Suburb by suburb snapshot Ironbark

Ironbark is approximately 0.9 square kilometres and has two parks covering nearly 7.5 per cent of total area.

The population of Ironbark in 2016 was 1084 and by the 2021 Census had increased to 1163 showing a population growth of 7.2 per cent in the area during that time.

Ironbark is a suburb of Bendigo, two kilometres north-west of the city’s centre and was named after Ironbark Gully, the site of a rich alluvial gold digging that was fully occupied by miners by the middle of 1852.

Ironbark was the name given to several species of Eucalypt with dark, deeply furrowed bark.

Together with Long Gully to its north, Ironbark was an intensively mined area.

The Victoria Hill conservation area, west of the Loddon Valley Highway, is bare mined terrain with Hustlers Reef providing rich yields from 1853.

Hotels and businesses were established along Eaglehawk Road which forms part of the Loddon Valley Highway and the Mount Korong Road which is now the Calder Highway.

In 1861 the Ironbark Hill primary school opened and five years later another school opened in Violet Street, now Old Violet Street.

Until the Violet Street school was built pupils were taught in a Primitive Methodist chapel.

Both schools operated until 1928 when Ironbark Hill closed, and pupils overflowed into a Rechabites Hall and the Hopetoun Band room on Eaglehawk Road.

For many years Ironbark, once a prominent business centre, was part of Long Gully and in 1999 Ironbark was gazetted as a separate suburb, positioned between Golden Square and Long Gully.

CoreLogic data indicates that the predominant age group in Ironbark is 20- 29 years with households in Ironbark being primarily childless couples and are likely to be repaying on average $1300 per month on mortgages.

In general, people in Ironbark work in a professional occupation.