Gladstone Park

Gladstone Park is the eastern part of Tullamarine, 15 km. north of Melbourne. It has the Moonee Ponds Creek to its north and east. The name comes from a grazing property owned by Thomas Gladstone between 1869 and 1883.

The area was subdivided for farms in 1842, and the Gladstone Park property was the best-watered and the only one to be sold. It was farmed until sold in 1887 to a land speculator, but his speculation was unsuccessful and the property returned to the Gladstone family. It continued to be farmed until coming into the hands of the Gladstone Park Syndicate in 1954. The Syndicate was part of Stanley Korman’s Standhill conglomerate.

Stanhill produced an elaborate subdivision plan but met with financial difficulties. The Commonwealth Government’s credit squeeze in 1961 caused the company to default and Costain and A.V. Jennings became the joint developer/builder of Gladstone Park. In 1966 they began the ten-year project of building 3,000 houses in Gladstone Park. In 1970 the area’s first primary school was opened.

Gladstone Park has a street configuration which is designed to discourage through traffic in most residential streets. There is a second State primary school, a State secondary college and a Catholic school. Gladstone Park drive-in shopping centre has nearly 19,000 sq. metres of gross lettable area, and five neighbourhood reserves are distributed towards the edges of the residential area. Part of the skirting Moonee Ponds valley, however, is the site of the Western Ring Road which was constructed during the mid 1990s.

The median house price in Gladstone Park in 1987 was the same as the Melbourne metropolitan median price and in 1996 it was 94% of the metropolitan median.

Further Reading:

  • Lemon, Andrew, “Broadmeadows: A Forgotten History”, City of Broadmeadows and Hargren Publishing Company, 1982.

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