Dingley Village, Victoria

Dingley Village is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 22 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its local government area is the City of Kingston. At the 2011 Census, Dingley Village had a population of 10,186.

History

In 1856, Thomas Attenborough bought land in the area and named his house Dingley Grange, after Dingley Hall which exists in Dingley in his native Northamptonshire, England. A farming community developed, relatively remote from either the bayside or Gippsland railway lines, moving into market gardens and poultry to supply metropolitan markets. There was no identifiable centre to the area apart from Christ Church (1873) at the corner of Centre and Old Dandenong Roads, with its attractive architecture and bell tower. The Post Office opened on 21 July 1913.

A family of five brothers – the Gartside – solved the problem of vegetable gluts by opening a cannery in about 1920. The cannery employed up to fifty local people. They donated land for the primary school which opened in 1925. In 1936 the Kingswood Golf Club, Dandenong, opened its new course at Dingley. A progress association was formed in 1947, and a recreation reserve acquired in 1954.