Best 22 Real Estate Agents In Cleve [2025]

Cleve Suburb Overview

Cleve is a small agriculturally based town on Central Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. It is 226 km southwest of Port Augusta and 143 km north of Port Lincoln. At the 2006 census, Cleve had a population of 738. The town has its origins in the 1850s, with the town established some twenty years later.

Cleve is a hub for farmers and suppliers on the Eyre Peninsula and hosts a field day held each second year to offer the newest in farming equipment and stock.

The first European settlers in the area were the three McKechnie brothers;James, Peter and Donald who arrived in 1853.The first European woman arrived in 1862;a wife of one of the brothers. They established a sheep run 43 km from the current day site of Cleve and continued living there until 1869, when Peter and Donald died, leaving James to return to his homeland of Scotland. The run was sold to George Melrose in 1873, and he had great initial success, shearing 30 000 sheep in his first year. This was not to last though, as dingos decimated his flock in the following years. Melrose was also the first to report rabbits on the Eyre Peninsula, an indicator of the troubles they would cause in the future.

In 1878, the current site of the town was inspected and surveyed, in anticipation of creating a new town to serve the growing wool and crop industries which were rapidly expanding. During this period, Arno Bay became the port for the products grown in Cleve and also underwent expansion.

The town was officially gazetted on 6 March 1879 in a square grid design meant to imitate the city of Adelaide. The main street and 1st to 5th street were neatly enclosed by North, East, South and West Terraces, and outside of this lay parklands, a school reserve and a golf course. The new town was named after Cleve House, the county seat in Devon, England of the Snow family, cousins of Sir William Jervois who was the Governor of South Australia at the time. The Cleve school was opened seven years later in 1886, and would go on to become a recognised instructor in dryland farming.

Cleve has maintained its position as a leading producer of both grain and wool since the establishment, with other ventures such as copper mining in the area having little success.

Cleve is located in the central east Eyre Peninsula, a large triangular body of land in South Australia. Many of the areas geological and geographical features are responsible for the use of the land and types of natural vegetation present. The landscape has been heavily modified since European settlement and now is predominantly farming]land, with patches of native scrub in places. The Cleve Hills are a major topographical feature of the region and have areas of preserved vegetation in their bounds.

The town of Cleve lies on an ancient bedrock that has undergone high grade metamorphism, with the area characterised by Schists, Gneisses and Granites in a formation known as the ‘Hutchinson Group’. The area’s strata was laid down in the Proterozoic, some 600-2300 million years ago. The area underwent deformation during the orogeny events that shaped Australia. Just south of Cleve marks an unconformity with recent Quaternary alluvial and colluvial sediments of the Piedmont Group which were deposited less than 1 million years ago.

As is expected, the soils around Cleve are heavily tied to the geology of the area, with Cleve having a clay overlain by sandy loam soils in the hills and on most slopes in the area. This soil is often referred to as ‘Cleve soil’ or ‘Nobby’s Hill’s soil’. The soils are highly productive when they are deep enough to hold enough moisture, but are particularly susceptible to erosion, especially in steeper inclines. There is also a strong calcareous component to much of the areas soils, especially away from the slopes.

Like much of the Eyre Peninsula, Cleve experiences warm to hot summers and cool wet winters. One of the unique features of the Cleve area, however is its below average rainfall of a meager 401 mm on average. The averages are summed up in the following table.

The rainfall is generally not enough to cause any flooding, and certainly not within the bounds of the town. The Cleve hills, however are the catchment areas for Salt Creek, and localised flooding in the valleys has been reported.

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