This visit was cited by then Superintendent of the Port Phillip District Charles La Trobe as a reason to expel all Aboriginal camps from Melbourne on 19 April 1840.Originally, Elwood was swampland, with Elster Creek draining into the swamp near the beach. For most of the 19th century the wetland was viewed as a barrier to European development. Elwood Canal was constructed to connect the lower reaches of Elster Creek with Port Phillip Bay, three hundred metres north of Point Ormond. European settlement used waterways like Ester Creek for waste disposal. In 1869, because of the foul conditions of the Elwood swamp, local residents called on the St Kilda Council to remove the nearby abattoir and night soil depot.Installation of the Elwood Canal turned Elwood into an area suitable for residential development. Elwood was initially planned around the two central geographic features of Elster Creek (now Elwood Canal) and the promontory at Point Ormond, then known as Little Red Bluff. Originally a working middle class suburb in the early part of the 20th century, Elwood has seen waves of gentrification and is now one of Melbourne's most sought after bayside suburb. Large period houses, many from the 1920s and 30s with art deco touches, along with proximity to beach and foreshore, have made the area very attractive.

In the late 1970s, like nearby St Kilda, Elwood was known for its nightlife and developed a reputation as a cabaret area. Many of these venues operated out of some of the suburb's quirkier old buildings. As the scene saw a demise in the early 1980s, many buildings, including Maison de Luxe and Moulin Rouge (which operated out of the 1880s mansion "Pladda" built for Captain A. Currie), were subsequently demolished.

Despite its history of adversity, a modern suburb now thrives by the bay in one of Melbourne's most prized locations. Café life in the Elwood village seems a long way from the flood, fire and fever of earlier days. Coloured lorikeets flock to the green corridors of shady trees, a native forest has been planted on the foreshore and the once despised canal area is undergoing rejuvenation as a haven for walkers and cyclists.