Town by town snapshot: Point Lonsdale

The size of Point Lonsdale is approximately 14.3 square kilometres and has eight parks covering nearly 5.1 per cent of total area.

The population of Point Lonsdale in 2011 was 2,467 people and by the 2016 Census the population was 2,691 showing a population growth of 9.1 per cent in the area during that time.

Point Lonsdale’s first European inhabitant was said to be escaped convict, William Buckley, who lived with the local Wadawurrung Aboriginal people in the area from 1803 to 1836.

Buckley’s cave, his supposed occasional shelter, is near the lighthouse on the actual point named after Port Phillip’s police magistrate, Captain William Lonsdale.

In 1863 a lighthouse was constructed at Point Lonsdale after it was realised that the lighthouses at Queenscliff, further inside the bay, were not enough to guide ships.

In 1876, land sales began at Point Lonsdale, but it took the opening of a railway in 1879 from Geelong to Queenscliff to spur on development.

In 1883, the Point Lonsdale bowls, tennis and croquet club was formed, and two years later the Terminus guesthouse opened. It was the first of several.

In the 1920s the Lonsdale Golf Club was formed on land immediately west of Queenscliffe borough’s boundary and a Surf Life Saving Club was formed in 1947.

Unlike Queenscliff, Point Lonsdale has had room to physically grow; its housing has followed the golf club across the municipal boundary, and at the 2011 census Point Lonsdale had 2,466 residents compared with Queenscliff’s 1,418.

CoreLogic data indicates that the predominant age group in Point Lonsdale is 60-69 years with households in Point Lonsdale being primarily childless couples and are likely to be repaying $1,800 – $2,399 per month on mortgage repayments, and in general, people in Point Lonsdale work in a professional occupation.

In 2011, 77.5 per cent of the homes in Point Lonsdale were owner-occupied compared with 79 per cent in 2016.