North Bendigo

North Bendigo is situated in the vicinity of Lake Weeroona and the railway loop which runs northwards to Inglewood. Its area includes the Australian Defence Industries (north of the railway loop) and the Bendigo showgrounds.

Part of North Bendigo was known as Emu Point, a name dating from the late nineteenth century when there was a large Chinese community there. Chinese goldminers had been active in the area since the mid-1850s, and in about 1865 they constructed the Chinese Masonic Hall (known as the Joss House) in Finn Street. The Hall has been restored by the National Trust and is on the Victorian Heritage Register.

Much of the area was pitted with mining dumps, and North Bendigo was a mixture of working class houses and industrial landscape. At the beginning of World War II an Ordnance Factory was opened, and after the war mining lands were levelled for housing. The Bendigo North school (1873) was outgrown by the school population, and the Comet Hill school next to the showgrounds was opened in 1965. A Catholic primary school opened in Eaglehawk Road in 1972.

An example of nineteenth century survives in Weeroona Avenue in the form of the Bendigo gas works (1860) which are on the Victorian Heritage Register.

Australian Defence Industries (the former Ordnance Factory) made aircraft, shipping and weapons components, as well as commercial products. Its workforce was approximately 3000 people. Latterly it has been part of Thales Australia, and makes Bushmaster and other protected military vehicles.

North Bendigo has a football and netball club and its sports reserve is next to the Catholic school. The suburb's northern border adjoins Eaglehawk where there is the Bendigo Psychiatric Centre (1971) and the California Gully and Jackass Flat box-ironbark nature reserves.

North Bendigo's census populations have been: