What’s In A Name delves into the fascinating stories and personalities behind some of the city’s best known street names. This week the Journal looks at Pound Road.
POUND Road is not named after an individual but rather the animal pound that once exited at the Dandenong South end of the road.
Three pioneer families settled the bulk of the land that is now Hampton Park, Hallam and Dandenong South, the three suburbs linked by Pound Road.
The first European settler in the area was Isaac Edey who arrived in 1842.
He owned 572 acres east of Dandenong where Hallam Road is today. The Edey family homestead was situated where Ormond Road is now.
In 1852 Peter Davis successfully bid at auction in Melbourne for 316 acres of land on the Princes Highway where the old GMH and Heinz factories would later be built.
In 1854 Mr Davis expanded his holdings by purchasing the full triangle of land bounded by Cranbourne, Pound and Hallam roads, giving him a total of 885 acres.
He paid the princely sum of £1 per acre.
In 1863 David Duncan purchased 156 acres on Pound Road, opposite a well-known parcel of land known by everyone as Garner’s Paddock.
In 1857 James Garner had opened a shoe forge on his Hampton Park land but later shifted his bussiness to Dandenong.
All three properties were fenced with red gum posts and nine-foot rails and adjoined Garner’s Paddock.
Garner’s Paddock was used as the Dandenong Pound for many years, hence the name Pound Road.
The pound’s yards were situated on the hill on the South Gippsland Highway between the Dandenong Bypass and Greens Road.
Cattle were often impounded during the day only to mysteriously disappear at night.
At the end of the 19th century the three original families subdivided their land into smaller farms of up to 40 hectares.
Until Hampton Park was declared an official sub-division in 1917-1918, ratepayers of the area were listed variously as living in Eumemmerring, Dandenong or Lyndhurst.
Want to know the history behind a street name in Greater Dandenong? Let us know and we’ll find out! Email journal@starnewsgroup.com.au.
– Reminiscences of early Dandenong by G F Roulston.
