Wolli Creek Drive

Wolli Creek Drive

Most of the Rockdale Drive area concentrates on the urban area of the City built progressively until the Second World War. A half hour 10km trip across the Bardwell Valley and down Wolli Creek Valley gives some indication of the land and original vegetation of the City.

This guide was launched by Rockdale City Council during Local Government Week, August 1998 to encourage a broad appreciation of the city. It highlights points of interest in the 1991 Rockdale Heritage Study by Meredith Walker and Terry Kass. The Heritage Adviser, Gary Stanley, produced the guide. The council was merged in 2016 to form Bayside Council.

Although developed mainly after WWII, Wolli Creek was the first area to be occupied in Rockdale with early land grants and farms. This was favourable, well-watered land, suitable for farming. In 1804 Hannah Laycock was given a grant of 500 acres which was called Kingsgrove Farm. The suburb takes its name from this farm. Before white settlement, the valley was an important landscape resource for the Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal tribe which occupied the Rockdale area was called Cadigal. They were often referred to as the “water people”. They lived in rock shelters and caves, and in huts or lean-tos known as gunyahs made of grass and bark.

Continue along Forest Road, right into Preddys Road, right into Donnan Street past Bexley Park and many fine Federation and Californian Bungalow homes. The town at the end of the street is St Gabriels. Right into Highworth Avenue, left into Bowood Street and left into tree-lined Salisbury Avenue. A left into Stoney Creek Road to the traffic lights at Preddys Road.

Turn right crossing Bardwell Creek Valley, left at Alston, right into Coveney, left into Edward and right into Oliver Street and West Street, past a subdivision made in the
1950’s by the Housing Commission.

A right turn leads into Shaw Street and Slade Road, parallel to the Railway and Wolli Creek. Continuing along Darley Road, turn left into Bardwell Road … Wentworth Street and Dowling Street will bring you back to Hirst Street and the Rockdale Drive. Notice the large sandstone cliffs in the area as evidence of earlier quarries.