Ivanhoe East

Ivanhoe East is a residential suburb between Heidelberg and the River Yarra, 10 km north-east of central Melbourne. Unlike Ivanhoe and Heidelberg, Ivanhoe East is not on a railway line or an early road which led to outlying farm communities or gold fields.

The suburb follows the course of the river which is L-shaped in reverse. Lower Heidelberg Road is the main thoroughfare, following the same shape, and it was near that road that the Ravenswood mansion was built in about 1890, with southerly views over the Yarra valley. The mansion is a rare example in a north of Yarra suburb of the boom time architectural tastes. It is on the Australian and Victorian heritage registers. An earlier, and less grandiose, residence is Charterisville, looking east over the river. Built in about 1840, its address is 77 Burke Road. Charterisville is one of Victoria’s earliest surviving houses and is also on both heritage registers.

The Charteris estate was sold in 1927 for housing subdivisions, continuing a trend that had occurred earlier in the decade near Lower Heidelberg Road. A State primary school was opened in 1926 and a shopping centre began at the five ways corner of Lower Heidelberg and Macarthur Roads. In 1938 A.V. Jennings acquired land near Ravenswood and west of the five ways for the second of his housing estates, Beauview. It provided 121 residential blocks and 43 shop sites. The entry of Australia in the Pacific War (1941) saw the estate less than half finished, and its completion awaited the 1950s. Much other housing, particularly along The Boulevard, also dates from the 1950s. Median house prices were about double the median for metropolitan Melbourne.

Ivanhoe East has an active shopping centre, a primary school (551 pupils, 2014), a Catholic church (1950) and school, and an Anglican church (1962) designed by Frederick Romberg. To the south there are extensive sporting fields, the East Ivanhoe bowling club and croquet club, tennis courts and the Ivanhoe public golf course, next to the Yarra River.

During the evenings before Christmas illuminated decorations on houses in The Boulevard draw large crowds of sightseers.

Ivanhoe East’s census populations have been: