Woden Valley
Woden Valley is a district of Canberra, the capital city of Australia. Its name is taken from the name of a nearby homestead owned by Dr James Murray who named the homestead after the Old English god Woden in October 1837[1]. He named it this as he was to spend his life in the pursuit of wisdom and Woden was amongst other things, the God of wisdom. In 1964 it was the first "satellite city" to be built, separate from the Central Canberra district. It has its own shopping centre, employment opportunities and accommodation with 12 suburbs arranged around the Woden Town Centre. Woden Valley has an approximate population of 31,991. [1]
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[edit] Places of note and interest
- Woden Town Centre is the major shopping and office complex in the Woden Valley. It includes a substantial indoor shopping mall called Westfield Woden. Locally the Mall is known as Woden Plaza as this was the original name of the mall when it first opened.
- Canberra Hospital, which was previously named the Woden Valley Hospital, is Canberra's primary hospital. The hospital is the biggest of the three major hospitals in Canberra, and serves the surrounding regions of New South Wales.
- Woden Bus Interchange.
- IP Australia, Australia's equivalent to the US Patent Office, is located at the Woden Town Centre.
- Woden Storm Water Drain - Legal Graffiti site. Woden is either famous or infamous for its legal Graffiti site. The walls of the drain display colourful murals for many hundreds of meters from local, interstate and overseas Graffiti artists. [2]
[edit] Natural disasters
[edit] Bushfires
While the majority of the destruction caused by the Canberra bushfires of 2003 occurred in Weston Creek, houses in the Woden suburbs of Curtin (3), Lyons (4) and Torrens (2) [2] were also destroyed. Curtin, in particular, has been threatened by bushfires several times since its construction.
[edit] Floods
On Australia Day in 1971 a flash flood at Yarra Glen killed seven people. Bystanders described the flood as "not that flash"[citation needed]. The drains and roads in the area have since been redesigned to avoid future flood casualties. (See 1971 Canberra flood.) [3]
[edit] Cultural Bodies
The Woden Valley Youth Choir takes its name from the district.
[edit] Churches
- Canberra Austral Asian Christian Church [3]
- Hughes Baptist Church [4]
- Immanuel Community Church [5]
- St George's Anglican Church
- St James Uniting Church
- Sts Peter & Paul's Catholic Church
- St Sava Serbian Orthodox Church
- The Salvation Army, Woden Valley
- Woden Valley Bible Church [6]
[edit] Sport
Woden Valley is a vital area when it comes to sport in the ACT. Its football (soccer) club, Woden Valley FC (Woden Rival), is very popular amongst juniors. Woden Valley also has a rugby league team (Woden Rams) and an Australian rules football team (Woden Blues). It also has a tenpin bowling centre and produced NSW champion and award-winning sports journalist Reagan Murphy, who lived in Garran and attended Woden Valley High School in the 1970s.
[edit] External links
- Canberra region map - all districts
- Woden Valley Churches [7]
[edit] References
- ^ Murray of Yarralumla by Gwendoline Wilson p81
- ^ Geoscience Australia
- ^ EMA Disasters Database
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