It used to be farmland. Now this suburb is its own village

Sydney Morning Herald

3 days ago

In August 2015, the factory opened an adjoining deli that serves freshly made cheese and Italian produce. It's since grown to be a destination eatery, and even welcomes thousands of people each March for its annual Ricotta Festival.
'We brought something unique to Thomastown that attracts people to this area. Otherwise, there's not really any reason why people come to Thomastown, to be frankly honest with you,' says Serena Zen, head of marketing.
Other cheese factories also operate in the suburb. Florida Cheese moved its operation there in 1998, while Pantalica Cheese also has a local manufacturing facility. These factories are indicative of Thomastown's historical connection with the dairy industry.
'It's a big area … there were a lot of Italian migrants who settled here and started businesses near where they were living,' says Zen.
'Thomastown has a lot of food manufacturers … It's good to be near the city … It gives you more contact with the final customer.'
Zen, who lives across the border in nearby Lalor, also says the That's Amore eatery fulfils a rising demand for modern venues within the suburb.
'A lot of young families are moving into these areas, and you see a demographic change,' she says. 'All of those young families are looking for places to have a good brunch. And there's nothing around. But we're here.'
Roads and Transportation
Thomastown station, located on the Mernda train line, was rebuilt and modernised in 2011. Keon Park station is also located in the suburb's south, on the border with Reservoir.
The area is serviced by the Western Ring Road, which connects Melbourne's western and northern suburbs, although it often faces criticism for heavy traffic. Stalled plans to build an Outer Metropolitan Ring Road would link the Princes Freeway to Thomastown, likely easing congestion for drivers.
For Chris Scull, who grew up in Thomastown and now volunteers for the Whittlesea Historical Society, his local transport network is convenient when compared with some other outer Melbourne suburbs.
'It's good because you're on the city fringe,' Scull says. 'I can go 10 minutes towards Bundoora and there's a huge park over there … But you've also got good transportation links.'
This urbanisation would have been unimaginable during the early twentieth century, when Thomastown was little more than a farming town. It wasn't until the mid-1900s that it experienced a population boom. Historical census data shows that only 1500 residents lived in Thomastown in 1954. Today this number has ballooned to over 20,000.
The area has changed a lot since Scull's childhood. But he says that this isn't necessarily a bad thing – the suburb still has plenty of room for growth.
'They're still filling up little pockets that are left … Some of the flats around Station Street and some of the houses there, I don't see why you couldn't knock them down and put some decent apartments in.
'A lot of the houses here are the same age as me, so they're getting to be 50 years old,' Scull says. 'And it's not really sad because they're not great'.
Modern Thomastown
Liz Skitch moved to the outer-north suburb a decade ago, shortly before the birth of her first child. She and her partner fell in love with a house with a backyard so big that it was 'basically a paddock'. They put in an offer straight away.
'At the end of the day, we couldn't afford Preston. We were in a share house in Preston, we were about to start a family, and we looked just a little bit further out,' Skitch says.
But while the house (a triple-fronted brick veneer, with plenty of fruit trees and grapevines) is what brought the young family to Thomastown, Skitch says that the community is what made her want to stay.
'The minute we arrived, all the neighbours came to meet us. Old Frank around the corner was giving me lessons on how to bag the grapevines … and his wife, Theresa, was teaching us how to make sausages,' she says.
Skitch now manages the Thomastown Neighbourhood House, a not-for-profit organisation that runs programs from a room at the local library. She's passionate about engaging the community, which she says is evolving but still remains the culturally rich place it has always been.
'It's kind of a sad time because a lot of the oldies are dying and selling up. But it's an exciting time because you've got the funky new families moving in, and we're seeing more diversity.
'We were really excited around the time of the [plebiscite] on gay marriage, when we started to see yes voters in Thomastown. It's becoming more progressive.'
Skitch and volunteers at the Neighbourhood House have even invented a special nickname for their suburb: Promisetown.
'There's no snobbery. That's what I love … it's really down to earth. It's always been a place for underdogs,' she says.
'It's the land of opportunity.'