Best 41 Real Estate Agents In Rosebud [2025]

Rosebud Suburb Overview

Rosebud is a sea side town on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia located approximately 75 km southeast of the Melbourne City Centre. It is wedged between the lower slopes of Arthurs Seat, the shores of Port Phillip Bay and the plains of Boneo. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Mornington Peninsula. Rosebud is a very popular tourist resort with families who appreciate its sandy beaches and shallow waters.

Originally known as Banksia Point, Rosebud began life as a fishing community in the early 1850s. On 2 June 1855, the cargo vessel Rosebud, owned by one of the colony’s best known pastoralists Edward Hobson, was washed over the large sandbars and onto the beach. The burgeoning community made off with the cargo of damask and household goods, but the wreck remained for many years as the locals slowly stripped its hull to use in the construction of houses. It became commonplace to call the area “The Rosebud” in reference to the ship, which was shortened to “Rosebud” as the last vestiges of the ship disappeared.

Officially the term Rosebud referred only to Rosebud Village, the blocks on the foreshore west of Eeling Creek. Land on the south side of “the road to Portsea” was described as being in Wannaeue;this was the name of the parish that extended south to Limestone Road. Today the name is recalled by a small street between Rosebud Parade and Ninth Avenue. The parish went from The Avenue to Government Road in Rye, but also included the Arthurs Seat pre-emptive right. Peter Wilson gives much detail about the buyers of Rosebud Village allotments. Lime Land Leisure mentions a “Mr Gomm, of whom little is known.” Ray Gibb’s books about the Gomms and the Adams family will be available from the Dromana Historical Society by the end of 2011.

Allotment 20, between The Avenue and Parkmore Road, was not “settled” at the same time as the rest of the land to Boneo Road. This was supposedly due to an arrangement with Captain Henry Everest Adams, because he had been carrying convicts between Van Diemen’s Land and Melbourne. This transport was probably provided in 1840 when there was a drastic labour shortage in Melbourne. Isaac White who purchased allotment 19, knew Adams and probably cared for the Captain’s wife while he was away at sea. He probably settled lot 19 on behalf of the Captain, who owned it by 1864. In the Argus of 12 March 1883, the Government advertised land in the village of Wannaeue on allotment 20, Wannaeue. No parish map has made mention of this village. The Adams family had a guest house, Hopetoun House, named after the Governor, on the site of the car wash near McCrae Plaza. It was later renamed Merlyn Lodge. Robert Adams sold allotment 19 and the part north of Rosemore Road was subdivided but the ownership of the rest reverted to him in the Bust. Parkmore was built in 1896 by Albert Holloway and bought by the Clemengers in 1908.

The rest of the land to Boneo Road was granted to speculators. Allotment 18 became the property of Charles Blakely and then Thomas Bamford, probably days after 18 February 1874, when the 152.5 acre allotment was advertised in the Argus. It was pointed out that a block, 66 x 330 feet, fronting the beach road, had been sold. As this was the only block separately owned for decades, it had to be Lot 86, which William Edwards mortgaged to Captain Adams in August 1878. As the land was of little value, it must have had a magnificent building on it to convince Adams that it was enough security. Edwards borrowed 128 pounds and nine shillings, to be repaid with interest on 30 June 1880. The building may have been the popular Schnapper Point Hotel that Edwards was running at “Dromana” on the road to Mornington in 1888. McCrae was called Dromana until about 70 years ago, as the steamers had made Dromana’s location well known. Isobel Moresby said that Jack Jones had built a store on the corner but he most likely moved into Rosebud’s unknown hotel that Edwards had surrendered during the 1890s depression.

Allotment 17 came into the ownership of the Woolcotts. William Gomm was farming it in 1876 but returned to fishing when subdivision began. George and Susan Peatey were among the first buyers and the site for the state school was bought a few years later. Later residents were the McDowells after whom a street was named.

Allotments 16 and 15 became the Clacton on-Sea estate. Allotment 14, granted to Hugh Glass of Flemington House, became small farms:Randall’s, then Rigg’s Hindhope,and Coupar’s The Thicket. By 1930 Hindhope Park was operating on the site of Rosebud Plaza. This had pine cabins for tourist accommodation. Some of the land was subdivided as the Hindhope Estate by 1920 but the tourist facility was still running in the mid 1960s. Walter and Charlie Burnham, fishermen from Sorrento, were two early purchasers on the estate in about 1914.(See Steve Burnam’s website for Vin Burnham’s story of the early days.)

Some of the famous residents of Rosebud were Judith Mavis Cock, Arthur Boyd and William John Ferrier. Judith spent her first six summers in the weatherboard house that stood on the west side of Durham Place. It is well documented on many websites that the 1995 Australian of the Year launched his fabulous career as a painter from the age of 16 while living in Rosebud from 1936-9 with his grandfather.One of young Arthur’s paintings was of the Burnhams’ jetty at the end of Boneo Rd;it is reproduced in Peter Wilson’s “On the Road to Rosebud” alongside photos of the jetty. It has recently been discovered through title documents that the Boyd cottage is still standing at 62 Rosebud Pde. Ferrier won acclaim from all over Australia, and probably a job in the lighthouse branch, because of his heroic rescue of two of the seven crewmen of the La Bella at Warrnambool. He owned 858 Pt Nepean Rd for a time before moving to Queenscliff, naming his house in Beach St “Rosebud”. A descendant, Lewis Ferrier, jokingly called the Harbour Master at Queenscliff, gave the same name to his fishing boat.The Queenscliffe Maritime Museum website shows some paintings of ships that Ferrier did on the internal timber lining of the South Pile Lighthouse. Two farm homesteads remain among subdivision housing in Rosebud: 19 Mitchell St and 50 First Avenue. The latter was the Hindhope Villa on lots 95 and 96 of the Hindhope Estate

Peter Wilson’s book, “On the Road to Rosebud”, gives excellent detail about Lot 18, Lot 17 and the Clacton-on-Sea estate.

The settlement remained rudimentary for many years. A school began operating in 1884 and moved into purpose-built premises three years later. The first store wasn’t opened until Welshman Jackie Jones began selling goods from an upturned boat in the late 1880s. Rosebud suffered from a lack of direct access to Melbourne. When a pier was finally built in 1888, it failed to extend into the deep water, so ferries and passenger ships from the metropolis had to dock at Dromana, a larger town about eight kilometers to the north. A road was formed by clearing a path at Anthony’s Nose, the point where Arthurs Seat meets the sea, halfway between Rosebud and Dromana. This, at last, gave Rosebud a road connection to surrounding towns and Melbourne. The Post Office then opened on 27 March 1889.

Although some companies offered ferry passengers a ride to Rosebud after they disembarked at Dromana, the bulk of the tourism trade went to Dromana and nearby Arthurs Seat, while Dromana remained the transportation hub for goods brought by road and sea.

Nearby Suburbs