Belgrave

Belgrave is a town and outer suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 36 km east of Melbourne's central business district situated in the Dandenong Ranges.

Belgrave is a town and outer suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 36 km east of Melbourne's central business district situated in the Dandenong Ranges. Its local government area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges. At the 2016 Census, Belgrave had a population of 3,929.

Belgrave is situated in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges, part of the land of the Wurundjeri first nations people.Belgrave was first settled by Europeans in 1851.

Belgrave was named after an 1840s chapel in Leeds, Yorkshire, England; the name was carried by Mr and Mrs R.G. Benson when they came to Melbourne in 1856. Their sons, the Benson Brothers, settled in the Belgrave district in the 1870s. Though originally the area was known as "Monbulk" for the reservoir that lay near by, the town wasn't known as Belgrave until around 1903, and another suggested name for the town at that stage was Glassford. A Post Office opened in the area around 1904. Many men from Belgrave went to the two world wars, and there is a war memorial in Belgrave.

Belgrave's most notable attraction is the heritage narrow gauge, steam-operated Puffing Billy Railway, which was reopened in 1962—after four years of restoration by volunteers—and travels through 24 kilometres of cool temperate rainforest, semi-urban development and rural farmland to Gembrook. It is also the terminus of the Belgrave Suburban Electric Railway Line.

Other nearby attractions include The 1000 Steps, Sherbrooke Forest and Sherbrooke Falls in the Dandenong Ranges National Park.