Geelong East 3219 |
Geelong East is a residential area with large public open spaces, adjoining the Geelong central city area. Its northern edge is the Corio Bay foreshore, and it extends southwards to Breakwater. Boundary Road separates it from its easterly neighbours, Newcomb and Whittington.
Geelong East has Eastern Park which extends to Limeburners Point, Corio Bay. The Point has been mined for limestone and marble, considerably disfiguring the foreshore. Line kilns (1841) are on the Victorian Heritage Register.
Eastern Park, about 800 metres wide and 1,200 metres from south to north, was first the subject of a park reservation in 1848. By the late 1850s a skilled curator, Daniel Bunce, had laid out a botanical garden. (He had accompanied Leichhardt on two expeditions as naturalist and botanist, and was the husband of John Batmans youngest daughter.) At various times Eastern Park hosted an aviary and the activities of an Acclimatization Society to introduce exotic animals and birds to the district. The eastern side of the park has Corio oval - once a football venue - and the Geelong East Golf club (1923). A portion on the south was taken for the Geelong High School in 1915.
Two blocks south of Eastern Park is the Eastern Cemetery. The earliest headstone is dated 1839, one year after the town survey for Geelong (in which provision for the cemetery was made).
Further south, across the disused railway line between Geelong and Queenscliff, the St. Albans horse-training property was developed during the 1870s. In 1857 the St. Albans school was opened, later becoming the Geelong East primary school. The site was enlarged when the Geelong East technical school was opened next to it in 1961.
In Geelong East proper, a primary school was opened near the Eastern Cemetery in 1929. It is in Tate Street, named after the Director of Education, Frank Tate. This particular part of Geelong East is also known as Thomson, named after Geelongs pioneer settler and first mayor, Dr. Alexander Thomson.
Geelong East has two local shopping centres, one in Tate Street and the other at the intersection of Breakwater and St. Albans Roads. In addition to several ovals and a bowling green in Eastern Park there is a reserve and ovals near Tate Street and the St. Albans Reserve near the first primary school.
The median house price in Geelong East in 1987 was $55,100, and in 1996 it was $81,500. Geelong East had a census population of 5,939 in 1981.
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