Series : Filming Locations : Bartons on the Web

Glen Waverley is a suburb in the east of Melbourne. It served as the fictional suburb of Banksiawood throughout the series. Not only is Copnal Court located in Glen Waverley, the city center (city council hall and the library) features in Mr Snoller's Black Bag and Townsend Street features in Position Vacant. The fire station in that same episode is Fire Station 31 in Glen Waverley. All scenes of Elly in her tree, the flashback scenes in Beautiful Beetroot and some scenes in The Barton League of Bird Lovers were recorded in public parks in Glen Waverley.

Map of filming locations in Glen Waverley, with:

1: Copnal Court (most episodes)
2: Townsend Street (mailbox scenes in Position Vacant)
3: Century City Walk mall & Village Cinema (mall and cinema scenes in Suspected)
4: Kingsway/Bogong Avenue roundabout, with a view of the Glen Waverley Library and Monash City Council hall (chase scene in Mr Snoller's Black Bag). The Glen Waverley Library was also used for indoor shots in that episode.
5: Fire Station 31, 645 Ferntree Gully Road (fire station seen in Position Vacant; since been rebuilt)

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

Olivia in the purple wig. Somewhere in Glen Waverley, on the set of Suspected.
[8]

Natasha Kenneally, Olivia Harkin and Rosemary Smith somewhere in Glen Waverley during the shoot of Beautiful Beetroot.
[8]

Olivia in one of Anita's outfits. She's standing in a public park somewhere in Glen Waverley, next to the tree that was used as a stand-in for the Bartons' back yard. Notice the fake fence that was used to give the public park consistency with the real back yard at 5 Copnal Court. On the set of Suspected.
[8]

Copnal Court is a street in Glen Waverley, a suburb in the east of Melbourne. A lot of outdoor scenes were recorded on the street and in the front and back yards of a number of houses on the street.

Most notably, 5 Copnal Court features as the Bartons' house and is seen in most episodes. Three other houses were used as filming locations in various episodes: 2 Copnal Court for Anita's house, 6 Copnal Court for Mr Jensen's house and 10 Copnal Court for the Capaletti house.

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

Tilt your phone or tablet into landscape mode, then click to enlarge the image for a better view.

Map of the houses at Copnal Court. Click to enlarge.

Accentuated in magenta are the houses where filming took place: 2, 5, 6 and 10 Copnal Court. The houses were only used for outdoor shots ("O.B"); interiors shots were filmed at Ripponlea Studios (see further down this page).

Image: ©2021 Google; cropped, accentuated and annotated for clarity. source (opens Google Maps in a seperate window)

Although the back yard scenes at Elly's house were shot in 5 Copnal Court's back yard, shots where Elly's tree should be visible were not. Since there was no tree in 5 Copnal Court's back yard, any scene depicting it was shot at a tree located in a nearby public park. The immediate surroundings of the tree in the park were dressed up to look like 5 Copnal Court's back yard. Clever camera work and some editing tricks made it seem the tree was in the back yard.

Elly's tree, seen here towering over the Barton's house, is not really there.

Still from the opening scene of The Siege of Bartons' Bathroom. Digitised by me under fair use.

Olivia in one of Anita's outfits. She's standing in a public park somewhere in Glen Waverley, next to the tree that was used as a stand-in for the Bartons' back yard. Notice the fake fence that was used to give the public park consistency with the real back yard at 5 Copnal Court. On the set of Suspected.
[8]

Built in 1983, 5 Copnal Court is a bilevel family home that sits on 697 m² of land. It has four bedrooms, two bathrooms (so laying siege to one wouldn't really matter in reality I guess) and a two car garage on property. It's currently (2022) valued at $1.92 million Australian dollars, which is about €1.2 million Euros or £1 million British Pounds.²⁰

As you can see on the Streetview below, the house hasn't changed much. Sure, it had a few coats of paint applied over the years and the bushes have grown significantly, but it's still recognisable as the Bartons' house.

Fun facts: the people who owned the house in 1987, when Bartons was filmed there, owned it until 2011.

The neighbours at no. 4 Copnal Court sold their house in the midst of filming. I wonder how the sightings went: "don't worry, the neighbours in this street are mostly fictitious; it's not always this loud or filled with trucks, lighting rigs and catering tables".

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

Anita's house has not changed a lot either. Again, new coats of paint have been applied and the bushes have grown, and it appears that dried wooden borders are as much in fashion in 2022 as they were in 1987.

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

(Click to enlarge)

2 Copnal Court's front yard borders as seen in The Barton League of Bird Lovers
[4]

We've seen Anita's house in a couple of episodes; mostly the front yard in The Barton League of Bird Lovers, in passing in the opening scene of Three Little Pigs and both the front- and the back yard in Bye Bye Bartons. The grass lawn where Elly saw an opportunity to give the Nature Club an involuntary shower by having Yvonne turn on the sprinkler, is now a nice flower bed.

…was mostly seen from the back and the side in many episodes, most notably The Siege of Bartons' Bathroom and Bye Bye Bartons. But we got a good look at the front of the house in Three Little Pigs and by the looks of it, it hasn't changed at all in the past 35 years. Yes, even Mr Jensen's "PA-PER HOL-DER!!" is still there in 2021:

_{Left photo: still from the episode Three Little Pigs, digitised by me under fair use
Right photo: ©2021 Google; cropped for clarity source (opens Google Streetview in a seperate window)}

Parking problems
Both Copnal Court and Atheldene Drive (the street adjacent to Copnal Court) were used to stage the filming and park the trucks needed. Rosemary took some pictures at the time which you can see below.

More trucks at the set on Copnal Court.

_{View this exact location in Streetview
(opens in a new window or tab)}
[8]

Copnal Court and Atheldene Drive were invaded by trucks during the filming of Bartons. Equipment handling for outside fiming ("O.B."), wardrobe, and make-up were all handled from these.

_{View this exact location in Streetview
(opens in a new window or tab).}
[8]

5 & 6 Copnal Court, during a take break. On the set of Bye Bye Bartons.
[8]

Cheltenham Oval, renamed to Jack Barker Oval in 2008, is the home turf of Cheltenham FNC. It's located in Cheltenham, a suburb in the south east of Melbourne. Pretty much all scenes in Half-time were recorded here.

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

Olivia Harkin, Jennifer Jarman-Walker and Rosemary Smith, at the Cheltenham Oval. On the set of Half-time.
[8]

The YMCA Mt. Evelyn Recreation Camp is located in a nature reserve in the very east of Greater Melbourne. Its main building served as the filming location of the Girl Guide barracks in Beautiful Beetroot.

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

Compare how the building looked in the episode to how it looks today by moving the slider over the picture below. The pink circle in the side view comparison highlights one of the few elements that has survived all the changes over the past 35 years: a single tube light by the service door.

_{Left photo: still from the episode Beautiful Beetroot, digitised by me under fair use
Right photo: ©2021 Google; cropped for clarity source (opens Google Streetview in a seperate window)}

_{Left photo: still from the episode Beautiful Beetroot, digitised by me under fair use
Right photo: ©2021 Google; cropped for clarity source (opens Google Streetview in a seperate window)}

Olivia Harkin and Rosemary Smith on set at Mt Evelyn Recreation Camp during the shoot of Beautiful Beetroot.
[8]

Maud Clark (Mrs Corkhum) and someone I don't recognise in make up. On location at Mt Evelyn during the shoot of Beautiful Beetroot.
[1]

Somer's Beach is a recreational public beach located to the south of Melbourne, opposite Phillip Island. The outdoor scenes in Bartons on the Beach and some of the shots in the opening credits were filmed here.

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

Cast group photo, taken during the shoot of Bartons on the Beach.

Note: matching bathers: only 1 out of 6…
[1]

Wading through cold water.
On the set of Bartons on the Beach.
[8]

Century City Walk is a mall located on Springvale Road in the city center of Glen Waverley. The mall scenes in Suspected were filmed there. The Village Cinema inside the mall was also a filming location for that episode.

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

Fire Station 31 has been located at 645 Ferntree Gully Road, Glen Waverley since 9 September 1960 (which, incidentally, is just five days after Jocelyn Moorhouse was born).

The fire station scenes in Position Vacant were filmed here. The building as it was during filming of Bartons, however, is no more. It has since been rebuilt into a larger, more modern facility to cope with the larger fire brigade needed for an ever expanding Glen Waverley.

The picture below depicts the fire station around its opening in 1960, looking pretty much like how it was in 1987. the door where the fire truck is parked, is the same door where the fire truck in the episode was parked in.

You can see what the new building looks like on the Streetview further down below.

Image courtesy of Fire Rescue Victoria (website) (link opens in a new tab or window)
Thanks to fellow Bartons fan Richard for the research!

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

Decomissioned in 2017, the ABC's Ripponlea Studios complex at 8 Gordon Street in Elsternwick, Victoria, was used for most indoor shots. That includes the inside of the Barton's house, the Snoller's house and other locations. Only the scenes in the library in Mr Snoller's Black Bag, the indoor scenes in Beautiful Beetroot and the indoor scenes in Half-time were not recorded here (but on location instead).

View contents from Google Maps and Streetview
^{Please note that Google Maps (and Streetview) is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read Google's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

View contents from The Age
^{Please note that The Age is an external service and not covered by our privacy policy. Please read The Age's privacy policy to see how it collects and handles your (personal) data.}

Enable

Maureen Edwards and Olivia Harkin on the set of Pisition Vacant, Ripponlea Studios

Maureen Edwards (Ms India) and Olivia on set in the Ripponlea Studios during the shoot of Position Vacant.
[1]