Lansdowne

Lansdowne is a suburb in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.

Lansdowne is a suburb in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Lansdowne is located 27 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Canterbury-Bankstown and is part of the South-western Sydney region. Its western boundary is Prospect Creek, the north the Hume Highway and the east and south George's Hall.

Lansdowne took its name from the Landsdowne Bridge, a corruption of the correct spelling of Lansdowne, the bridge being named by Governor Richard Bourke to honour Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780-1863), a Whig politician.

The suburb's name has occasionally in the past appeared on maps with a spelling of 'Landsdowne'.The area now designated as the suburb of Lansdowne was subdivided into residential lots in the 1880s and the roads formed but not sealed, but very few houses were built. The Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board subsequently acquired the land and it remained unused, with its network of unused streets sitting in a landscape of grassland and stands of trees.

Because the area designated as the suburb of Lansdowne is largely the undeveloped land previously owned by the Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board, it consists almost entirely of parkland.

In the 1940s Henry Lawson Drive, intended as a scenic route, was built through Lansdowne from the Hume Highway at Woodville Road to Milperra Road at Milperra Bridge.

In December 1960-January 1961 the sixth Australian Scout Jamboree was held on the site, and in September 1970 a Scout "jamborette" was held on the land as part of the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the proclamation of Bankstown Municipality.

In 1974, the Commonwealth Department of Urban and Regional Development acquired for regional open space the land owned by the metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board, and transferred ownership to Bankstown Council. This is the area now occupied by Mirrmabeena Regional Park. In the following years the park was landscaped and equipped for recreational use. This included the creation of Lake Gillawarna, and other ponds full of aquatic life, native walks and pedestrian/cycle ways, playgrounds and barbecue and picnic facilities.