Park Orchards, Victoria

Park Orchards is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 23 km north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District in the local government area of the City of Manningham primarily, with a small portion (the southern side of Williams road) also located in the City of Maroondah. At the 2011 Census, Park Orchards, a Green Wedge area, had a population of 3,718 and is listed in the Australian Heritage Database.HistoryPre-colonisation, the Wurundjeri people cared for the land.In 1902, prominent Victorian orchardist Tom Petty, purchased 559 acres of land north of the Mitcham district, and converted it to 80 orchard blocks in an ambitious project.In 1925, South Melbourne timber merchants Australis Sharp and John Taylor purchased Petty's land and launched the Park Orchards Country Club Estate. They had the subdivisions designed by Saxil Tuxen and Miller. Tuxen had previously worked with Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin on the Ranelagh Estate in Mt Eliza which Sharp and Taylor had owned, and Park Orchards was designed around a similar ‘Country Club’ organisation that had become popular during the 1920s in the US. The circular street layout is clearly inspired by Mahony-Griffin style.