Bulla, Victoria
Encyclopedia
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, 29 kilometres (18 mi) north-west from Melbourne's central business district
Melbourne city centre
Melbourne City Centre is an area of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It is not to be confused with the larger local government area of the City of Melbourne...
. It is adjacent to the Melbourne metropolitan area. Its Local Government Area is the City of Hume
City of Hume
The City of Hume is a Local Government Area located partially within the metropolitan area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It includes outer north-western suburbs and a number of rural localities between 13 and 40 kilometres from the Melbourne city centre....
. At the 2006 Census, Bulla had a population of 398.
Deep Creek
Deep Creek (Victoria)
Deep Creek is a watercourse in the Yarra-Maribyrnong catchment area, north of Melbourne in Victoria, which arises from the confluence of a number of smaller streams draining the north eastern slopes of the Mount Macedon range and the southern slopes of the Cobaw range, both ranges being...
, a tributary of the Maribyrnong River
Maribyrnong river
The Maribyrnong River rises about 50 km north of Melbourne, Victoria , near Mount Macedon. It flows generally southward and combines with the Yarra River to flow into Port Phillip....
, flows through the township.
History
Bulla's name is of IndigenousIndigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
origins but the meaning is unclear. It was first settled by William "Tulip" Wright, the former chief constable of Melbourne in 1843. In 1851 the village was surveyed. A flour mill, brickworks and pottery works were built to exploit local kaolinite
Kaolinite
Kaolinite is a clay mineral, part of the group of industrial minerals, with the chemical composition Al2Si2O54. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina octahedra...
reserves, and facilities were quickly erected to serve the local population, including several churches (two of which are now listed by the National Trust), a school, general store, and from 1862, council offices.
Bulla Post Office opened on 1 March 1851 but was known as Bulla Bulla until 1854.
At the time it was the largest town in the region, but competition from Sunbury
Sunbury, Victoria
Sunbury is a regional city, located north-west of Melbourne's central business district, in the state of Victoria, Australia. Its Local Government Area is the City of Hume. At the 2006 Census, Sunbury had a population of 31,000...
limited the growth of the town. In 1956, the Bulla Shire Council (now part of the City of Hume
City of Hume
The City of Hume is a Local Government Area located partially within the metropolitan area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It includes outer north-western suburbs and a number of rural localities between 13 and 40 kilometres from the Melbourne city centre....
following amalgamation in 1994) moved to Sunbury, and in 1996, the Kennett
Jeff Kennett
Jeffrey Gibb Kennett AC , a former Australian politician, was the Premier of Victoria between 1992 and 1999. He is currently the President of Hawthorn Football Club. He is the founding Chairman of beyondblue, a national depression initiative.- Early life :Kennett was born in Melbourne on 2 March...
Liberal
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
government closed the primary school.
In 1910, the Bulla Cream Company took up dairy farming in the area, transporting the cream by horse and cart to their processing facility at Moonee Ponds
Moonee Ponds, Victoria
Moonee Ponds is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 7 km north-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moonee Valley.It is home to Queens Park and the Moonee Valley Racecourse...
in suburban Melbourne.
Present day
The town centre of Bulla contains a large reserve which includes a sports centre, tennis club and community centre. This reserve is home to the Tullamarine Live Steam Society, who maintain a miniature railway which is open to the public on the first and third Sunday afternoon of each month, with a monthly market on the third Sunday between 9am and 3pm with train rides all day. It also contains hotel-motel accommodation and a country fire stationCountry Fire Authority
Country Fire Authority, or CFA, is the name of the fire service that provides firefighting and other emergency services to all of the country areas and regional townships within the state of Victoria, Australia, as well as large portions of the outer suburban areas and growth corridors of Melbourne...
.
The ABS reported in 2001 that 12% of the town's residents are of Italian
Italian Australians
-Characteristics :The 2006 Census counted 199,124 persons who were born in Italy. However, 852,417 persons identified themselves as having Italian ancestry, either alone or in combination with another ancestry . Italian is the fifth most identified ancestry in Australia behind 'Australian',...
descent. A Calabria Club is located on Uniting Lane.
Next to the former shire's bluestone hall in the main street of Bulla is the Alister Clark Memorial Rose Garden. Alister Clark
Alister Clark
Alister Clark was an Australian rose breeder. -Biography:Alister Clark was the son of an immigrant Scottish tenant farmer who did well in Australia, leaving his family with several outback cattle stations and “Glenara,” a big property in a valley north of Melbourne. His children knew Europe well...
, several times shire president, whose house 'Glenara' lies on Deep Creek in the old shire of Bulla, was the most prolific and best known of Australian rose breeders. The garden, created and maintained by local volunteers, has a nearly complete collection of his surviving roses.
Transport
Melbourne bus routes 479 and 500 connect both suburban Melbourne and nearby Sunbury, at the former Victoria UniversityVictoria University, Australia
Victoria University is a multi-sector tertiary institution based in Melbourne, Australia with 10 campuses.VU offers qualifications in higher education, vocational education , and short courses...
campus.