Bundoora

Land around the modern suburb of Bundoora, 15km north-east of the Melbourne CBD, was still being farmed well into the 20th century and development has gone in starts and stops since the State Government opened the Mont Park mental hospital on a huge tract of land during World War I.

Shell-shocked victims of the Great War were treated at Mont Park which also became a base for training the Women's Land Army in World War II.

Since part of Mont Park was taken for the site of La Trobe University in 1965, Bundoora has become an important link in the Victorian education system.

The Phillip Institute of Technology was established in the region in 1972 and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology also has a campus in the northern fringes of Bundoora.

Bordered by Darebin Creek and Plenty River, Bundoora is a suburb of 25,000 people in the City of Banyule in Melbourne"s north-east.

The municipality is graced by one of the oldest homesteads in the metropolitan region, Banyule. The home was built from hand-made bricks in the 1840s for Joseph Hawdon who was one of the first settlers to drive cattle overland from NSW into the newly colonial outpost of Victoria. The home, designed in a mix of Romantic Gothic and Tudor Revival styles, was the focal point of a 266ha property in what is now Heidelberg.

After years in the stewardship of the state, Banyule Homestead was sold to a private buyer in 1995 and is no longer open to the public.