Town by town snapshot: Inverleigh

The size of Inverleigh for ABS data collection purposes is approximately 211.7 square kilometres and stretches from Lake Murdeduke in the south and halfway to Shelford in the north with six parks covering nearly 3.3 per cent of total area.

The population of Inverleigh in 2011 was 1,182 people and by the 2016 Census the population was 1,468 showing a population growth of 24.2 per cent in the area during that time.

Inverleigh sits at the junction of the Barwon and Leigh Rivers on the Hamilton Highway 30 kilometers east of Geelong.

The Hamilton Highway was originally the Lower Leigh Road, an early track to Victoria’s Western District.

In 1843 William Lawson built an inn near a ford across the Barwon River, not only was the inn conveniently near a river crossing, the land thereabouts was flood prone, and the silt left by the waters was ideal for farming.

Lawson built a new hotel named the Horseshoe Inn during 1851-53 and a township was proclaimed in 1853 with a bridge over the Barwon built in 1855.

Inverleigh maintained a comparatively consistent population level during the years after World War II, with about a 30 percent growth between 1971 and 1996.

The town is compact, as the flood-prone land near the rivers (on three sides of the town) is suited only to rural or rural/residential use.

Inverleigh has a large bluestone hotel (the successor to the Horseshoe Inn), mechanics’ institute hall, a golf club, two recreation reserves, sports club facilities, four churches, and the original bluestone school (1865) much added to.

CoreLogic data indicates that the predominant age group in Inverleigh is 0-9 years with households in Inverleigh being primarily couples with children and are likely to be repaying $1,800-$2,399 per month on mortgage repayments, and in general, people in Inverleigh work in a manager’s occupation.

In 2011, 88.6 per cent of the homes in Inverleigh were owner-occupied compared with 91.3 per cent in 2016.