"Why would you want to live all the way out there?" was a common response to early residents when they announced they were moving to the new suburbs in the Woden Valley.
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After all, it was a long way from the city, out along the Cotter Road past the brickworks and well beyond the city boundaries. There was nothing out there but sheep paddocks and a cemetery.
The land now occupied by Woden Valley was originally part of Yarralumla Station. The district takes its name from a neighbouring property, Woden, named in 1837 by Dr James Murray after the Norse god of wisdom. Yarralumla was resumed by the Commonwealth after Federation and, in 1920, subdivided for soldier settlement blocks.
The soldier settlement scheme was designed to provide land and employment for soldiers returning from World War I and to open up rural areas for agricultural development and closer settlement. There were four soldier settler blocks in the Woden Valley: Yarra Glen, Illoura, Melrose and Yamba, occupied by the Campbell, Tanner, Maguire and Eddison families respectively. The families lived and grazed their sheep on their blocks for more than 30 years.
The properties on which the new suburbs were to be built were gradually resumed. The graziers retired to suburbia and their rural homesteads were demolished. Their properties are remembered in the names of local roads, schools and, appropriately, horse paddocks.
The Woden Valley (including Weston Creek) was the first of Canberra's satellite towns, planned and developed by the National Capital Development Commission from 1958 onwards. It was a great experiment in decentralised urban planning, prompted by the transfer of large numbers of Commonwealth public servants from Melbourne.
The new towns were intended to be thriving, relatively self-contained centres, providing employment opportunities, housing, businesses and shops, schools, sports fields, services and community facilities for the growing population. The first two suburbs to be built in the Woden Valley were Hughes and Curtin, both gazetted on September 20, 1962. Construction commenced in Hughes later that year, with the first residents moving into their homes in 1963. The remaining suburbs were gazetted in 1966.
Many blocks were released in restricted auctions which provided a single block to people who had not held a residential lease in the ACT in the previous two years. The final suburb to be built was Isaacs, in 1986.
The National Capital Development Commission applied some innovative town planning designs when developing the suburbs. Canberra's first underpass was built in Hughes, under Kent Street. In Curtin, the streets near the primary school adopted the Radburn layout, where the backs of the houses faced the street and the fronts faced an open, shared reserve threaded with paths leading to the school and the shops. The housing in Carroll Street, Hughes, built for the Australian National University, also follows the Radburn plan.
The effect of both these design initiatives was to separate cars from pedestrians, providing pedestrian-friendly, car-free access to local facilities without having to cross major roads.
Swinger Hill, part of Phillip, was another urban design innovation. Its cluster housing of semi-attached or attached housing, rather than separate houses on their own blocks, was the largest medium-density residential development in Australia at the time and the first to achieve a density of 40 persons per acre. The development provided an alternative lifestyle and housing choice to Canberra residents.
The Woden Town Centre sits at the heart of the Woden Valley. Construction of office buildings purpose-built to house the decentralised Commonwealth departments commenced in 1968, and the first shopping centre, Woden Plaza, was opened by then-prime minister William McMahon in 1972. Community facilities were also built with Phillip Oval seen in the very early photographs.
Lovett Tower (formerly the MLC Tower) in the centre of the Woden Town Centre was, until recently, the tallest commercial building in Canberra. Standing at 93 metres and 26 storeys tall, it was completed in 1973. The tower was renamed in 2000 to honour the Lovett family whose five sons served during World War I.
Disaster struck the Woden Valley on Australia Day 1971. A thunderstorm and torrential rain caused a sudden flash flood along Yarralumla Creek, sweeping cars off the low-level bridge at the Yarra Glen intersection with Yamba Drive and Melrose Drive.
The flood resulted in seven fatalities, all young people under the age of 21. It remains Canberra's worst civilian disaster to date. Twelve people were rescued, 15 people were injured and about 60 cars were swept off the flooded roads. The intersection has since been rebuilt as an elevated roundabout above the flood plain, and a memorial was erected in Curtin to the flood victims.
What does the future hold for the Woden Valley? The town centre is currently undergoing radical densification with zoning for 16-storey residential towers, increasing to 28 storeys around the town square. The ACT government is investing in a new Canberra Institute of Technology and light rail.
Nevertheless, current residents remain concerned about the loss of sunny public spaces and community facilities for culture and indoor recreation for the increasing population. This is a pivotal moment for the Woden Valley's transition to a cosmopolitan urban hub, for planning to ensure it continues to develop into a destination for the broader region and a strong, inclusive community over the next 60 years.
- Frances McGee is the treasurer of the Canberra & District Historical Society.
- To contribute to this column, email history@canberratimes.com.au
