The Surrey Hills area was first developed by a Real Estate consortia, following the extension of the railway line from Camberwell to Lilydale in 1882.

[5] Housing estates were laid out and lovely period homes built in either brick or weatherboard, with most designs being influenced by the Victorian, Federation and Edwardian era.

The streets were planted mainly with avenues of Pin Oak and Plane trees, which are now mature and offer a pleasant shady vista.

The streets have impressive names such as Empress, Kingston, Surrey, Balmoral, Leopold, Windsor, Albert and Wolseley, but the area was considered too distant from the nearest shopping districts: Camberwell to the west and Box Hill to the east.

The latter streets are named after English places (Croydon, Guildford & Surrey) and Sir Garnet Road, named in honour of a famous British Army General (Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, born in Ireland, who served a distinguished career and became a hero in the British Army in the late 1800s & early 1900).

Chatham Station can be accessed from the north by laneways between houses, beginning near the Mont Albert Road General Store, then continuing south along the Canterbury Sports Ground pathway.

These points all represent around one mile in distance from the peak of Surrey Hills (at around the position of the large telecommunication towers on the corner of Canterbury Road and Harding Street).