Originally thought to have been inhabited by the Wallumedegal people, who lived in the area between the Lane Cove and Parramatta Rivers, the area was first settled by Europeans shortly after the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, from land grants to Royal Marines and New South Wales Corps, and was named "Eastwood" by an early Irish free settler, William Rutledge.

Every October, the oval and cordoned-off streets become the grounds for the annual Granny Smith Festival, a celebration of the icon with fairground rides, market stalls, street theatres, parades, an apple-baking competition and a fireworks spectacular at the Upper Eastwood Oval.

[6] Eastwood is located at the edge of the Hornsby Plateau with the suburbs of Dundas Valley and Denistone on its western and southern sides, respectively, as the land falls away down to the Cumberland Plain.

To the north, Eastwood is bounded by the transport hub of Epping and to its east Marsfield which shares the same postcode of 2122.

John Love, a private was granted 90 acres (36 ha) here in 1794, described as North Brush, in the Field of Mars Common.

In 1886, the Main Northern railway line from Strathfield to Hornsby was opened, with a station here originally called Dundas.

[10] However, due to growth in nearby Macquarie Centre and Top Ryde City these stores have all closed, leaving Woolworths as the sole anchor tenant.

In 1994, the Waltons store closed and the Westfield Group sold the centre and is now called Eastwood Village which included Franklins (rebranded to IGA in 2011–2015).

Eastwood is becoming well known as an Asian shopping precinct, with speciality stores, supermarkets and many restaurants run by Chinese and Korean retailers.

[13] The ethnic background of its shoppers has created a hub of mainly Chinese, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Singaporean, Hong Kong and Korean restaurants and eateries in the area.

Volunteers and professional bush regenerators have worked to preserve the Blue Gum High Forest and rainforest in these areas.

Despite being within a large city, Brush Farm has remarkable fauna, including the powerful owl, emerald dove, eastern whipbird, satin bowerbird and the green tree snake.

At the 2021 census, more than half (52.8%) of occupied private dwellings in Eastwood were separate houses, 28.2% were flats, units or apartments, and 17.9% were semi-detached or townhouses.

While most of Eastwood is residential, with one or two-storey detached houses and villas, the area surrounding the town centre boasts buildings up to seven storeys high.

In 2006 the City of Ryde developed a Control Plan for the Eastwood Town Centre, which includes the provision of buildings of up to ten storeys high in the shopping and railway areas.