What if I told you this very suburb was once home to vineyards and farms? St Johns Park, a suburb of Sydney, holds a rich history. It began long before the high school and sports clubs you see today.
St Johns Park is 35 kilometers west of Sydney’s central business district. This area was once the land of the Cabrogal people. They lived between Fairfield and Liverpool for over 30000 years.
When the First Fleet arrived, the colonial administration called this area the parish of St John. Nineteenth-century maps show a “St Johns Farm”. This farm is how the suburb got its name. By the 1890s, St Johns Park was growing. There was a public school on Parkes Road now Edensor Road. A post office opened in 1888.
Many Italians arrived in the 1880s. This happened after the failure of the Marquis de Rays’s expedition to New Ireland. The Bellotti and Gava families started vineyards on Bulls Road. Yugoslav migrants Theodore and Samuel Serovich came in 1885. They also grew wine grapes. St Johns Park became even more multicultural. This was during the postwar migration in the 1940s.
Today, relics of early European farmers remain. Chicory and wild fennel grow along Clear Paddock Creek. In 2021, St Johns Park had 6302 people. The median age was 43 higher than the national median. Over a third of people were born in Australia. Other common birthplaces include Vietnam, Iraq, and Cambodia. Most people speak a language other than English at home. Vietnamese, Cantonese, and Croatian are common.
In 2016, St Johns Park had 1660 private homes. Most were separate houses. Half were owned outright. About 30 percent were owned with a mortgage. St Johns Park sits beside Clear Paddock Creek. The “Restoring the Waters” project turned the concrete channel into a living stream. It was the first of its kind in Australia.
St Johns Park has several places of worship. There is St Johns Park Baptist Church. Also St Nikola Tavelic Croatian Catholic Church. You will also find St Hurmizd Assyrian Church of the East Cathedral. The Vietnamese Buddhist Phap Bao Temple is another example.
St Johns Park Sports Club is also known as Jadran Hajduk Croatian Club. Corey Payne, an Australian rugby league footballer, is a notable person from here. St Johns Park’s story stretches back to indigenous roots and early European settlement. It continues through waves of migration to the diverse community it is today. Imagine the stories those vineyards could tell if they still stood.