Prospect real estate

In 1838 John Bradford took up a land grant for section 373 in the Hundred of Yatala, and divided the land into several eight-acre allotments. Prospect Village began as a private subdivision covering sections 373 and 349, which met at the village centre, now the site of St Helens Park and St Cuthbert's Anglican Church. According to H.C. Talbot, the name came from its views over the Adelaide Plains and from its separation from North Adelaide by the wooded Parklands.

Settlers arriving at the uncleared land found a "beautiful prospect" before them, ground that was well timbered and shaded by gums. Colonel William Light named the early township Prospect Village soon after South Australia was colonised in 1838. The Parklands between the village and North Adelaide held gum trees and wattles, and the name stayed with the suburb and with its council.

The council area took shape in 1872, when the City of Prospect was established and the name entered local government. The suburb itself waited longer: in 1944 the council voted to give the suburb the same name, since the suburb was where the council sat. Prospect holds about five-sevenths, or 71%, of the land in the City of Prospect.

Prospect's first post office opened around 1861 and shut around 1872. An office open at Nailsworth from 1861 took the Prospect name in 1874, and it has stayed open since. It stood at First Avenue in Nailsworth, where two tall palm trees were planted in front so the building could be seen from far off.

In the 1940s the area that is now Prospect was divided into seven localities. West of Prospect Road lay Prospect Estate, Highbury and Dudley Park, from north to south; the west portion of Dudley Park remains a separate suburb. East of the same road lay Blair Athol, then Prospect Park and Prospect Hill, while St Johns Wood and the older Prospect suburb lay south again.

A map drawn in 1896 for the Hundred of Yatala lists subdivisions with much older names inside the present suburb. Section 348, immediately south of the early village, was once Little Adelaide. Section 371, covering roughly the ground between today's Rose Street and Olive Street, was divided into Prospect West and Prospect North. Just south of Regency Road lay Reepham, a name kept by the Reepham Hotel at the Churchill Road corner, and Sleaford.

Land east of the railway line, and west of Churchill Road as it runs today, was once counted as part of Islington, from Winter Terrace to Regency Road. The railway station there keeps the Islington name, and its city-bound platform lies in Prospect.

Regency Park to the west, once called "Tam O'Shanter Belt", held the Islington sewage farm between 1881 and 1966.

Prospect lies 5 km north of Adelaide's centre. Its edges are Main North Road on the east; the southern boundary follows Carter Street, then Audley Avenue and Avenue Road; the Gawler railway line runs along the west, and a line 400 m north of Regency Road marks the north. Kilburn, Fitzroy, Medindie and Devon Park are among the neighbouring suburbs.

The suburb covers about five-sevenths, or 71%, of the land in the City of Prospect council area, and the council takes its name from it. Names from the district's past appear on the ground today, including the Reepham Hotel at the Churchill Road corner, and the Islington railway station, whose city-bound platform lies in Prospect.