The history of Don Valley

John and Catherine Ewart’s son David and his wife Annie, selected land at the foot of Mt. Toole-BeWong, on the east side of the Yarra, and became the first white settlers in the Don Valley.  They named their property Glenewart.

The Crown Land surveyors report noted the country as “steep and rangy”, the soil “rich and chocolate” and the vegetation “mountain ash, messmate, blackwood, hazel and musk, apple tree scrub and ferntrees.”  Remains of the garden, rockery borders and some of the original sheds still stand on the property now owned by the Victorian Conservation Trust.

In 1923 the Dalry Road and Don Valley schools, which were about 8km apart, operated jointly as part time schools.  In 1924 Don Valley closed and Dalry Road worked full time.  In 1948 numbers at Launching Place School were reduced, when a new school opened in Don Valley.

Early Presbyterian services were held at Glenewart, the Ewart family home on the Don Valley Road.