This year marks the centenary of the establishment of one of the last of Bayside’s Avenues of Honour.
Bayside was once home to four Avenues of Honour – Nepean Highway and North Road Brighton, Beach Road Hampton, Bay Road and Fernhill Road Sandringham and Bluff Road Black Rock.
Planted mainly with Norfolk Pines and flowering gums between 1917 and 1919, they were among more than 325 Avenues of Honour across Victoria to commemorate servicemen and women who had enlisted during World War I. Each one had a plaque with the name of the service person they were dedicated to.
Prime Minister Billy Hughes planted the first tree of the Sandringham Avenue of Honour in August 1917.
Trees honouring the dead were usually planted by a member of their family or a loved one. These local diggers died in battles that have become part of Australian folklore – Gallipoli, Passchendaele, France, Belgium and Flanders, or succumbed to sickness or wounds.
Only a few of the original trees and none of the original avenues have survived to this day, but the names of the fallen are remembered on the city’s war memorials.
Bayside City Council will mark Remembrance Day with a service at the Green Point Cenotaph, Brighton on Monday 11 November at 10.45am.
https://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/events/remembrance-day-service-2019
