Wallington

Wallington, a rural locality on the Bellarine Peninsula, is 4 km south-east of Geelong.

The place came into existence when a landholder, Fairfax Fenwick, subdivided part of his property on the south side of the road to Queenscliff in 1853, and named the subdivision after Wallington in Hertfordshire, England. A Wallington hotel was opened in 1855. Another hotel opened later, becoming famed for its gardens, and for strawberries and cream for travellers to the popular Queenscliff resort. There was also an extensive orchard, hay and corn stores, a store and a post office. The hotel continued until the 1930s, a period when Queenscliff was going out of fashion.

A school was opened in 1866, closing at an unknown date, and the State school was opened in 1900.

To the north of Wallington is Curlewis, remembered for its quaintly named Help Me Through The World Hotel. It had a strong Catholic community with a Catholic school (1851) and church.

To the south of Wallington is Fenwick, named after the original landholder. The place is marked by a Uniting (former Methodist) church (1870) in Wallington-Ocean Grove Road, and urban growth from Ocean Grove encroaches on its boundaries.

Wallington and Fenwick occupy one of the most scenically attractive parts of the Bellarine Peninsula, with well-treed, undulating landscape with deep, well-drained soils. The land is intensively farmed, growing potatoes, peas, fruit and, in the past, asparagus. In the 1930s there was a Leopold and Wallington District Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Assocation. The fruit growing tradition continues with the Wallington Strawberry Festival. There are also three wineries.

The attractive landscape and its proximity to Geelong and coastal beaches has drawn rural residential developments, mostly on allotments of one to five hectares. The community centre, however, is not large, having a school (144 pupils in 2014), a hall and a recreation reserve in Wallington-Ocean Grove Road. The Ocean Grove nature reserve is in the south-east corner of Wallington.

Wallington's census populations have been: