Town by town snapshot: Drysdale

The size of Drysdale for ABS data collection purposes is approximately 40.1 square kilometres stretching from the Queenscliff Road back towards the townships of Clifton Springs and Curlewis continuing south towards Mannerim and
includes eight parks covering nearly 1.6 per cent of total area. The population of Drysdale in 2011 was 4,316 people and by the 2016 Census the population was 4,272 showing a population decline of 1 per cent in the area during that time, although more recent data would indicate a significant turnaround in population growth.

Drysdale’s beginning dates to 1848 when Anne Drysdale and her partner Caroline Newcomb acquired a farm north-west of the intersection of Jetty and Geelong- Portarlington Roads. Drysdale had prior farming experience in Scotland and on a pastoral run east of Geelong. Drysdale and Newcomb were successful farmers and built the heritage-listed Coryule homestead.

At that time the district was known as Bellerean or Bellarine, then Tuckfield (c1854) and by the end of the decade, Drysdale. The town developed around the Buck’s Head hotel (1852) at the corner of Collins Street and the Drysdale-St Leonards Road and Anglican and Catholic schools opened in 1853-54 not far distant from the hotel. Settlement was relatively dense, and
in 1853 a Road District was created for all the coastal area between Geelong and Portarlington. In 1872-73 a jetty was built on Corio Bay for taking produce from the Drysdale district and enjoyed good patronage until the railway from Geelong to Queenscliff opened in 1879.

CoreLogic data indicates that the predominant age group in Drysdale is 60-69 years with households in Drysdale being primarily childless couples and are likely to be repaying $18,00 – $2,399 per month on mortgage repayments, and in general, people in Drysdale work in a professional occupation. In 2011, 82.8 per cent of the homes in Drysdale were owner-occupied compared with 81.4 per cent in 2016.