Walpole, Western Australia
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Walpole | |||||||||||||
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 Looking east through Walpole along South Western Highway | |||||||||||||
  Walpole | |||||||||||||
 Interactive map of Walpole | |||||||||||||
| Coordinates: 34°58′40″S 116°44′01″E / 34.977705°S 116.733728°E | |||||||||||||
| Country | Australia | ||||||||||||
| State | Western Australia | ||||||||||||
| LGA | |||||||||||||
| Location | |||||||||||||
| Established | 1933 | ||||||||||||
| Government | |||||||||||||
| • State electorate | |||||||||||||
| • Federal division | |||||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||||
• Total | 56.3 km2 (21.7 sq mi) | ||||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||||
| • Total | 336 (UCL 2021)[1] | ||||||||||||
| Postcode | 6398 | ||||||||||||
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Walpole is a town in the south-western region of Western Australia, located approximately 430 km (270 mi) south southeast of Perth, and 66 km (41 mi) west of Denmark.
Walpole lies very close to the northern point of the 100 ha (250-acre) Walpole Inlet, from which it takes its name.
The inlet in turn is named for the Walpole River, discovered in 1831 by Captain Thomas Bannister, and named by Governor Stirling for Captain W. Walpole, with whom he had served aboard HMS Warspite in 1808.[2]
The first European settlers to arrive in the area were Pierre Bellanger and his family in 1909. They travelled aboard Grace Darling from Albany to take up 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) of land.[3]
Land in the Walpole area was reserved for a national park in 1910, and the area subsequently became a popular holiday destination. Major development began to occur in the 1930s as part of the land settlement scheme. The railway reached Nornalup in 1929, and the Walpole town site was gazetted in 1933. The local electricity grid is remote and fragile, and a 1.5 MW / 30 MWh (15 hours) pumped-storage hydroelectricity facility is being built to stabilize power for Walpole.[4]
