Town by Town Snapshot: Indented Head

THE size of Indented Head is about 4.1 square kilometres and has 4 parks covering nearly 6.2 per cent of total area.

The population of Indented Head in 2011 was 920 people and by the 2016 Census the population was 1,127 showing a population growth of 22.5 per cent in the area during that time.

Indented Head is a coastal township on the end of Bellarine Peninsula facing eastwards on to Port Phillip Bay between Portarlington and St Leonards and is 43km south-west across the bay from Melbourne.

Indented Head was named by Captain Matthew Flinders when exploring Port Phillip Bay in the ship Investigator (1802).

Landing on the east side of the bay he ascended Arthurs Seat and observed on the opposite side of the bay the Bellarine Peninsula with the indented coastline which he named Indented Head.
The place was again noted in 1803 when Lieutenant Tuckey explored the bay.

He was a member of the contingent which unsuccessfully settled at Sorrento (It was from this contingent that the convict William Buckley absconded, and he crossed to the Bellarine Peninsula).
Until the 1850s, several pastoralists occupied the Indented Head area and a Road Board for the Portarlington district was enlarged eastwards on October 29, 1860, and renamed the Indented Head Road District with an area that held about 3300 people.

At about the same time the Indented Head Farmers’ Association was formed, mainly with the objective of maintaining good prices for local wheat through import duties.

The Association later influenced land legislation, lobbied for grazing commons and animal pounds and conducted an annual ploughing contest.

There was foreshore camping there at least as early as the 1920s, and in 1951 the Victorian Municipal Directory described it as a seaside resort with a store, telegraph office, the Batman Park camping area and two private camping areas.

In 1988, after decades of camping, Indented Head was described as having three shops and a cluster of houses.

CoreLogic data indicates that the predominant age group in Indented Head is 60- 69 years with households in Indented Head being primarily childless couples and are likely to be repaying $1,400-$1,799 per month on mortgage repayments, and in general, people in Indented Head work in a professional occupation.

In 2011, 72.1 per cent of the homes in Indented Head were owner-occupied, compared with 73 per cent in 2016.