Braeside, Victoria

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Braeside is a predominantly industrial suburb with a metropolitan park, 26 km. south-east of Melbourne and immediately east of Mordialloc. The name came from a farm property, Braeside, owned by members of the Keys family (see Keysborough), east of the present Epsom Training track, Mordialloc. Braeside is on the former Carrum Swamp, which was gradually drained and brought into year-round farm land from 1868. The Braeside farm was sold by the Keys family to Dr. Arthur Syme, the son of David Syme, owner of The Age newspaper. Syme developed it as a horse-breeding property. Adjoining Braeside there were small closer-settlement blocks (1908-9), which together with other local population resulted in a primary school being opened in 1915. The area was used for dairying and market gardens. In the 1920s the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works implemented a dormant plan for the provision of a second sewage-treatment plant, as the diversion of sewage from the growing eastern suburb to Werribee was becoming untenable. It acquired 468 ha. of land, including Syme's Braeside of 376 ha. The depression delayed the building of the Braeside sewage Treatment Plant until 1939, and the horse-training facilities continued, leased by the owner of Pharlap. The treatment plant was decommissioned when the South-Eastern Purification Plant at Carrum and Bangholme came into operation during the 1970s, and the site has been divided between the Southern golf Club (formerly Brighton Golf Club). Mentone Grammar School Sports Centre, other sports facilities, the Melbourne Water fauna and wetlands park and industrial sites on the western side, of which the Woodlands industrial Estate is the most prominent. The park is a mixture of wetlands, grasslands and woodlands. The stables which housed Pharlap fell into disrepair and were destroyed by fire in 1982. The population of Braeside is mainly workers and visitors. In 1933 there was a census count of 169. A freeway reservation for Mornington Peninsula bisects Braeside. Further Reading: Hibbins, G.W., "A History of the City of Springvale", Constellation of Communities, Lothian Publishing Pty. Ltd., 1984. External Links:  Accommodation  OLA Handbook See also | Keysborough | Chelsea Heights | Mordialloc |