Bangholme

Bangholme, situated on the former Carrum Swamp, is between Keysborough and Chelsea Heights, 30 km south-east of Melbourne.

The name comes from a waterhole on the Eumemmerring Creek, somewhat east of the present Bangholme, where Joseph Hawdon pastured stock in 1837. The name of the waterhole, derived from the Aboriginal word Parnham, had various pronunciations, including Baungan. It is thought that the Aboriginal word means hut.

In 1860 a lessee of the waterhole area attempted to gain a pre-emptive right to land nearer the middle of the present Bangholme by establishing a homestead and naming it Bangholm, combining ‘Bangan’ (shortened from Baungan) and ‘holm’, Norse for an islet in a river. That was appropriate for the sandy ridges in the swamp which were the dunes of an ancient shoreline.

In 1868 the first of several drainage works in the swamp were carried out, exposing it for more permanent farming. A school was opened in east Bangholme in 1915 on land donated by one of the Keys family who were prominent in Keysborough. A hall was opened in 1931 and a Methodist church in 1935.

Bangholme has the Mordialloc main drain on its north and is bisected by the ‘Patterson River’ an artificial watercourse for draining the swamp. On the south is the Melbourne Water South-Eastern Purification Plant, which acquired numerous farms and reduced the Bangholme community. The memorial hall remains on the plant's eastern boundary, but the state primary school was closed in the 1980s. In the extreme south-west corner, next to the ‘Patterson River’, is a campus of St Leonard's College and the national Watersports Centre. On the eastern side is the Bunuong Memorial Park and a Seventh Day Adventist primary school. The rest of Bangholme is agricultural.

Census populations for Bangholme have been: