Westgarth is a neighbourhood within the suburb of Northcote, about 4 or 5 km north-east of Melbourne's central business district in Victoria, Australia. It is in the local government area of the City of Darebin. The neighbourhood has a commercial centre, distinct from the main commercial centre of Northcote, located near Westgarth railway station, just north of Clifton Hill. While Westgarth does not have any official borders, it is generally considered to extend from Merri Creek in the west to the boundary of Fairfield in the east. History Before European occupation, the area was home to the Wurundjeri people. Land c.2 km to the south, where Merri Creek meets the Yarra, was an early site of colonial contact, briefly home to the Native Police Corps in 1842, and a school for Aboriginal children until 1851. The precise location of the signing of Batman's Treaty, an 1835 agreement between an early colonizer John Batman and Wurundjeri elders to cede land to him, is unknown but thought to be at the western end of Cunningham Street on the banks of the Merri Creek. Land sales first occurred in the Northcote area in 1840, and land was purchased in the area then known as Northcote-by-the-Merri (now Westgarth) but not immediately developed. Three of the buyers later had streets named after them - Cunningham, Urquhart and Walker. As Northcote, Victoria developed in the mid-to-late 19th century, Northcote-by-the-Merri became known as Northcote South1. Land was gazetted for development in 1853, but development was relatively slow. All Saints Anglican church on High Street Westgarth dates to 1860 (present building, 1870), and the Bridge Hotel to 1864. Westgarth's development accelerated - along with that of many other Melbourne suburbs - in the economic boom of the 1880s. As the children of the Gold Rush generation formed their own families, Melbourne's population swelled. The Victorian Parliament reacted by using railway lines to open up new housing areas. The railway line from Clifton Hill to Alphington was opened in 1884, and the railway station was linked to Melbourne via a western loop in 1888. A cable tram line down High Street to Clifton Hill was opened in 1886, faltered after the land market collapse of 1892, and opened and closed again until reopening permanently in 1901. Building continued through the Edwardian era and into the 1920s, and in 1925 the Northcote tram (now route 86) was connected right through