Gowanbrae

Gowanbrae is a small residential suburb 13 km north-west of Melbourne. It is enclosed by the Tullamarine Freeway, the Western Ring Road, Moonee Ponds Creek and a goods-traffic railway line. It was named after the Gowanbrae dairy farm.

In the late 1950s the Korman group of companies bought up large acreages of land in Broadmeadows Shire, including the future Gladstone Park and Gowanbrae suburbs. Their scheme for a satellite residential suburb collapsed in 1961 and the lands were sold off. Gladstone Park was developed in the late 1960s but Gowanbrae remained an open space except for the R.K. Morgan engineering works on a 35 acre site (1961).

Gladstone Park (separated from Gowanbrae by the Ring Road) was completely developed by the 1980s, but Gowanbrae was not subdivided for houses until the late 1990s. Within ten years its population was only 400 (2001), but it nearly quadrupled in the next five years. Gowanbrae's dwellings are mainly separate or row houses; most of the latter are in a large retirement village.

Gowanbrae has a bus service from the Airport West shopping centre, about 1.5 km away. Access to freeways is obviously close, as well as the train line to Airport West. There are linear parks with walking trails around and through Gowanbrae. A community centre with children's services opened in 2011.

Gowanbrae's census populations have been: