Camden Park Places

Every effort has been made to provide complete and accurate information, please advise of any errors or omissions.

CAMDEN PARK

(+ former suburbs of Camden/Campden,  Camden Gardens/Campden Gardens,  Campden Estate, Morphettville, Morphettville North)

The village of Camden was first established in Section 136 and was associated with the Bay Road from the City to Holdfast Bay. Into the early 20th century Camden remained a small cluster of houses surrounded by essential rural activities. The main period of early development for Camden was related to the construction in 1880 of the Holdfast Bay Railway Company's line which ran through West Torrens and linked up with the Glenelg Railway Line across the Bay Road between Camden and Morphettville. As in other villages along the line, this provision of public transport was an impetus to subdivide and  encourage some residential development in Camden.

An increase in population in the district led to the construction of Camden Primary School in circa 1920. Also during the 1920s the Council purchased eight hectares of land from the State Bank for the purpose of establishing the Camden Oval and Recreation Ground. In the post Second World War period the Housing Trust constructed 68 emergency dwellings in Camden, again on previously un-subdivided land. Much of this emergency housing was replaced with paired units during the 1950s. 

In 1946 the Lightburn & Company purchased forty hectares of land previously used for agriculture at Camden and established their engineering works so by the mid-1950s this provided employment for upwards of 800 people. Lightburn produced mostly domestic appliances, but in the 1960s attempted to move into the motor vehicle trade with the assembly of a small European car known as the Zeta and with further plans to assemble Alpha Romeos in Australia. Car production was only undertaken for five years.

Camden Park became the location for the district ambulance service in 1980.

The recent demolition of the Camden Park Primary School is indicative of the change in the demographic structure of the population currently. No evidence now remains of the 1920s school which was made necessary by the increase in population and family numbers in the district. [From 1998 Heritage Review]