Lower Plenty

A semi-rural village on the north-eastern outskirts of Melbourne, Lower Plenty sits at the junction of the Plenty and Yarra rivers.

Commercial radio-transmission masts create an incongruous skyline and one of the enduring and dominant features of the town centre is the Heidelberg Golf Club where members and their guests have been chasing that little white ball since 1929.

Several support organisations such as Odyssey House have centres in the area. As the name of the long established golf club suggests, Lower Plenty adjoins Heidelberg, home in the late 19th century of the famous Heidelberg School. Celebrated painters as Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin, Charles Condor and Emma Boyd used the even light and colour to adapt the concepts of the French Impressionists to Australian conditions.

The Old England Hotel on Lower Heidelberg Road has been a social centre in the district since the license was issued in 1850 and, for a time, was headquarters for the fox hunting fraternity. The old pub has undergone some extensive structural changes in the last 150-plus years, but part of the original stone section of the inn remains.