Mount Waverley, Victoria

Mount Waverley Melbourne, Victoria
Mount Waverley Village Shopping Centre, looking north along Stephensons Road
Mount Waverley
Coordinates	37°52′37″S 145°07′52″E / 37.877°S 145.131°E / -37.877; 145.131Coordinates: 37°52′37″S 145°07′52″E / 37.877°S 145.131°E / -37.877; 145.131
Population	32,076 (2011 census)
• Density	2,017/km2 (5,225/sq mi)
Postcode(s)	3149
Area	15.9 km2 (6.1 sq mi)
Location	16 km (10 mi) from Melbourne
LGA(s)	City of Monash
State electorate(s)	Mount Waverley Oakleigh
Federal Division(s)	Chisholm
Suburbs around Mount Waverley: Ashwood Burwood Burwood East Chadstone Mount Waverley Glen Waverley Oakleigh East Clayton Notting Hill

Mount Waverley is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 16 km south-east of Melbourne's central business district. Its local government area is the City of Monash. At the 2011 Census, Mount Waverley had a population of 32,076.

Mount Waverley is a large suburb, rectangular in shape, bounded by Highbury Road in the north, Ferntree Gully Road in the south, Huntingdale Road in the west, and Blackburn Road in the east. At the centre of the suburb is Mount Waverley Village Shopping Centre, and in the south-east is Pinewood Shopping Centre.

The Mount Waverley area, then part of the Parish of Mulgrave, was divided by straight roads running north-south and east-west, each exactly one mile apart, by Assistant Surveyor Eugene Bellairs, in 1853. Mount Waverley Post Office opened on 9 October 1905.

Mount Waverley is famous for its heritage streets. The suburb was a new estate in the 1930s. Due to the onset of the Great Depression, the building of houses on the estate did not get off the ground until the early 1950s. According to Lachlan Bath, president of the Ashburton Historical Society, the suburb's streets had been laid down, but no houses were built; merely a row of cardboard boxes housed the first few residents who had migrated east from the slums of Ashburton to enjoy a better standard of living, only to be bitterly disappointed with the estate agents who promised milk and honey but instead delivered a mosquito infested swamp. The Ashburton immigrants, while disappointed, all agreed that the "swamp" was a major step up from their former homes. Post Offices at Mount Waverley North (opened 1959 closed 1983), Mount Waverley South (opened 1968 closed 1973), and Mount Waverley West (opened 1964 closed 1977) chart the wider residential development of the suburb.

Close to Mt Waverley Village are the suburb's first streets, once designed to become the very epitome of prestigious country estate living and an extravagant idea decades ahead of its time. Sherwood Park was part of the prestigious Glen Alvie estate that sought to form country club type living to Waverley. Top quality land was acquired - 25 acres were bought from Mr Jack Lechte in 1928, and some from Mr Cornell, as well as a large parcel of land from Mr F. Closter - in all about 50 acres. This fertile land had been dairy farm - Ayrshire-Jersey cross cows, with some pigs, a plum and apple orchard, and stock feed crops - canola, maize and lucerne (alfalfa). Glen Alvie Estates Limited allocated five of the fifty acres for recreation facilities. There was to be a club house, six tennis courts, a bowling green, a croquet lawn, a mashee lawn, and a large swimming pool. These were to be laid out adjacent to Sherwood Park, a huge central area, lined with date palms that are still seen today. Large houses around the periphery were to be built, and one-way roads would be constructed to prevent traffic problems; and also elsewhere in the estate - tucked between the large unfenced building sites and gardens to give a sense of living on a country estate. A golf course had been established nearby by 1930; St John's Wood Golf Links, (now Riversdale Golf Club), the gardens of which were designed by Edna Walling, and a school was also nearby; Mount Waverley Primary School. This was to be garden suburb living.