The name and the first farms
The suburb was known as Dingley until 1991. In 1856 Thomas Attenborough bought land there and called his house Dingley Grange. He named it after Dingley Hall, a house in Dingley, the village in his native Northamptonshire. Farms took shape across the area, well away from the bayside and Gippsland railway lines, and moved into market gardens and poultry for the city's markets. The post office opened on 21 July 1913.
The Gartside cannery
Five brothers from the Gartside family found a way around vegetable gluts by starting a cannery around 1920. It employed up to 50 local people, and the brothers gave land for a new primary school, which opened in 1925. The Kingswood Golf Club, of Dandenong, opened a new course in Dingley in 1936. In 1947 a progress association was formed, and a recreation reserve was acquired in 1954.
Urban growth and the name change
Housing spread across Dingley from the early 1960s. With a small shopping centre, a school, a kindergarten, a reserve and, in time, Sunday markets on that reserve, the area took on a village feel. Later, two further primary schools opened, one of them Catholic, together with the Spring Park public golf course and a tennis complex nearby. The change of name to Dingley Village became official in 1991. On 15 December 1994 Dingley Village became part of the City of Kingston.
Setting and landmarks
Dingley Village sits beside the City of Kingston's green wedge, and Braeside Park borders it to the south. An industrial zone near Moorabbin Airport is laid out among gardens, with the Mornington Peninsula Freeway running between it and the suburb's homes. Christ Church, built in 1873, was the area's only identifiable centre, where Centre Road meets Old Dandenong Road.