Roleystone, Western Australia

History

Roleystone's name originates from a 5666 acre farm—named "Rolleston"—established by Charles Blisset Churchman in 1830. The property included much of what is now Roleystone and Bedfordale, and remained untended after Churchman's death in 1833 until it was purchased by Thomas Buckingham in 1858, who referred to it as "Rollingstone". The area was also referred to as "The Rolling Stone" and "Rowley Stone" in early police reports.

In 1865, Buckingham built a sawmill, which was located at Sparrow's Place, later known as Butcher's, on the Roleystone Road, about 6.5 kilometres from Kelmscott. The area was subdivided into farmlets in 1902, and was subsequently developed as orchards and market gardens. In 1905, Roleystone was opened up for closer settlement, with property brochures extolling the virtues of the beautiful scenery and fertile valley soils.

Roleystone is now an area of large residential "R5" zoned properties—with 2000m² minimum block sizes—surrounded by larger rural properties of native bushland and fruit orchards. The residential gardens, and surrounding council and regional reserves are home to a variety of native wildlife with bandicoots, brushtail possums, shingleback lizards and children's pythons in relative abundance. Large numbers of Western Grey Kangaroos are found in bush surrounding the suburb.

Facilities

The main suburban residential area to the west of Roleystone is served by a neighbourhood shopping centre, with Stargate Kelmscott and Armadale Shopping City providing other commercial services. The suburb originally contained a primary school (K-5; 1905) and Roleystone District High School (6-10; 1983). The two schools were amalgamated into Roleystone Community College (K-10) after a community consultation process held in 2009, using new and existing buildings on the site of the existing Roleystone District High School, with State Government and Federal (Building the Education Revolution) funding. The majority of Year 11 and 12 students travel to schools in nearby suburbs, including Kelmscott Senior High School, Lesmurdie Senior High School, Mazenod College and Saint Bridget's College.

The Araluen Botanic Park and the Araluen Golf Resort are located in the south of the suburb off Croyden Road and are popular picnic and wedding locations, especially during "Springtime at Araluen" when all the flowers are in bloom. Araluen is also known for the Araluen Chilli Festival, which was held in the park each year until 2009. In 2010, the festival was relocated to the Fremantle Esplanade and renamed Araluen's Fremantle Chilli Festival, and since then has continued to be operated by—and to provide funding for—the Araluen Park.

Brookton Highway (State Route 40) runs through Roleystone.

The suburb is served by a number of school bus services and by Transperth bus route 241 which runs every hour during the day, connecting the suburb to Kelmscott train station and Stargate Kelmscott shopping centre. All services are provided by the Public Transport Authority.

Local sporting clubs

Roleystone is home to an Australian Rules Football Club The Roleystone Tigers. There is both a junior football club and a senior football club, with the latter having amateur league team. The Roleystone-Karragullen Cricket Club was established in 1950. The club currently fields five teams in the Swan & Helena Districts Cricket Association and celebrated its 60th year anniversary in 2010. The Roleystone Country Club is located on Wygonda Rd and commands a spectacular view down the Brookton valley.

Local Music

Roleystone is home to the Roleystone Musicians Club (RMC). The club was established in March 2007.

The town was immortalized by Kevin Peek, a guitarist and member of the band Sky, who named a Sky song after his home town of Roleystone.

Local news media

There are two local newspapers: the Roleystone Courier and the Valley Reporter. Both papers are owned by local residents. There is also a community website called RoleystoneNet (or RoleyNet) that contains a local forum, local events calendar and an online flea market called Eflea.

Bushfire 2011

On 6 February 2011, a declared total fire ban day, a bushfire occurred on private property adjacent to the Brookton Highway in the Roleystone/Kelmscott area. There were a total of 72 homes destroyed and 37 homes damaged. This is the second biggest house loss in Western Australia to a single bushfire event behind the January 2016 fires in Yarloop.