O'Connor, Australian Capital Territory
Encyclopedia
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in the North Canberra
North Canberra
North Canberra, also known as the Inner North, is a district of Canberra, the capital city of Australia, comprising 14 suburbs with 19,115 dwellings housing 42,113 people of the 324,034 people in the Australian Capital Territory...
district. It was named after Richard Edward O'Connor (1851–1912), who was a judge in the High Court and a founder of the Australian constitution. Street names in O'Connor are named after explorers, Australian flora, legislators and pioneers. The suburb name was gazetted on 20 September 1928.
O'Connor is bounded by Wattle and David streets, and also includes the Bruce/O'Connor ridge nature reserve, the hilly area with many trees that lies between the houses in O'Connor, and the Australian Institute of Sport
Australian Institute of Sport
The Australian Institute of Sport is a sports training institution in Australia with world class facilities and support services. The Institute's headquarters is situated in Canberra, the capital city of Australia. The 66.0 hectare site campus is in the northern suburb of Bruce, but some of the...
(in the suburb of Bruce
Bruce, Australian Capital Territory
Bruce is a suburb of Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Bruce was gazetted as a division on 6 June 1968 in recognition of Viscount Stanley Melbourne Bruce, the first Chancellor of the Australian National University and eighth Prime Minister of Australia. S. M. Bruce served as...
). Sports such as soccer, rugby and cricket are often played at the ovals at O'Connor district playing fields.
O'Connor has a small shopping centre with a pub/bar, supermarket, a couple of restaurants and a pharmacy.
In the central part of O'Connor are a series of cul de sacs which contain houses which are known as Tocumwal Houses. These are heritage listed ex-government housing which were transported from RAAF Station Tocumwal after the Second World War to cover the housing shortage in Canberra in the 1950s.
Suburb Amenities
The O'Connor Cooperative School (a government run early childhood school) and St Joseph's primary school (run by the Catholic Church) are both located in O'Connor. The Anglican church of St Philip's in O'Connor was dedicated in 1961, and consecrated in 1981. The O'Connor Ridge is a large strip of land that is use for bush walking and mountain bikingMountain biking
Mountain biking is a sport which consists of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, using specially adapted mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes, but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and performance in rough terrain.Mountain biking can...
and is a part of the Canberra Nature Park
Canberra Nature Park
The Canberra Nature Park is actually 30 separate protected areas in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, ranging from bushland hills to lowland native grassland...
. At the O'Connor shops there can be found, the "All Bar Nun" bar and restaurant, a popular fish and chip shop called "Flat Heads", a small IGA supermarket, a hairdresser, a bicycle shop, a pharmacy, an Italian
Italian cuisine
Italian cuisine has developed through centuries of social and political changes, with roots as far back as the 4th century BCE. Italian cuisine in itself takes heavy influences, including Etruscan, ancient Greek, ancient Roman, Byzantine, Jewish and Arab cuisines...
restaurant "Marinetti's", and a Vietnamese
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
restaurant the "Tudo". Along the road from these are Canberra's Alliance Française
Alliance française
The Alliance française , or AF, is an international organisation that aims to promote French language and culture around the world. created in Paris on 21 July 1883, its primary concern is teaching French as a second language and is headquartered in Paris -History:The Alliance was created in Paris...
, a Croatian
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
Club and a Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
Club.
Geology
Calcareous shaleShale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
s from the Canberra Formation is overlain by Quaternary alluvium. This rock is the limestone of the original title of Canberra "Limestone Plains". The higher parts of O'Connor in the west are different. Towards the south near Black Mountain
Black Mountain (Australian Capital Territory)
Black Mountain is situated close to the central business district of Australia's capital city Canberra. Like all major hills in Canberra it is protected from development by the Canberra Nature Park. It is covered in native bushland and is a haven to native wildlife.With its peak at 811.987m AHD,...
is the Black Mountain Sandstone. Towards the north, and including O'Connor Ridge can be found Greywacke
Greywacke
Greywacke or Graywacke is a variety of sandstone generally characterized by its hardness, dark color, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or lithic fragments set in a compact, clay-fine matrix. It is a texturally immature sedimentary rock generally found...
from the Ordovician
Ordovician
The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...
age Pittman Formation.