Violet Town is a town in northeastern

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seyche ...

, Australia. The town is in the

Shire of Strathbogie The Shire of Strathbogie is a local government area in the Hume region of Victoria, Australia, located in the north-east part of the state. It covers an area of and in June 2018 had a population of 10,645. It includes the towns of Avenel, Eu ...

local government area, northeast of the state capital,

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metr ...

on the

Hume Highway Hume Highway, inclusive of the sections now known as Hume Freeway and Hume Motorway, is one of Australia's major inter-city national highways, running for between Melbourne in the southwest and Sydney in the northeast. Upgrading of the route ...

. At the , Violet Town and district (Honeysuckle Ward) had a population of 1,540. The town is on Honeysuckle Creek and has many early streets named after flowers, e.g. Lily Street, Rose Street, Orchid Street, Tulip Street, and Iris Lane. Violet Town and District is bounded by Arcadia-Tamleugh Road, Clancy Road, Honeysuckle Creek, Fishers Lane, Bridge Road, Camerons Road, Croxfords Road, Dookie-Violet Town Road and the Broken River in the north, Benalla Rural City, Leggat Lane, Baddaginnie-Goomalibee Road, Depot Road, McPherson Road, McEwan Lane and Benalla Rural City in the east, the localities of Strathbogie, Kelvin View and Euroa, Collier Road and Lawrence Road in the south, and Moglonemby Road, Murchison-Violet Town Road and Violet Town Boundary Road in the west.

History

The Nira Balun clan of the

Taungurong The Taungurung people, also spelt ''Daung Wurrung'', are an Aboriginal people who are one of the Kulin nations in present-day Victoria, Australia. They consist of nine clans whose traditional language is the Taungurung language. Their Country ...

Aborigines are the traditional custodians of this land. In 1838 the New South Wales Government surveyed the town site which they called "Violet Creek" — the first inland surveyed town in Victoria. The following year land was put up for sale. Squatters took up land at Honeysuckle Run soon after. The town remained empty in spite of the sale of town blocks until 1846 when the Royal Mail Hotel was opened and then a village began to grow. By the 1860s the town had expanded to include three hotels, a bakery and a school. Buildings went from bark huts to timber construction. Its principal thoroughfares then were Hyacinth, Tulip, Cowslip, and Rose streets. The town was an important coach stop on the

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountai ...

road, as it was at the conjunction of the Sydney road, the overland telegraph and the tracks to Bendigo and the north-eastern gold fields. In 1873 the railway arrived and the village moved closer to the line. In 1895 the Shire of Violet Town was gazetted. In 1994 it was amalgamated with adjoining shires to become part of the

. With its proximity to the Honeysuckle Creek, development in Tulip Street began early with the first surveyed block in Victoria, on the corner of Rose and Tulip Streets. The first hotel was in this site precinct and the first designated crossing of the Honeysuckle Creek was on Baird Street. Until 1980, the Sydney Road/Hume Highway ran through Violet Town, and much early history is centred on this road, now called High Street. Major Thomas Mitchell and his party stopped on the banks of Violet Creek, now called Honeysuckle Creek on his way back to Sydney. In this Australia Felix exploration of 1836 he noted that the swamps and marshes in the area had a profusion of wild violets and named the district Violet Ponds. The explorers Hume and Hovell also camped near this spot (6.4 km away) in 1824. Some existing houses and cottages in High Street, previously used as tea rooms or coaching inns, date from the 1880s. Cowslip Street is the main commercial street of Violet Town. It developed after the railway arrived. However, many of the early buildings were made of timber and burnt down. There are two strips of shops surviving from the end of the 19th century, plus some single buildings worth visiting. The Post Office opened on 1 July 1852 although closed from early 1854 until early 1859. The town was the site of the Southern Aurora train crash in 1969 that caused the deaths of nine people. A memorial stands at the railway crossing on McDiarmids Road and a memorial park with a train carriage is located in Cowslip Street. Violet Town Magistrates' Court closed in 1977. On 12 November 2003 the Victorian State Government announced plans to locate a toxic waste dump in the district, and threatened to acquire local farming properties. In 2004 the residents of the town and district successfully campaigned against the proposal. The local history group holds a library of photos.

Military history

Violet Town was represented in the

Anglo-Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...

(1899-1901) and the town's war memorial in Cowslip Street was built in 1901. The town has both a World War I Avenue of Honour (Cowslip Street) and a World War II Avenue of Honour (Hyacinth Street) maintained by the local RSL branch. During World War II, Violet Town was the location of RAAF No.13 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot (IAFD), commissioned in 1942 and closed on 14 June 1944. Usually consisting of 4 tanks, 31 fuel depots were built across Australia for the storage and supply of aircraft fuel for the

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

and the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

at a total cost of £900,000 ($1,800,000)

Today

The town's streets are tree-lined and uncongested by traffic. The town has public reserves, with a training track, bowling green, football and cricket oval, tennis courts and a caravan park near Honeysuckle Creek. There is also a memorial hall, swimming pool, library, museum and several art galleries. The

Strathbogie Ranges The Strathbogie Ranges are a set of low mountain ranges within the Great Dividing Range, rising to at Mount Strathbogie. The Strathbogie Ranges are located approximately north-east of Melbourne, Victoria. Geology and ecology The range is t ...

are visible to the south. Violet Town holds a Community Market on the 2nd Saturday of every month at the Recreation Reserve in Tulip Street - it has been going since 1978 and features many local producers. Volunteers make pizza in the community wood fired pizza oven. The town has a range of local businesses including hardware store, cafe, hotel, chemist, hairdresser, supermarket and petrol station, and is surrounded by rural land used mainly for cropping and cattle and sheep grazing, although some horse studs are present. The town's Bush Nursing Centre provides residential aged care for up to 64 people. Murrnong is a

permaculture Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principle ...

farm and training facility. Major features of the area include the Honeysuckle Creek Walking Track, Shadforth Reserve with community forest(originally a racecourse), Sunnymeade Garden, the community built Violet Town Swimming Pool and the local Peranbin primary school. Violet Town has connections with Australian rock music - during the 1980s a song by The Church was named for the town, and more recently the town has been known for being the home of

Jesse Jesse may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jesse (biblical figure), father of David in the Bible. * Jesse (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Jesse (surname), a list of people Music * ''Jesse'' ( ...

and Ella Hooper, members of rock band

Killing Heidi Killing Heidi are an Australian rock band, formed in Violet Town, Victoria in 1996, initially as a folk-pop duo by siblings Ella and Jesse Hooper. The band has released three studio albums: '' Reflector'' (March 2000), which reached No. ...

. Their best known single

Weir A weir or low head dam is a barrier across the width of a river that alters the flow characteristics of water and usually results in a change in the height of the river level. Weirs are also used to control the flow of water for outlets of l ...

was written about the local railway reservoir weir. Violet Town is one of few small rural towns (population under 1000) that has shown growth. The town's population in 2016 was 684. Violet Town Football Netball Club plays

Australian Rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by ...

and netball in the Kyabram District Football Netball League.

Transport

Road access to town is via the Melbourne to Sydney

Hume Freeway Hume Highway, inclusive of the sections now known as Hume Freeway and Hume Motorway, is one of Australia's major inter-city national highways, running for between Melbourne in the southwest and Sydney in the northeast. Upgrading of the route ...

or through the Violet Town-Murchison Road from the west (from

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is a city in Victoria, Australia, located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2019, Bendigo had an urban population of 100,991, maki ...

), or the Nalinga/ Dookie Road from the north. The passenger railway station is serviced by daily

V/Line V/Line is a statutory authority that operates regional passenger train and coach services in Victoria, Australia. It provides passenger train services on five commuter lines and eight long-distance routes from its major hub at Southern Cros ...

services between

and

Albury Albury () is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the ...

References

External links