Kiara history: Bennett Brook country, the Beechboro estate and the white cockatoo

Kiara was named in 1990, when it was separated from Lockridge. Its name is an Aboriginal word for the white cockatoo.

How Kiara got its name

Landgate records that Kiara was formerly part of Lockridge and that the name was approved in 1990. It gives Kiara as an Aboriginal word for the white cockatoo, from an eastern states dialect. The City of Swan agrees on the meaning, but it ties the start of Kiara’s development to the final subdivisions approved in western Beechboro rather than to Lockridge.

Before the suburb

The City of Swan acknowledges the Whadjuk Noongar people as Traditional Custodians of the area. Its Altone report describes the Whadjuk living through seasonal movement, hunting and gathering, and calls nearby Bennett Brook a vital campsite, a source of food and water, and a place of spiritual significance. It also records that Lockridge was known as Mooroo and formed part of Yellagonga’s country.

European settlement in the district began when Surveyor General John Septimus Roe allocated land along the Swan River. Much of the Caversham estate was later subdivided into farming lots, and the area took the name Beechboro from the earlier Beechborough Park.

How it grew

Neighbouring Lockridge grew from the rural estates of Oatslands and Baylie Park, later combined as a farm called Pyrton. The City’s report records that a wireless telecommunications station was set up in Lockridge in 1943 and became a restricted site during the Second World War, and that the State Housing Commission later bought 240 acres in Lockridge for a housing estate.

Kiara itself came later. The report says the final subdivisions approved in western Beechboro marked the beginning of development in Kiara, and the housing that followed was mostly detached single houses on moderate-sized lots.

Places that tell the story

Kiara College on Benara Road carries the suburb’s name. So does the Kiara Police Station, which replaced the old police station in Lockridge.

Kiara today

The 2021 Census counted 1,776 people in Kiara. The City of Swan is preparing a new local area plan for Altone, which takes in Kiara, and expects any growth here to come mainly from infill on existing lots.

More about Kiara

For what Kiara is like to live in now, read our Kiara suburb profile. If you own a property in Kiara and are thinking about selling, start with buyers for your property.

Sources

• Landgate: Perth and surrounds suburb names (archived 2022)
• City of Swan: Altone Local Area Plan background report
• City of Swan: Altone Local Area Plan
• City of Swan: City history
• Kiara College
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats: Kiara

Top image: Houses on Cocos Grove, Kiara, 2012. Photo: Orderinchaos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dates and names are drawn from the sources above. Where sources differ, we have said so or given an approximate date.

By Key Performance Real Estate, 338 Beaufort Street, Perth