Before Pope Street station (later New Eltham station) opened in 1878, the land hereabouts was mainly used for farming and forestry.
By the 1890s, there were detached villas in Southwood Road East and Southwood Road West (later Avery Hill Road) and in Footscray Road while modest workers’ cottages clustered in streets at Novar Road, Garrskell Road (now Gaitskell Road), Lannoy Road, Reventlow Road and Batturs Road.
