Hunters Hill, New South Wales

Infobox Australian Place | type = suburb
name = Hunters Hill
city = Sydney
state = nsw


caption = Hunters Hill Post Office
lga = Municipality of Hunter's Hill
postcode = 2110
est = 1861
pop = formatnum:9024
pop_footnotes =
area = 5.75
propval = [http://www.domain.com.au/public/suburbprofile.aspx?mode=%20$257,000&searchterm=hunters%20hill#mapanchor $1,420,000] (2007)
stategov = Lane Cove
fedgov = North Sydney
near-nw = East Ryde
near-n = Linley Point
near-ne = Longueville
near-w = Gladesville
near-e = Woolwich
near-sw = Huntleys Cove
near-s = Huntleys Point
near-se = Drummoyne
dist1 = 9
dir1 = north-west
location1= Sydney CBD

Hunters Hill (also spelt Hunter's Hill) is a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Hunters Hill is located 9 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the Municipality of Hunter's Hill.

Hunters Hill is situated on a small peninsula that separates the Lane Cove River and Parramatta River. It can be reached by bus or by ferry.

History

The area's Aboriginal name is 'Mookaboola' or 'Moocooboola', which means "meeting of waters".

Hunters Hill was named after John Hunter the second Governor of New South Wales between 1795 and 1800. ["The Book of Sydney Suburbs", Frances Pollon, Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1990, p.126, ISBN 0-207-14495-8, page 127 ]

The area that is now Hunters Hill was settled in 1835. One of the earliest settlers was Mary Reiby, the first female retailer in Sydney. She built a cottage on land that fronted the Lane Cove River; Reiby Street is named after her. During the 1840s, bushrangers and convicts who had escaped from the penal settlement on Cockatoo Island took refuge in Hunters Hill.

Many of the suburb's early houses were built from the local sandstone. A number were built by Frenchman Didier Numa Joubert (1816-1881), who bought convert|200|acre|km2 of land from Mary Reiby from 1847 and used seventy stonemasons from Italy to construct solid artistic houses. Hunters Hill was proclaimed as a municipality on 5 January 1861. The first Gladesville Bridge constructed in 1881 linked the area to Drummoyne and the southern side of the Parramatta River.

Commercial area

Hunters Hill has several commercial areas. A small group of shops is located on the corner of Alexandra and Ferry Street, with others scattered along these streets and Woolwich Road. A busier commercial area is located around the intersection of Ryde Road and Gladesville Road, near Burns Bay Road.

chools

Hunters Hill is the site of the Catholic boys' secondary school, St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill High School, Boronia Park Public School, Hunters Hill Primary School and Villa Maria Primary School.

Churches

*All Saints Anglican Church, St Marks Anglican Church
*St Peter Chanel Catholic Church, Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church
*Hunters Hill Community Church

Landmarks

There is a private hospital in Alexandra Street and in High Street, a Jewish nursing home and synagogue named the Sir Moses Montefiore Home. The historic Hunters Hill Town Hall is located in Alexandra Street, close to the historic post office.

The Great North Walk, a walking trail from Sydney to Newcastle, [Sydney and Blue Mountains Bushwalks, Neil Paton, Kangaroo Press, 2004] passes through Boronia Park; a large waterfront parkland reserve which contains Aboriginal drawings thought to date back to before the start of the colony.

Heritage

The following buildings are listed on the Register of the National Estate. [The Heritage of Australia, Macmillan Company, 1981, p.2/30]
* Public School including Eulbertie, Alexandra Street
* Post Office, Alexandra Street
* Town Hall, Alexandra Street
* St Ives, Crescent Street
* Anglican Church of All Saints, corner Ferry and Ambrose Streets
* Kyarra, Madeline Street
* Fig Tree House, Reiby Road
* Clifton, Woolwich Road
* Waiwera, Woolwich Road
* St Claire, Wybalena Road
* The Chalet, Yerton Avenue
* Woolwich Dock, Franki Avenue, Woolwich
* Former Garibaldi Inn, Alexandra Street

Houses

Hunters Hill has an area of 5.75 square kilometres including some 650,000 square metres of parks and reserves. Developments are mostly residential.

Hunters Hill has a number of heritage-listed buildings and is positioned near the confluence of the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, as well as the headwaters of Sydney Harbour, which provides river and harbour views. Previously having a number of residents of French extraction, it was known as the "French Village"Fact|date=March 2008 and shares a friendship with a sister city near Paris, Le VésinetFact|date=March 2008.

Transport

Several bus routes run through Hunters Hill, including the 506 to the city and the 536 to Chatswood.

The closest ferry wharves are Valencia Street Wharf in Woolwichand Huntleys Point. These provide access to the Inner Harbour ferry services which run between Circular Quay and Parramatta. There is no rail service to Hunters Hill but a new station at North Ryde, about 5 kilometres away, will be the closest.

Population

Demographics

In the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census of Population and Housing, the population of Hunters Hill stood at 9,024 people, 49.3% females and 50.7% males, with a Median age of 41 years. 24.5% of the population was born overseas with England (4.2%), New Zealand (1.4%), China (1.4%) and Italy (1.4%) the most common. The five strongest religious affiliations in the area were in descending order: Catholic (38.2%), Anglican (18.9%), no religion (13.5%), Judaism (4%) and Eastern Orthodox (3.8%).Census 2006 AUS | id = SSC11489 | name = Hunters Hill (State Suburb)|accessdate = 2007-12-21|quick=on]

Hunters Hill's has a median weekly household income of $1,842, compared with $1,027 in Australia. The most common types of occupation for employed persons were Professionals (35.7%), Managers (22.4%), and Clerical and Administrative Workers (15.6%). 67.5% of the suburbs occupied private dwellings were family households, 24.1% were lone person households and 1.5% were group households.

Notable residents

* Cate Blanchett, actress
* Kyle Sandilands, radio and tv host
* Ann Sanders, newsreader

Politics

Hunters Hill is in the federal electoral division of North Sydney. This seat was won by Joe Hockey, the current Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing at the 1996 federal election and retained most recently in the 2007 federal election.cite web
url = http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?id=DK6
title = Electoral Division of North Sydney (NSW) The Hon Joe Hockey MP
work=Members
accessdate = 2008-03-16
date = 2008-03-14
publisher = Commonwealth of Australia] North Sydney is one of only two original divisions in New South Wales, along with Wentworth, which have never been held by the Australian Labor Party (ALP).

For NSW state elections, Hunters Hill is in the Electoral district of Lane Cove. As of 2003 this seat is held by Liberal MP Anthony Roberts, who was last re-elected in the 2007 state election.cite web| url = http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/Parlment/Members.nsf/d890a06557517cedca256e700008765e/7e28286e85f7f13dca256cfa00127f1c!OpenDocument| title = Mr Anthony John ROBERTS, MP| accessdate = 2007-12-19 | year = 2007 | work = Legislative Assembly| publisher = Parliament of New South Wales]

References

*"The Official Community Profile of Hunters Hill"

External links

* [http://www.id.com.au/huntershill/commprofile/Default.asp?bhcp=1 The Official Community Profile of Hunter's Hill]
* [http://www.discoverhuntershill.com.au Discover Hunters Hill]
* [http://www.huntershill.nsw.gov.au/ Hunter's Hill Municipality website]
* [http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[e-mail]/Lookup2001Census/D8F02E1776195B22CA256BBE0083B9D1 2001 Census Information]