Coleraine - VIC

Coleraine, a rural town in western Victoria, is on the Glenelg Highway 33 km north-west of the region's major town of Hamilton.

An associate of the pioneer family, the Hentys of Portland, took up pastoral occupation of the Coleraine area in 1839. He was John Bryan and, although staying there for only a year, his name continued as Bryan’s Creek Crossing, Coleraine’s first name.

The boundaries of several pastoral runs in the Squattocracy era - Muntham, Konongwootong, Koroite - converged near the future site of Coleraine, and tracks from Portland and Hamilton met there. In 1845 the Koroite Inn (named after a pastoral run) was opened, and a store was opened in 1848. Bryans Creek was surveyed as a township in 1853 and renamed Coleraine, after the township in Northern Ireland.

During the 1860s Coleraine’s population grew to about 700 people. It was the administrative centre for Wannon Shire from 1872 to 1994. In 1888 a railway line was built from Hamilton to Coleraine. Coleraine’s population remained at about 700 until the beginning of the 1900s.

After 1900 a number of pastoral estates were subdivided and a second group of subdivisions occurred in the area in the 1920s (Melville Forest, Thurles and others). Some settlers were former members of the British Indian Army. Though successful farming was infrequent, the post World War I period witnessed the formation of amenities such as bituminised roads, reticulated water and a bush nursing hospital (1930). Soldier settlement farmers after World War II met with greater success.

Coleraine’s population peaked in 1966 to around 1500 when soldier-settlement and other farms obtained good wool prices. Since then there has been a gradual decline and the population has fallen to under 900. The railway to Hamilton closed in 1977. The district's wool and fat lambs have continued as the mainstay.

Coleraine is midway between the larger towns of Casterton and Hamilton, each about 30 km away. Coleraine's prosperity in good times appears to have been reduced in recent times by the proximity of these two larger towns.

Further information is available at https://www.aussietowns.com.au/town/coleraine-vic