Gruyere

Gruyere is a rural area 43 km east of Melbourne, extending eastwards from Coldstream to the Yarra River. The name, originally the Parish of Gruyere (1859) was adopted at the suggestion of local Swiss vigneron, Paul de Castella. Gruyeres is a town in Switzerland.

Gruyere’s eastern third is part of the Yarra flats, with loamy alluvium over clay subsoil. The western part rises to the Seville hills.

In common with the Lilydale and Coldstream district its agricultural origins were mixed grazing, dairying and viticulture. Orchards were planted as spreading urbanisation displaced fruit growing in Montrose and Mooroolbark in the postwar years. The undulating western part of Gruyere has numerous watercourses, several draining from the more hilly eastern part on which there is the Warramate Nature Conservation Reserve.

The Gruyere district gained its first school in 1876, which was transferred to a site originally named Gruyere South (1889) and later renamed Gruyere (25 pupils, 2014). The school is the main building in the village, which also has a recreation reserve and a hall. There are several small vineyards in Gruyere, part of the Yarra Valley wine-growing area.

The census populations of Gruyere have been: