Chatswood, New South Wales

Chatswood is a suburb on the North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Chatswood is located 10 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre of the local government area of the City of Willoughby. Chatswood West is a separate suburb.

History

Chatswood was named after Charlotte Hartnett, wife of then Mayor of Willoughby, Richard Hartnett (a pioneer of the district) and the original "wooded" nature of the area. The moniker derives from her nickname "Chattie" and was shortened from Chattie's Wood to Chatswood. There are no confirmed reports of Charlotte being very talkative, otherwise it would have made the nickname a lovely coincidence.

Residential settlement of Chatswood began in 1876 and grew with the installation of the North Shore railway line in 1890 and also increased with the opening of the Harbour Bridge in 1932.

Commercial area

Chatswood is one of the North Shore’s major commercial and retail districts. The Australian headquarters of Vodafone and offices of Nortel Networks, Optus, Smith's Snackfood, IBM, NEC, and Cisco Systems are located in Chatswood. A number of high-density residential towers are also located in Chatswood.

Chatswood has two major shopping centres Chatswood Chase and Westfield Chatswood. There are also a few smaller shopping centres such as 'Lemon Grove' on the pdestrian mall and the 'Mandarin Centre' beside Westfield on the corner of Albert Avenue and Victor Street. 'Metro Chatswood' is a new shopping centre currently under construction above the Chatswood railway and bus interchange featuring retail, high rise office and apartment towers. The 'Interchange' was a small shopping centre and bus interchange built in the late 1980s which provided pedestrian access between the two halves of Victoria Avenue but was demolished to accommodate the construction of the Epping to Chatswood railway line and subsequently 'Metro Chatswood'.

'Chatswood Chase', completed in 1983, features a David Jones store, K Mart, Coles and 120 specialty stores, focusing on designer-label brands. 'Westfield Chatswood', owned and managed by The Westfield Group, originally opened in January 30 1986 and was redeveloped in the late 1990s to incorporate a previously free-standing Grace Bros store. It now features a Myer department store, Target, Coles supermarket, Toys 'R' Us, JB Hi-Fi, Rebel Sport, Hoyts cinema complex, and 300 speciality stores. There is also a second Hoyts cinema complex in the 'Mandarin Centre'.

The Melody Markets are held each Thursday in Chatswood Mall, Victoria Avenue and feature food and craft stalls, and live music. 'Civic Place' which includes the administrative offices of the City of Willoughby will be redeveloped to provide retail, hotel, office space and arts facilities..

There is a number of Cantonese, Vietnamese and Greek restaurants and eateries. There are two hotels in Chatswood, Saville Park Suites near Chatswood railway station and The Sebel near Westfield shopping centre.

Transport

Chatswood railway station is on the North Shore Line of the CityRail network. Rail services run south to the Sydney CBD and continue west to Strathfield and beyond. Rail services run north to Hornsby and peak hour services run to Gosford, Wyong and Newcastle. An extension of the Northern line will connect North Sydney to North Ryde and Epping via Chatswood. Chatswood is a major bus terminus with services to Bondi Junction, Sydney, North Sydney, Mosman, Balmoral Beach, Manly, Warringah Mall/Brookvale, UTS Ku-ring-gai, Belrose, Narrabeen, Mona Vale, Eastwood, Gladesville, West Ryde, North Ryde, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, Parramatta and Dundas. An interstate bus sevice between Sydney and Brisbane via the North Coast stops at Chatswood. Major roads through Chatswood include the Pacific Highway, Mowbray Road, Boundary Street, Willoughby Road and Eastern Valley Way and Victoria Avenue.The latter forms a pedestrian mall for the section running through the main retail area.

Schools

Chatswood is home to private and public, primary and secondary schools. These include:

• St Pius X College (Years 5-12, Catholic boys school)
• Mercy Catholic College (Years 7-12, Catholic girls school)
• Our Lady of Dolours (Years K-6, Catholic primary school)
• Chatswood Public School (Years K-6)
• Chatswood High (Years 7-12).

Parks

Chatswood Oval is located south of the railway station and features a grandstand and seating surrounding the oval. It is one of the Lower North Shore's largest sportsgrounds, and home ground of the Gordon Rugby Football Club. Beauchamp Park, located on Beauchamp Avenue, features a playground, an oval, a fenced dog area and a bike track. Chatswood is close to Lane Cove National Park.

Population

According to the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census of Population and Housing, the population of Chatswood was 13,513, in area of 3.55km sq. The gender ratio of the suburb was Males 46% and Females 54%.

The proportion of residents born in Australia was 34.7%. Of the 65% of residents born overseas in Chatswood, most were born in China (10.8%), Hong Kong (7.6%), South Korea (7.3%), Taiwan (3.3%) and Japan (2.5%). 39.3% of people in Chatswood speak only English and 60.7% of the population speak a language other than English. The second largest language group are Chinese languages (27.7% of population), followed by Korean (7.6%), Japanese (2.9%), Indonesian (1.6%), Italian (1.5%), Croatian (0.7%), Arabic (0.4%), Tagalog (0.4%) and Greek (0.4%). Religious affiliation in the suburb are as follows, Non Religious(24.6%), Catholic (22.6%), Anglican (10.4%), Buddhism (8.1%), and Presbyterian & Reformed (4.4%).

Culture

Willoughby Spring Festival

The Willoughby Spring Festival is an annual event in Chatswood. The festival is the second-largest in Lower Northern Sydney and is intended as testimony to a modern, multicultural and prosperous Chatswood. For more information visit Spring Festival

References

External links

• Willoughby City Council
• Chatswood/Roseville - community profile
• Chatswood West/Lane Cove North - community profile
• Chatswood Directory - Business and services directory