Ringwood North

Ringwood North is a residential suburb 24 km east of Melbourne.

During the 1960s Ringwood North was shown in directories as being north of Oban Road, taking in Warranwood and part of Croydon Hills. By the 1990s it had been enlarged southwards to Loughnan and Wonga Roads, occupying an area as large as Ringwood.

Ringwood North kept its rural landscape for longer than Ringwood. Its first primary school on Oban Road was opened in 1923, its second (Norwood) in 1956 and Ringwood Heights in 1965. Parkwood high school opened in 1979 and closed (Parkwood Secondary College) in 2012 due to low enrolments.

Ringwood North's town centre is at the corner of Oban and Warrandyte Roads, about 500 metres east of the first school. In 1950 there were six or so shops, with the grocer's on the corner. Forty year later there was a modern neighbourhood centre, with a supermarket in place of the grocer. The supermarket's proprietor was a second generation grocer who had moved from Richmond to Balwyn to Ringwood North, following metropolitan expansion. The business had been self service since a remarkably early 1948.

North and east of the shops there are a Catholic church with a school and the North Ringwood reserve.

The urbanisation of Ringwood North began in the early 1960s and by the mid-1990s was nearly complete. This is a comparatively long time for a postwar suburb: the ageing of the population in the south of the suburb occasioned the closure of the Norwood primary school at about the time the Warranwood primary school was opened in 1995. The cycle of closure and new development was echoed in the building of a bowling club on the Norwood school site, as the community became middle aged, although the move was also prompted by the bowling club disposing of its previous site next to the Eastland shopping centre in Ringwood.

Ringwood North has several reserves. The historic Quambie reserve was the home of A.T. Miles Quambie orchard (mainly quinces). The Miles family members were leading figures in Ringwood's public and social life.

The Yarra Valley Anglican Co-educational school was established in 1966, followed shortly by the Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School in Warranwood in 1972. Luther College (1964) is nearby in Croydon.

By the late 1980s Ringwood North’s northern boundary was trimmed back to Plymouth Road as Warranwood and Croydon Hills became recognisable suburbs.

Ringwood North’s census populations have been: