Clematis is a town in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, 42 km south-east from Melbourne's

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...

, located within the

Shire of Cardinia The Shire of Cardinia is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, in the south-east of Melbourne between Western Port and the Yarra Ranges on the outskirts of Melbourne. It has an area of 1,283 square kilometres, and had a population of ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...

. Clematis recorded a population of 352 at the 2021 census. The town consists of a fire station, a pub,Pubs In Clematis, Accessed 17 December 2008
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railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

, a small hall and two shops. Clematis was featured in the 1978 Australian TV movie " The Death Train", starring

Hugh Keays-Byrne Hugh Keays-Byrne (18 May 1947 – 2 December 2020) was a British-Australian actor. He began his career on stage in his native England, where he was member of the Royal Shakespeare Company between 1968 and 1972. After emigrating to Australia in 1 ...

History

Clematis was first settled in the 1860s at the south eastern end of the Emerald goldfields, where the road from the goldfields to Emerald met the road from Melbourne and Dandenong. The area of the township was subdivided in 1902 as Paradise Valley (the name of which is retained in the town's Paradise Valley Hotel). The Clematis railway station (located behind and well below the hotel) was opened at the same time and given the name of Paradise Valley, shortened to Paradise in 1908, and then finally changed in 1921 to Clematis. With the blockage of the Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook Narrow-gauge railway by a landslide between Selby and Menzies Creek in 1953, with its summer holiday traffic which the area had come to depend on (with its numerous guest houses), following the exhaustion of the timber resources during the Second World War, and the subsequent closure of many sawmills, declined. The railway was reopened by the Puffing Billy Preservation Society through Clematis to Emerald in 1965. However, Clematis station with its loop siding is primarily used for loading timber for the railway's locomotive fleet and only stops for passengers when requested. The construction of the

Cardinia Reservoir Cardinia Reservoir is an Australian man-made water supply saddle dam reservoir. The water store is located in Emerald–Clematis– Dewhurst in south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. Construction started in May 1970 and was completed in ...

, flooded, or otherwise displaced over half farming land area of the Clematis township and as a result the township further declined after 1965. Clematis Post Office opened around 1907 and subsequently closed in 1978, with its services transferred to neighbouring

Emerald, Victoria Emerald is a town in the Greater Melbourne area of Victoria, Australia, south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the Shires of Cardinia and Yarra Ranges local government areas. Emerald recorded a population of 5,89 ...

and, along with it, a postcode change from 3159 to 3782.

Clematis Fire Brigade

Clematis Fire Brigade is a brigade of the

Country Fire Authority The Country Fire Authority (CFA) is a Volunteer fire department, volunteer fire service responsible for fire suppression, rescues, and response to other accidents and hazards across most of the state of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia ...

providing a

volunteer Volunteering is an elective and freely chosen act of an individual or group giving their time and labor, often for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency ...

fire fighting Firefighting is a profession aimed at controlling and extinguishing fire. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter or fireman. Firefighters typically undergo a high degree of technical training. This involves structural fir ...

service for over half of

. It was formed in 1936 and celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2006. The brigade attends approximately 100 emergency calls per year. Since the brigade's formation it has fought most major blazes across Victoria, including the

Ash Wednesday fires The Ash Wednesday bushfires, known in South Australia as Ash Wednesday II, were a series of bushfires that occurred in south-eastern Australia in 1983 on 16 February. Within twelve hours, more than 180 fires fanned by hot winds of up to caus ...

. The brigade has also fought major blazes interstate in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. The brigade trains on Wednesday evenings from 7:30 p.m. and new members are always welcome.

References

External links

Clematis Fire Brigade Protecting the Community For Over 70 Years
Shire of Cardinia {{melbourne-geo-stub

History

Clematis Fire Brigade

See also

References

External links