Best 30 Real Estate Agents In Lakemba [2025]

Lakemba Suburb Overview

Lakemba is a suburb in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Lakemba is located 15 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Canterbury.

Lakemba is in the Cooks River watershed. This river is tidal up to the edge of Lakemba. A bike and walking trail takes walkers and cyclists all the way from nearby Belfield to the east along the Cooks River, to where it flows into Botany Bay. In the opposite direction the bike and walking trail goes north to Olympic Park and Homebush Bay on the Parramatta River.

The area was at an early time in its colonial history originally known as Potato Hill because potatoes were cropped here. Land grants by the new colonial government began in Lakemba about 1810. Samuel Hockley was granted 50 acres , which he called Essex Hill Farm, after his home county in England. The suburb was known as Belmore South until 1910.

Benjamin Taylor had a 22 hectare property in the 1880s. He named his property “Lakeba” after the Lakeba island in the Lau Islands group of Fiji, where his second wife’s grandparents, Rev and Mrs Cross, were missionaries from 1835. One of the original streets is Oneata Street, named after another small Fijian Island, close to Lakeba. Benjamin Taylor was variously an entomologist, town clerk, Alderman and Mayor of Canterbury Council. The railway line was built to the neighbouring suburb of Belmore in 1895 and extended to Lakemba and beyond, in 1909. The station was built on Benjamin Taylor’s property and was named after his

The first school opened here as Belmore School in April 1869 and became known as Belmore South in September 1907 until it was changed to Lakemba Public School in June 1910. The post office opened on the 1st July 1879.

The fire station was built in 1921 by the Board of Fire Commissioners of New South Wales. It was originally staffed by a combination of permanent and volunteer members. The station was built for a total cost of $13,950.00. It is located at 208 Haldon Street. It is designated as station number 64 and is crewed 24 hours a day by a Station commander of Officer rank and three permanent firefighters or in brigade jargon, SO and 3. There are four rotating shifts at the station and they are identified as “A”, “B”, “C” and “D” Platoons. The crews have attended many notable fires during its history.

The firefighters attached to “64” are kept very busy responding to numerous fires and other emergency incidents each shift. The station attends more fires resulting in damage to ‘structure and contents” than any other fire station in Sydney.

Lakemba has had a diverse demographic history. Like most of the rest of Australia, its first non- Aboriginal inhabitants in the nineteenth century were British and Irish settlers. By the mid-twentieth century, the suburb had absorbed large numbers of Greek and Italian arrivals. Local businesses and clubs reflected this in Mediterreanean delicatessens, take-away shops and the Greek Orthodox Club.

From the mid-1970s, Lakemba became very popular with migrants from Lebanon and by the mid-1990s the area was considered a centre of Lebanese Australian life. The founding of the Lakemba Mosque and the establishment of specialised restaurants, take-away shops, grocery shops, clothing and book sellers has encouraged a general perception of Lakemba as a predominantly Arab and Muslim suburb, particularly in the media. In fact

According to the 2001 Census, 67.7 per cent of Lakemba residents stated they had been born overseas

In terms of ethnicity, the largest group in 2001 were those claiming Lebanese ancestry with 14.8 per cent of the population or 3,183 persons, followed by those claiming Chinese background at 11.0 per cent or 2,361 persons, and thirdly by those claiming ” Australian ” descent with 7.7 per cent or 1,654 persons. Although more recently there has been a large increase in people of Bangladeshi origin.

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