Pascoe Vale South

Pascoe Vale South is a residential suburb 8 km north of central Melbourne and immediately west of Coburg. It extends from O'Hea Street to Moreland Road and has the Moonee Ponds Creek as its western boundary. In common with John Pascoe Fawkner's Pascoeville to the north, Pascoe Vale South was a collection of 'gentlemen's' estates from the first farm subdivision in 1840. The locality of Coonans Hill, north of Moreland Road, was named after Michael Coonan. North of Coonan's holding there was Farquhar McCrae's La Rose estate. McCrae's homestead (1842) in Le Cateau Street is heritage listed.

Until the 1920s Coonans Hill was still farmland, although there were numerous vacant blocks of land standing from the 1880s land boom. In 1927 the Melville Road tramline was extended through Pascoe Vale South (from Albion Street, West Brunswick to Bell Street, Coburg). Streets in new subdivisions were named after World War I places, eg Gallipoli, Heliopolis, and the regal Balmoral, Princes and Royal.

There are a few interwar homes in Pascoe Vale South, and significant growth came in the postwar years, including prefabricated houses (1948) in Gallipoli Parade and Heliopolis Street etc. Shops were built in Bell Street at the tram terminus in the 1920s, with additions continuing until the 1960s. The police station (Bell Street) was built in 1945 and the State primary school opened in 1954 (332 pupils, 2014). Some distance away a Methodist church opened in Cumberland Road in 1939, and the present building dates flrom 1959. There is a Catholic Church in Coonans Hill, but the Catholic boys' school was acquired by the Maronite Catholic Church for its years 7-12 college (2011).

Pascoe Vale South is noted for its substantial middle class houses which have attracted owners from Australia and overseas: at the 2011 census Italian speaking residents were 11.2% of the population and Greek speaking were 9.5%. As well as the Melville Road tram, residents can cross the Moonee Ponds Creek to the Glenbervie and Strathmore railway stations or go a short way north to the Pascoe Vale station.

Pascoe Vale South's census populations have been: