Cranbourne

Cranbourne, once a country town and now a residential suburb in the large Casey region, is 40 km south-east of central Melbourne. The earliest settlers were the Ruffy brothers who squatted on Mayune run in 1836. They conducted the Cranbourne Inn, which may have been named after a town in Berkshire or after Viscount Cranborne.

There were few Aborigines in the district, but the discovery of numerous artefacts indicates that the area was fairly intensively occupied before European settlement. The early pastoralists grazed cattle and grew barley and wheat.