Taylors Lakes

Taylors Lakes, a residential suburb on the Calder Freeway, north-west of Keilor, is 20 km north-west of central Melbourne.

The name comes from a series of ponds and the large Taylors Dam on Taylors Creek, which flows from Sydenham, south-easterly through Green Gully, into the Maribyrnong River. Until the area was settled residentially in the 1970s and 1980s, it was treated as part of Sydenham. The name came from William Taylor, owner of the large Overnewton property (1849) which stretched westwards from Keilor, enclosing the Taylors Creek watershed.

By the mid-1990s Taylors Lakes was largely developed. The town centre is at the eastern end of the Melton Highway where it meets Sunshine Avenue. It has a drive-in shopping centre (1984) with a supermarket and 25 outlets. A larger drive-in shopping centre is at the other end of Melton Highway, near the Sydenham railway line. Named Watergardens (1997) the shopping centre is classified as major regional, with a supercentre, cinemas, council library and about 300 outlets taking up over 125,000 sq metres.

The secondary college (1434 pupils, 2014) and primary school (658 pupils, 2014) are centrally located in Taylors Lakes, and the Overnewton Anglican P-9 Community College (1996) is to the north.

The lakes are joined by a linear park along the creek. To the north of Taylors Lakes there is Calder Park, of which a substantial part is an industrial estate. Beyond that is the Calder Park Thunderdome and Raceway.

Calder Park was named after the Calder Highway. William Calder (1860-1928) was the first chair of the Country Roads Board, holding office from 1913 until his death.

The motor racing circuit began in 1962 as a 1.6 km speedway and, despite its short length, it became a popular venue. During 1980-84 it was used for the Australian Grand Prix and in the late 1980s it was enlarged by the addition of the adjoining banked speedway named the Thunderdome. The whole configuration provides a range of racing circuits.

During the mid-1990s the expansion of residential development from Keilor and Taylors Lakes along the Calder Freeway reached the vicinity of the raceway. The adjoining housing estates were named Calder Park, superseding the much earlier name of Sydenham, but the residential part was transferred to Taylor Lakes in about 1998.

The Watergardens railway station (2002) is on the western edge of Taylors Lakes. It replaced the rural Sydenham station. It adjoins a bus interchange and the shopping centre.

Taylors Lakes census populations have been:

In the 2011 census the residents who expressed a religious affiliation included Catholic (46.3% of the population) and Eastern Orthodox (13.7%).