Lancaster

Lancaster is a rural village and irrigated farming district in northern Victoria between Kyabram and Mooroopna. It is 7 km east of Kyabram and has been known as Kybram East and Mooroopna West. When it was known as Kyabram East its name was changed, probably in 1881 or 1883, as a compliment to the settler and postmaster, Thomas Lancaster.

A school had been opened in the district in 1875, when pastoral runs were subdivided for farm selection.

Irrigated orchards began in Ardmona, 12 km west of Lancaster, during the 1880s. Within a few years Lancaster became the cradle of the Kybram fruit industry, having a fruit and vinegrowers’ association by 1894 and a fruit cannery by about the beginning of the 1900s. Irrigation waters came from the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission’s Waranga Basin (1909).

Lancaster is known for the Karlsruhe homestead, built by Baron von Swaine in 1893. The property was impounded during World War I and sold to a local orchardist. In 1983 the Rodney shire council purchased the building for restoration and development as a tourist attraction.

Lancaster has a school (47 pupils, 2014), a hall, a church and a recreation reserve. The post office has closed. Census populations have been:

At the 2011 census, dairy farming accounted for 9.6% of employment and other farming 5.1%.