Burnley

Burnley is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km east of Melbourne's Central Business District.

Burnley is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km east of Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government area is the City of Yarra. At the 2016 Census, Burnley had a population of 769.Burnley has the Yarra River as its southern and eastern boundaries. The other boundaries are Bridge Road to the north and Burnley Street to the west.

Located in the present City of Yarra, Burnley is historically considered to be part of the larger Richmond area.Burnley's location in inner-suburban Melbourne is well known to Melburnians due to the naming of the Burnley Tunnel near the area, a major part of Melbourne's CityLink transport network.

In 1838 the area approximating Burnley's present open space lying in a loop of the Yarra River was reserved as the Survey Paddock. It is bisected by Swan Street (1880s), trisected by railway lines diverging at Burnley (to Hawthorn, 1861 and to Glen Iris, 1890), and skirted on its eastern edge by the Yarra Boulevard (1930s) and on its southern edge by the South Eastern, now Monash, Freeway (1962).

The area was named after William Burnley, pioneer land purchaser in Richmond, local councillor and parliamentarian.Burnley was developed in the 1850s as part of the wider Richmond district as Melbourne expanded eastwards to the Dandenong Ranges. Industrial development followed in the 1860s with workers' housing established within walking distance of the many local factories manufacturing everything from clothing to pipe organs.

The Horticultural Society of Victoria was granted 12 ha. in the Survey Paddock in 1862 for experimental gardens, mainly for acclimatization of exotic fruits, vegetables and flowers. The site was taken over by the State Department of Agriculture in 1891. The balance of the Survey Paddock became Richmond Park, containing the "Picnic" Railway Station, east of the present Burnley Railway Station, as the entry to a landscaped pleasure ground.

Burnley's industrial area was in its south-west corner next to the river. Basalt quarries were worked south of Coppin Street. One of them has been opened up to the river by the cutting of a channel to improve stream velocity to clear upstream floodwaters from Kew. The quarry hole became a dock depot for silt-dredging craft, and the channel also resulted in the formation, mid-stream, of Herring Island. The Richmond Abattoirs were near the old quarries, and municipal dignity was improved with Barkly Gardens (1865).

There were two ferries across the river, one being the Twickenham ferry. It was replaced by the MacRobertson bridge (1935).

On 22 January 1885, St Bartholomew's Anglican Church was opened after land had been granted by the Victorian Government in 1870.

In 1887, the first State primary school was opened; the primary school was demolished in the 1970s to become the Golden Square Bicentennial Park. A temporary primary school in Richmond Park closed in 1987. Quite near the site of the temporary school is a remnant dead tree, evidence of the traditional Aboriginal inhabitants. It may have been a marker tree for ritual events or a tree from which bark was taken for a canoe or shelter. Separated from these areas by the railway line is a section of Richmond Park set aside for travelling circuses.

Burnley Post Office opened on 21 March 1887.In the southernmost part of the Survey Paddock, through which the freeway passes, there are a public golf course and sports facilities comprising the Kevin Bartlett Sporting and Recreation Complex. Bartlett was a Richmond footballer.

In 1991 the adjacent horticultural college celebrated its centenary, by when it was famed for the training of career horticulturists and as the metropolitan venue for demonstrations for amateur gardeners. In its grounds is an ornamental garden area of several hectares, among the best of Melbourne's passive recreation areas.