Cluster: Exploring Melbourne's Street Names

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Tue 30 Apr 2013 - Tue 30 Jul 2013

What's in a name? Well lots.

Especially in some of the street names we walk past every day and take for granted.

If you live in Yarraville you may have noticed that many of the street names are named after prominent goldfields such as Ballarat, Alexander, Forest and Bendigo.

Gold miners would walk back from the goldfields through Yarrravile and see the street signs. This would remind them of striking it rich.

It was a ploy to encourage them to buy blocks of land in the area before they got to Melbourne and blew all their money. So even back in the 1850s real estate marketing was in full swing.

When I lived in Doncaster it was nice to walk past streets and know they were named after the original orchardist's daughters who had grown up in the area. It gave a seamless sense of history and place.

Names of streets are grouped into clusters as it is a brain taxing occupation to come up with individual street names.

Clustering allows developers and planners to reel off names very quickly rather than simply wracking their brains to think of famous landmarks to name streets after.

In Elwood and St Kilda, for example, streets are named after famous writers: Tennyson St, Dickens St, Milton St, Chaucer St, Wordsworth St, Shakespeare Gv, Shelley St, Byron St, Mitford St, and Poets Gv.

I once lived in Milton St and never made that connection.



Elwood which is near the beach has lots of words that remind you of the nearby water such as Spray St, Tide St, Beach Av, Wave St, Foam St.

Narre Warren South has the Strawberry Fields Estate which includes Lennon Circuit, McCartney Drive, Ringo Place, Norwegian Way, Tangerine Drive, Jude Place and, wait for it, Abbey Rd. Although they seem to have forgotten about poor old Penny Lane.

Now there is an exhibition that explores this concept called: . It looks at the hidden pattern of street names spread across central and suburban Melbourne.

The great thing about this exhibition is that it is in the Melbourne Town Hall so when you are walking past you can just drop in and take a look. Plus it is free.



There are thousands of street name clusters across Melbourne. This exhibition presents some of the best, from clusters named after the city's founding fathers, to 1980s football stars as well as their wives and daughters.

Visitors will be encouraged to tell of their own cluster through a pin-up board.



The words for this exhibition were written by Historian Professor Graeme Davison who is a pre-eminent local historian.

So where do the streets in your suburb come from? Do you have some interesting information to share?

All images courtesy of citygallery.com.au

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!date 30/04/2013 -- 30/07/2013
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