Lower Plenty

Lower Plenty, at the junction of the Plenty and Yarra Rivers, has a residential area and substantial open space comprising two golf clubs and parkland. It is 16 km north-east of central Melbourne.

Although the locality was settled for grazing in the 1840s, the formation of a township had its beginnings when a bridge was built across the Plenty River for the mining track to the Caledonia Diggings at St Andrews and thereabouts. An old bridge remains where the original road crossed the river, although it is not the first wooden bridge as that was washed away.

By 1874 there was sufficient population for a school to be opened. The district's isolation from the Eltham railway line did not encourage residential development. The Heidelberg Golf Club was established on a large estate opposite the small town centre in 1929. After World War II Lower Plenty was a residential, dairying and pastoral district with a population of about 450.

The residential part is close to Main Road, Lower Plenty's northern boundary. The small shopping centre is near the school (127 pupils, 2014). Looking southwards there are the Heidelberg Golf Club, farm land in which commercial radio-transmission masts are situated, and the Yarra Valley Parklands. Land has been set aside for caring institutions, the most prominent being Odyssey House. Part of the Rosanna Golf Club is on the eastern side of the Plenty River, the other part being across the river in Viewbank.

Lower Plenty's census populations have been: