 It is centred on the intersection of Burwood Highway and Springvale Road and is approximately 18 km east of the Melbourne Central Business District.Originally a rural area, the neighbourhood is named after a hotel which stood beside a shop on the corner of Blackburn Road and Highbury Road during the 1870s and 1880s.Opposite the hotel a primitive racecourse was constructed, and although the roads were considered in poor repair, activities there attracted large crowds.