Located only 11 km east of the city of Melbourne, Box Hill was once surrounded by open country. It was this rural context which attracted several of Australia�s most famous artists to the area from 1885 to 1888. Today Box Hill is an accessible suburb connected to the city centre by a tramline and excellent public transport.
Tom Roberts, one of Australia's greatest landscape painters, came to Box Hill shortly after returning from a trip to France and Spain, where he had fallen under the spell of the impressionist movement. He returned to Australia determined to capture the play of light and shade in the Australian countryside.
Roberts and his friend and fellow painter, Frederick McCubbin, dissatisfied with the conservative approach to landscape painting which existed in most of Australia's art schools, chose Houston's Farm at Box Hill. It was an ideal location because it allowed them to pursue their experiments on weekends while retaining their jobs in Melbourne. They were soon joined by a number of other artists including Arthur Streeton, Louis Abrahams, Charles Conder, Jane Sutherland, Tom Humphrey and John Mather.
Sightseers began to disrupt the ease and atmosphere of the experience and, having established their intimate, naturalistic approach to the bush and its inhabitants, the group moved on to nearby Heidelberg, thereby earning them the epithet, the 'Heidelberg School'. The fine grass, tea-trees, and blue gum leaves of the red box eucalypts, featured in such works as Roberts' 'The Artists' Camp', McCubbin's 'A Bush Burial' and Streeton's 'Settler's Camp', help modern viewers to determine which paintings were done in the Box Hill area. A memorial cairn has been erected in a small park at the eastern end of Prince Street, as this is thought to be near the site of the original Artists' Camp.
Box Hill's first landholder was Arundel Wrighte who, in 1838, took up a pastoral lease on the land he had previously explored in the Bushy Creek area. The first permanent settlers, Thomas Toogood and his wife, purchased 5 000 acres in 1841, and Wrighte built a house on his property in 1844. The Pioneers' Memorial, which can be found in front of the town hall, is made from a chimney stone taken from Wrighte's original house.
The area which now constitutes the centre of Box Hill was first settled in 1854 and the township became a market centre for the fruit and vegetables grown in the district. Two years later, Joseph Aspinall, whose house was the site of the first Methodist service in the area, oversaw the construction of the Woodhouse Grove Methodist Church. It was named after Aspinall�s property which had been named after a college for Methodist ministers in Yorkshire, England.
Remodelled at the 1956 centenary to allow for an expanded congregation, it still stands today and is classified by the National Trust. The first Wesleyan church in central Box Hill, now the Methodist Oxford Hall, was established on Station and Oxford Streets in 1886.
The town's name was chosen by lot at a meeting of locals in 1860. The successful entry was made by Silas Padgham, storekeeper and first postmaster of the area, at whose house the assembly convened. Padgham was apparently born at Box Hill in Surrey, England, although it has been argued that the box eucalypts of the region exerted some influence on the decision.
A land boom generated prosperity when the railway arrived in 1882, enabling men like Roberts and McCubbin to commute freely to and from Melbourne. However, the speculative recklessness which accompanied the boom contributed to a significant bust in 1893.
The first electric tram in the southern hemisphere commenced its run from Box Hill to Doncaster in 1889, in order to transport passengers to and from the train station. It met with resistance from some locals who sabotaged the line during construction and again in 1891. A casualty of the depression, the service terminated in 1896.
Appropriately situated in the centre of Whitehorse Road stands a statue of a white horse on a pedestal which has become the emblem of Box Hill. It appears on the city's coat of arms. The statue's history is bound up with a temperance campaign which was conducted by members of the area's influential Methodist and Presbyterian churches. A local Rechabite society was founded in 1870, but it was not until the passage of a 1906 Act, which considerably reduced the number of available licenses in the state, that the temperance-abstinence movement became politically powerful.
In 1920, the year prohibition officially came into force in the United States, local option polls were undertaken and the Nunawading district, which includes Box Hill, was one of only two in Victoria which voted to completely ban liquor licensing. As a result, the White Horse Hotel, opened in 1853, was forced to cease trading. It became a boarding house until 1933 when it was demolished. At that time the owners donated the old hotel's symbol, the White Horse statue, to the city, which erected it at its present site.
Prohibition campaigners have fiercely resisted a return to regular licensing conditions. This has forced hopeful liquor merchants to resort to interesting tactics in order to obtain their ends. In 1956, the Box Hill RSL sought to take advantage of a liberalisation of regulatory legislation, which made it easier for grocers and clubs to obtain licenses. While the RSL was vainly fighting the 'dry' opposition, the local golf club managed to erect its Notice of Intention in such a way that it went unnoticed and met the requirement that the intention be advertised in a Victorian newspaper by choosing the Sunraysia Daily in faraway Mildura.
The RSL tried again in 1965. Although only 48% of the neighbourhood supported the Club, the relevant act was worded in such a way that 50% had to vote 'no' for the application to fail. The Club's advisers noticed that 3% of those polled did not vote: therefore only 49% had opposed the application. This view was upheld by the courts and the RSL received its license in 1966. Box Hill was officially declared a city in 1927.
Things to see
Dandenong Ranges National Park
Dandenong Ranges National Park (3215 ha) is a very attractive and popular attraction which beckons Melburnians who can gaze upon its western slopes on a clear day. It was declared in 1987, although this declaration represented the amalgamation of diverse sections which were already reserved with some additions.
It offers opportunities for walking, sightseeing, picnicking, nature observation and car touring. More than 350 plant species have been recorded in the Park, including the rare cinnamon wattle and smooth tea-tree. There are also 130 bird species, 31 species of mammals (most are nocturnal), 21 reptile species and nine amphibian species.
The first European known to set foot in the Dandenongs was botanist Daniel Bunce who was drawn from Melbourne by the image of the looming western slopes in 1839. Guided by a party of Aboriginal people he climbed Mt Corhanwarrabul (628 m) and Mt Dandenong (633 m) - the two highest peaks in the ranges.
The first European settlers were the Holden family who camped on the slopes from 1855 and felled mountain ash until the turn of the century. Official settlement began in the 1870s and fruit-growing accompanied timbergetting. Guest houses and tea rooms were established to encourage tourists when fruit prices fell.
From Box Hill follow Canterbury Rd east for about 7 km then turn right onto Boronia Rd. After about 10 km it becomes Forest Rd which, within another 3 km, reaches a T-intersection with the Mountain Highway. Cross over the latter and proceed east along The Basin-Olinda Rd for about 700 metres then turn left onto Sheffield Rd. After about 500 m, turn right into Doongalla Rd. Another 500 m will bring you to an intersection. Keep to the left and this road will take you through to the Doongalla Picnic Ground which is the main attraction in this part of the park.
A homestead was built on this picnic ground in 1908 as 'Invermay' and later renamed 'Doongalla'. It was destroyed by a 1932 bushfire although the servant's quarters and stables remain. Later owners continued to log the forest until the government bought back the estate in 1950 and it was declared a reserve.
Rhododendrons bloom at the picnic area in spring. There are a number of short and well-signposted walking tracks or the more ambitious can start at the Doongalla Stables carpark, take the Stables track downhill through eucalypt forest, turn left at Bills Track, left at Edgars Track then, after 150 m, take another left into Golf Course Track. Pass by Invermay Track to get onto the Doongalla Forest Access Road which will return you to the picnic ground which can be booked for events or functions, tel: 131 963.
The gullies along Dandenong Creek, near the homestead site, support mountain ash communities (the largest flowering plants in the world, they grow to 100 metres in height and can live for 500 years) while the drier, more exposed, western slopes are characterised by long-leaved box and red stringybark communities. Birdlife in this section of the park includes pardalote, mistle-toe birds, ravens, yellow-tailed black cockatoos, thornbills, eastern yellow robins, New Holland honeyeaters, whipbirds, golden whistlers, boobook owls and powerful owls. Goannas, grass skinks and echidnas can be seen in the daytime although most of the park's mammals are nocturnal.
If you wish to explore the park further you can continue along The Basin-Olinda Rd or approach it via the Mt Dandenong Tourist Rd which runs off the Burwood Highway. See the entries on Ferntree Gully, Olinda,Kalorama, Sherbrooke, Lilydale and Kallista for further details.
For general information and literature contact Parks Victoria on 131 963 or, if you require more detailed information contact the office at Upper Ferntree Gully on (03) 9758 1342. You can also visit the Parks Victoria website on http://www.parks.vic.gov.au.
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