Burnley, Victoria

Burnley is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km east of Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government area is the City of Yarra. At the 2011 Census, Burnley had a population of 738.Burnley has the Yarra River as its southern and eastern boundaries. The other boundaries are Bridge Road to the north and Burnley Street to the west.Located in the present City of Yarra, Burnley is historically considered to be part of the larger Richmond area. Burnley's location in inner-suburban Melbourne is well known to Melburnians due to the naming of the Burnley Tunnel near the area, a major part of Melbourne's CityLink transport network.HistoryIn 1838 the area approximating Burnley's present open space lying in a loop of the Yarra River was reserved as the Survey Paddock. It is bisected by Swan Street (1880s), trisected by railway lines diverging at Burnley (to Hawthorn, 1861 and to Glen Iris, 1890), and skirted on its eastern edge by the Yarra Boulevard (1930s) and on its southern edge by the South Eastern, now Monash, Freeway (1962).The area was named after William Burnley, pioneer land purchaser in Richmond, local councillor and parliamentarian.