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History
For thousands of years the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people were the custodians of the land that now constitutes Surrey Hills and Mont Albert. Using firesticks to clear undergrowth, they maintained a local landscape dominated by eucalypt forest, grassland and swampy hollows.
Clearing of land by frontier farmers followed in the early 1800s, with access for early settlers and travellers by foot, horses and bullock dray.
After 1850, a grid of roads was created and in 1882 rail was put through, with stations at Surrey Hills and Mont Albert consequently fixing the two places in people’s minds as separate suburbs.
Surrey Hills
Surrey Hills
Surrey Hills Railway Station
In the real estate and land speculation boom in Melbourne in the 1880s, developers promoted a suburban lifestyle for all social classes, citing similarities between Surrey Hills and rural village landscapes in England.
The prosperity of the 1880s gave way to the bank and property collapse in the 1890’s, prompting a severe economic depression. For two decades much land remained undeveloped.
At about the time of the First World War, residential development resumed, with desirable properties located within a short walk of Surrey Hills station. Real estate agents again promoted Surrey Hills as a ‘suburban idyll’, easily accessible and yet away from Melbourne city.
In the early 1920s, electrified transport and reticulated supply to properties positioned Surrey Hills as a leader in modern housing and infrastructure. Many bungalows from this period remain, most with an added upper story and rear extension.
After the Second World War, the arrival of affordable motor cars solidified Surrey Hills as a commuter suburb for Melbourne. By the 1950s, increasing car ownership drove demand for the removal of street trees to make way for residential driveways.
Commercial development was also spurred by the arrival of the railway in the 1880s, with the intersection of Union and Canterbury roads being particularly busy. Commercial and retail development extended downhill across the railway line along Union Road.
By 2020, separation of road and rail had become an imperative, leading to the excavation of a
1.2 km cutting beneath the roads and through the Mont Albert and Surrey Hils Station locations in 2022-23.
The two stations were amalgamated into a single ultra-modern station called Union, within walking distance of the two shopping villages.
While amenity was preserved, the residual character of the stations and their surrounds was lost. A commuter carpark extends west from Union Station, connecting to Union Road by a small, terraced area with grass and a playground.
Mont Albert
Mont Albert Railway Station
Mont Albert Road
Mont Albert developed its own identity in the 1890s, centred on the high ground rising east from Surrey Hills. Land was promoted by estate agents seeking to attract well-heeled people with visions of mansions in open estates easily accessible by train from Melbourne.
The land boom conditions of the 1880s fostered subdivision along Churchill Street and Elgar and Zetland Roads close to the rail corridor.
Ambitious developments, such as the Windsor Park Estate south of the rail line and Phoenix Estate to the north, were drawn up in the late 1880s.
The depression of the 1890s abruptly slowed these ventures, and it was not until the first decade of the 20th century that residential development began again in earnest, leading to a period of Federation style building.
A cross-country golf course operated across the paddocks north of the railway station to Whitehorse Road and east to Elgar Road. A clubhouse, now a private residence, was built in Trafalgar Street. Anticipating the resumption of residential development, the club moved to Camberwell in 1907.
Mont Albert shopping village owes its existence to early steam trains being able to stop easily on the ridge crest and roll off downhill to Surrey Hills and Box Hill.
The commercial subdivision of Hamilton Street that would become Mont Albert Village, occurred in 1891 at an auction held at the station.
In 1911, the current heritage-listed station building replaced an earlier building and the first purpose-built shop in Hamilton Street was built around the same time. By 1920, most of the west side of the street was developed, and by 1930 shops lined all of Hamilton Street, extending around the corner to Churchill Street opposite the station.
As the 20th century progressed, the precinct’s architectural consistency remained largely intact, reflecting the building styles and Mont Albert’s development between the First and Second World Wars.
The loss of the railway station in 2023 was a major blow to Mont Albert shopping village. Lobbying by residents, traders, the Surrey Hills and Mont Albert Progress Association and others led to the restoration of the Mont Albert Station heritage building close to its original location on a 42m wide garden plaza straddling the rail cutting.
Now repurposed as a café, the restored building is a showpiece linking Mont Albert Village Plaza to its railway heritage. The Plaza itself forms a hub, with roads, lanes and pathways radiating in many directions, providing easy walking and cycle access across the rail trench to and from the shopping village.
Our Association
The Surrey Hills Progress Association (SHPA) was first established on 1 May 1899. It operated intermittently in various incarnations over the following decades, primarily “concerned with the material progress of Surrey Hills and by ideas of economic, social and civic betterment”.
In 1979, a new iteration of SHPA was established in response to the possibility of an elevated roadway being erected over the railway line in Union Road.
The current version of the Progress Association was formed and incorporated in 2010, as a result of concerns raised by the demolition of the historic Surrey Hills Post Office building.
In 2017 the Association expanded its coverage to include those parts of Surrey Hills and Mont Albert within the 3127 postcode in the City of Whitehorse.
In 2021 it was decided to rename the Association to formally acknowledge the inclusion of Mont Albert in its coverage, hence the current name Surrey Hills and Mont Albert Progress Association (SHMAPA).
For further detail regarding the history of SHMAPA in all its iterations, refer to Surrey Hills Progress Associations, 1899-2015 by Ken James, available from the Surrey Hills Neighbourhood Centre.
