Croydon: History, shopping, parks, pubs, festivals and famous faces
It was a former hotbed for farmers and fruit orchards but, more than a century later, Croydon has shaken off its rural tag and emerged as a family-friendly hub in Melbourne’s outereast. Here’s a look at postcode 3136.
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Croydon has become an amenity-rich hub in Melbourne’s outereast while maintaining its leafy feel and village atmosphere.
But the suburb was little more than a rural outskirt filled with paddocks in its humble beginnings in the mid-1800s.
The area was originally known as White Flats as it was covered with course silver and white grass.
It was a prime area for cattle and dairy farming and became known for its orchards, which produced top quality cherries, apples, pears and peaches.
In fact, a mural paying homage to the area’s fruit orchard roots – The Fruit Thief – can be found in a laneway off Croydon’s Main St.
The street itself has evolved significantly since it began staging a weekly Monday market in 1920.
Main St has had a hospitality boom in recent years and become one of the more popular and vibrant cafe strips outside of Melbourne’s inner suburbs.
Nearby shopping centre Croydon Central has also had a recent facelift with a second stage still to come.
Croydon has a population of nearly 27,000 and is becoming popular with families keen to take advantage of parks and other facilities close to home.
Town Park is a sprawling open space used by sports clubs and is also home to the annual Maroondah Festival, which attracts 30,000 people.
A giant health and wellbeing precinct with space for community groups will be built next to the park over the next decade.
Croydon is also home to the historic EV’s Youth Centre, one of Melbourne’s biggest longstanding youth music venues with a heritage-listed facade from the early 1900s.
Many youngsters got their first headbanging fix there as some of Australia’s biggest emerging punk and metal acts cut their teeth.
The Dorset Gardens Hotel is one Croydon’s most popular drinking holes with plenty of local partygoers packing out its dancefloor on weekends.
A handful of Melbourne’s most well-known actors and presenters also have roots in Croydon.
Magda Szubanski and John Wood grew up in the area, while Mick Molloy and rapper 360 attended local schools.
The suburb takes its name from its train station, which was named after the UK hometown of the landowner’s wife in the late 1800s.
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