Clifton Hill is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Yarra local government area. Clifton Hill recorded a population of 6,606 at the 2021 census.
Described in the 1880s as the "Toorak of Collingwood", Clifton Hill fell out of favour, along with much of inner Melbourne, by the mid 20th century. Later becoming a centre of Melbourne's bohemianism, the suburb has undergone rapid gentrification in recent years, with renewed interest in its inner city location and well preserved Victorian and Edwardian housing stock. Clifton Hill now considered one of Melbourne's most liveable suburbs, and is consequently becoming increasingly less affordable, with the median property price increasing from 112% to 160% of the Melbourne metropolitan median in the decade to 1996, and 180% (AUD1.48 million) by 2017.
Clifton Hill is located immediately adjacent to Fitzroy North, with which it shares the same postcode. Along with Carlton North and Fitzroy North, Clifton Hill has unusually spacious and picturesque streets, being part of a well preserved government subdivision laid out by Clement Hodgkinson in the 1860s, and most unlike the smaller crowded streets of the majority of inner Melbourne. The border between Clifton Hill and Fitzroy North is Queens Parade and Smith Street while Clifton Hill's border with Collingwood is Alexandra Parade. Merri Creek defines the eastern and northern borders of Clifton Hill with Northcote and Fairfield.
History
Foundation of East Collingwood
In the mid-1850s, East Collingwood was known as an unsanitary flood-prone polluted flat. It was 'Melbourne's multi-problem suburb', described as "An ideal case study in the origins of pollution. The residents were soon wading in (their) own muck ... Collingwood became a cesspool for refuse." The area was "akin to a swamp and the few who ventured forth were looked upon after their return as people who had performed a somewhat perilous journey."
The municipality of East Collingwood was proclaimed on 24 April 1855 by Collingwood's businessmen to improve the district, initially only including the areas which would later be known as Collingwood and Abbotsford. The municipality was known as East Collingwood, as, at the time, the term 'Collingwood' included what is now known as Fitzroy, then a ward of the City of Melbourne and later becoming the City of Fitzroy.
Annexation
In the 1850s, the land that would become Clifton Hill was crown land, but unincorporated, serviced by unsurveyed tracks leading to Northcote and bounded by the surveyed roads of Heidelberg Road and Hoddle Street, which provided access to private quarries in the area, which is between Ramsden and Roseneath Streets, Clifton Hill nowadays, as well as the City of Melbourne quarry, located between Yambla Street and the Merri Creek.
Within a few months, the East Collingwood Local Committee sought permission for East Collingwood to annex what is now Clifton Hill. This annexation was controversial. Henry Groom, a City of Melbourne Councillor, declared, not surprisingly, "The freeholders of Clifton Hill have no desire to depreciate the value of their property by suffering it to be annexed to a swamp which to drain itself would drain our resources."
East Collingwood was successful in its acquisition of Clifton Hill, and also unsuccessfully pursued the annexation of Studley Park. This formed the City of Collingwood, which remained essentially intact until it was amalgamated, along with the City of Fitzroy and the City of Richmond, into the City of Yarra in 1994.
Early development
While much of Richmond, Fitzroy and Collingwood had been laid out by speculators anxious to increase profits, Clifton Hill was a professionally laid out suburb. Clement Hodgkinson, as Victorian Assistant-Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey (1861–74), was responsible for the government subdivisions of Carlton (1860), North Carlton, North Fitzroy and Clifton Hill (1865–9), Hotham Hill (1866), South and North Parkville (1868–9). Under his supervision, suburban planning employed the grid system used by Robert Hoddle, Hodgkinson's predecessor.
Consequently, Smith, Wellington and Hoddle Streets were extended north to connect with Heidelberg Road (now Queens Parade), and planning of Clifton Hill proceeded on a more organised basis than that of the remainder of the municipality, including reservation of land for public recreation purposes.