Land of Promise Estate, Moreland Road, West Brunswick

In 1839 the first ‘suburban’ lots were surveyed. The Brunswick area was laid out – two straight lines marking south and north (later Park Street and Moreland Road) then Moonee Ponds Creek in the west to Merri Creek in the east. Coburg began where Brunswick left off – at Moreland Road.

Speculators have been buying land and subdividing in Brunswick and Coburg since the first land sales in 1839. In February 1840, the Port Phillip Gazette brought out its slickest Biblical rhetoric: ‘Moreland-road West Brunswick! The Land of Promise!’ it cried. ‘A paradise in miniature, verily, verily! Eden resuscitated! A Home for the Chosen People!’

In that time there were large estates that might well be considered ‘paradise in miniature’ dotted around both Brunswick and Coburg. The wealthy did not spurn the northern suburbs then. E.J. Moorehead, writing in the Age in 1931, noted that ‘the large blocks of land running back to the two creeks, after their original service as agricultural holdings, attracted persons of wealth and leisure, who began to establish country homes there.’

Back in 1914 long-term resident Benjamin Cooke commented on the subdivision of the old estates, saying that ‘it seems that in the near future all the old homes with acreages will become a thing of the past.’ He was almost right – the acreages have certainly disappeared, but scattered throughout the district you can still find a mansion or two, among them Moreland Hall, Sherwood and Fleming House.

The Biblical rhetoric that appeared first in 1840 was brought out again in 1888 when the ‘Land of Promise’ Estate was carved up into 164 allotments and put on the market.

The auctioneer’s poster tells it all.

The Land of Promise, Moreland Road, West Brunswick, auction plan, 1888. Dyer collection, Map collection, State Library of Victoria. 

And here are some details from this beautiful poster.

I’ve included the full text of the advertising material here. It’s well worth a read. Some of it's very politically incorrect these days and would never make it to print, but it appeared day after day in the lead-up to the sale on 20 October 1888. Just a pity the auction wasn’t more successul on the day – the news reports in the following week tell us that only a few Moreland Road frontages were sold and that the culprit was the 'interference' of the races at Caulfield – bad timing, indeed.