Carlton North, Victoria

Carlton North is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km north from Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government areas are the Melbourne and Yarra. At the 2011 Census, Carlton North had a population of 6,220.

The suburb is bordered by Princes Street and Cemetery Road to the south, Royal Parade to the west, Nicholson Street to the east and Park Street to the north. Carlton North is home to the Melbourne General Cemetery and the Princes Park, which contains the Princes Park Football Ground.

Its main commercial area is along Rathdowne Street, which has numerous cafés, restaurants, small fashion boutiques, bookshops and other businesses.

Today, Carlton North, like other inner-northern suburbs of Melbourne, contains a mixture of white-collar professionals, bureaucrats and academics. The area has become more gentrified than Fitzroy North, Brunswick or Collingwood, resulting in significantly higher median property prices.

History
Carlton North has its origins with the allotment of the Melbourne General Cemetery in 1853. Previous cemetery sites at Flagstaff Gardens and (what is now) Queen Victoria Market had become full, thus the new Carlton North site was established. In the same year a prison stockade, Collingwood Stockade, was built on Lee Street. This subsequently became an asylum until 1873 when it became the area's first primary school. A bluestone quarry was established at what is now Curtain Square. Subdivision into residential blocks began in 1869, with the emerging brick terrace houses standing in contrast to Carlton's timber cottages. Princes Park was established in 1844 and became home to the Carlton Football Club in 1864.

Tram lines were installed along Lygon Street, Rathdowne Street (dismantled in 1936), and Nicholson Street. The area was also serviced by the Inner Circle railway line (passenger services were ceased in 1948 although it remained a goods line until 1980).

Demographics
In Carlton North The most common ancestries were English 22.7%, Australian 18.6%, Irish 12.8%, Scottish 8.9% and Italian 8.1%., 69.6% of people were born in Australia. The most common countries of birth were England 3.8%, New Zealand 3.2%, Italy 2.8%, Malaysia 1.4% and China (excludes SARs and Taiwan) 1.1%.,77.7% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Italian 5.3%, Greek 2.1%, Mandarin 1.8%, French 0.8% and Spanish 0.8%.

The most common responses for religion were No Religion 45.7%, Catholic 22.2%, Anglican 7.2%, Eastern Orthodox 3.0% and Buddhism 2.4%.

Commerce and culture


The main commercial precincts in Carlton North are the strip on Rathdowne Street (called 'Rathdowne Village') and the northern end of Nicholson Street. The most notable businesses in the area include the original La Porchetta pizza restaurant (which has since become an Australia and New Zealand-wide franchise) and the Natural Tucker Bakery.

In 2010 St Michael's Anglican Church celebrated its 125th anniversary. Carlton North also has one of the oldest mosques in Melbourne. Originally built by Albanian migrants, it is attended by Muslims during the 5 daily obligatory prayer sessions.

Housing


Carlton North has a large amount of Victorian and Edwardian era attached and semi-detached terrace houses.

Pubs



 * The Great Northern Hotel
 * The Kent Hotel
 * The Brandon Hotel

Transport


The suburb is serviced by the main roads of Royal Parade, Lygon Street, Princes Street, Rathdowne Street and Nicholson Street.

Tram routes run north-south along Royal Parade (route 19), Lygon Street (routes 1 & 8) and Nicholson Street (route 96).

Bus routes run along Rathdowne Street; and Richardson Street;

The local railway station was closed to passengers in 1948 and freight in the early 1980s. Part of the former line was utilised for Housing Commission units for the elderly and part was turned into a rather long and narrow park. Carlton North also has significant segregated bicycle facilities, including the Capital City Trail. The Carlton North section is a converted rail trail.

Parks and open space

 * Curtain Square

Melbourne General Cemetery


Melbourne General Cemetery is a large (43 hectare) necropolis which is notable for the graves of four Australian Prime Ministers: James Scullin, Sir Robert Menzies, Harold Holt and Sir John Gorton. Holt's stone is a memorial as his body was never recovered after he disappeared at sea. The tomb of famous Australian explorers Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills (see Burke and Wills expedition) is also located in the cemetery, with an inscription reading "Comrades in a great achievement and companions in death."

Educational facilities

 * Princes Hill Secondary College
 * Carlton North Primary School (aka Lee Street)http://www.carltonnthps.vic.edu.au/

Street names (north/south from west to east)

 * Lygon: There appear to be two candidates for Lygon Street, the western most street. General Henry Lygon, a conservative MP in Britain or his younger brother Edward Pyndar Lygon, who served in the 13th Hussars, also became a General, and served for a shorter period as an MP in Britain.
 * Drummond: Captain Thomas Drummond (10 October 1797 – 15 April 1840), from Edinburgh, Scotland, was an army officer, civil engineer and senior public official.
 * Henry (off Newry)
 * Rathdowne: Henry Monck, the 'very Orange Earl of Rathdowne', sat in the House of Lords in Britain in the period Wellington was Prime Minister. See a history of Rathdowne Street
 * Sutton (off Curtain)
 * Amess (north from Fenwick): Samuel Amess was Melbourne’s foremost building contractor of the 1870s. He was the Mayor of Melbourne when the Melbourne Town Hall was opened. S Amess in the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
 * Canning: George Canning, was a Conservative MP and for a short period Prime Minister of Britain.
 * Station: Named after the North Fitzroy railway station, formerly located a few hundred metres from the street's northern end.
 * Taplin (off Fenwick and MacPherson)
 * Nicholson: William Nicholson, was a member of the Legislative Council, and later Premier of Victoria from 1859 to 1860. William Nicholson in the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online

Street names (east/west from south to north)

 * Davis Street: Peter Davis (1815–1879), estate agent, MCC Councillor, Mayor (1856–1857). Laid out in 1873 when the Collingwood Stockade Asylum was closed. See the article on the women of Davis Street who signed the Monster Petition for Women's Suffrage in 1891. The Monster Petition and the Women of Davis Street
 * Lee
 * O'Grady
 * Newry
 * Curtain: Ambitious, gregarious and flamboyant, Curtain embodied the aspirant values of Melbourne's inner-suburban, gold-generation immigrants. He was essentially a speculator and entrepreneur, and his later business and political associates included mavericks such as Sir Thomas Bent. He was a Melbourne City Councillor and member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. John Curtain in the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
 * Fenwick: Orlando Fenwick, British, soft goods and grocery business, MCC Councillor, Mayor (1871–72).
 * McPherson: Thomas McPherson (1823–1888), iron and steel merchant, MCC Councillor, Mayor, (1870–71).
 * Pigdon: John Pigdon, British, Commissioner for Sydney International Exhibition, Melbourne Exhibition, MCC Councillor, Mayor (1877). Pigdon was a building contractor and businessman. Among other buildings he built St Jude's church in Carlton. An Anglican, he was a churchwarden at St Jude's, Carlton, for thirty years from 1873 and a generous pew-holder; he contributed a stained glass window in memory of his wife. John Pigdon in the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online.
 * Mary
 * Park