Flora Hill

Flora Hill is a residential suburb 3 km south-east of Bendigo. Among its earliest buildings was a timber Holy Trinity Anglican church which was replaced with a contemporary brick structure in 1972.

During the first half of the twentieth century Flora Hill was beyond Bendigo’s urban fringe. One of its notable features was a boys’ farm for teaching agricultural skills, begun after World War I.

After World War II new housing development moved in the direction of Flora Hill, and the South Bendigo Progress Association agitated for the opening of a primary school. The school’s first intake was in 1952. Elsewhere at Flora Hill, several years before, part of the boys’ farm had been reserved for educational purposes with a new campus for the Bendigo Junior Technical School in mind. The new junior school did not eventuate, but in 1966 the reserved land was allocated to the Bendigo Institute of Technology (former School of Mines). The Institute’s Flora Hill campus was opened in 1970, and it was later integrated with the LaTrobe University.

Flora Hill has a shopping centre, a State secondary school which adjoins extensive university student accommodation, and a public reserve with a swimming pool. The Strath Village shopping centre is to the north of Flora Hill. The State primary school’s enrolment fell from over 230 (2000) to 105 (2007) and it closed at the end of 2007.

Flora Hill’s census populations have been: