Buttlejorrk is a parish of the County of Bourke located to the west of Sunbury, in Victoria, Australia and a neighbourhood within the locality of Diggers Rest. It was named in 1839 by the surveyor William Darke. A township developed and was initially known as Aitken's Gap, after settler and farmer John Aitken and was the first staging stop for miners on their way to the Bendigo gold fields. Hotels (the Gap Inn, the Manchester Hotel and the Bald Hill Hotel) and stores were erected in the vicinity, and in 1854 the Government moved to formalise the township. The original Gap Inn and a store (in which a post office was established in 1856) were located in the middle of the main street of the Government’s later survey. Archaeological evidence remains of the Gap Inn and Bald Hill Hotel. By the 1890s it had commonly become known as Buttlejorrk. The present location of the Calder Freeway was once the main road (Victoria Street) through Aitken’s Gap with various smaller streets crossing it. This formed part of the main town with the remainder of the town stretching as far west as Koroit Creek. This area is now known as Digger’s Rest, the town’s name arising from the diggers (miners) who would rest here on their way to the gold fields.
If you had been standing here in the early 1900s you would find yourself looking at the old township of Buttlejorrk to the West and the developing town of Sunbury to the East. Clearly Sunbury has expanded a lot since then and it is with heavy heart that I report that these paddocks will no longer carry the sounds of horses whinnying, but the harsh sounds of excavators as this land becomes more residential sites over time.