About Our Local Area

Rockingham

Rockingham is situated on the western shore of Bedford Basin. It is north of Clayton Park and Fairview and south of Bedford; specifically, Birch Cove and Princes Lodge. Its eastern extent is formed by the shore of the Bedford Basin and its western extent is generally the top of the ridge that rises from the Basin, although this was subsequently extended westward to an area near the Birch Cove Lakes and Highway 102.

On January 1, 1969, the community of Rockingham, along with many other surrounding areas of the Municipality of Halifax County were amalgamated into the City of Halifax.

Rockingham continued to benefit from being located immediately north of the peninsular city on the Highway 102 corridor to Bedford and beyond. The opening of the A. Murray MacKay Bridge in 1970 led to improved connections between Rockingham and western Halifax to the City of Dartmouth and particularly a new industrial park named Burnside which would become a major regional employer. A smaller industrial park named Bayers Lake was also built near Rockingham on the west side of Highway 102. New residential developments in the expanding city were subsequently built in Rockingham such as the Clayton Park subdivision, located along the eastern slope of Geizer's Hill on the Rockingham-Fairview boundary.

During the 1970s-1980s, CN Rail and later Via Rail operated a form of commuter rail passenger service on the railway line along Bedford Basin into downtown Halifax using frequently scheduled RDCs which were destined for Yarmouth, Moncton and Sydney. Rockingham's station was closed after the January 15, 1990 budget cuts to Via Rail saw these services discontinued. The Bedford Highway was redeveloped during the early 1990s into a major collector road from Birch Cove into the city.

On April 1, 1996, the City of Halifax was merged into the Halifax Regional Municipality. Preceding and following amalgamation, subdivision development in the western part of Rockingham continued apace, spurred in particular by the opening of Dunbrack Street and Northwest Arm Drive, however the most significant period of recent growth in Rockingham occurred between 1997-2003 with the Clayton Park West subdivision which was a 20-year development that filled within a quarter of the budgeted timeframe. Clayton Park West became one of the fastest-growing, densest new developments in Nova Scotian urban history. The rapid development was spurred by the conversion of the Bayers Lake Industrial Park into a "business park" model containing Halifax's first big box outlet stores, as well as new highway interchange construction between Lacewood Drive and Highway 102.

Today, the focus of Rockingham has moved from the former suburban centre located on the Bedford Highway, slightly north of Mount St. Vincent University and the CN station, to the new development at Clayton Park West which now extends to the northern extents of Rockingham at the Kearney Lake Road.

Education

• Mount St. Vincent University (post-secondary)
• Halifax West High School (10-12)
• Clayton Park Junior High (7-9)
• Park West (k-9)
• Duc d'Anville Elementary (k-6)
• Grosvenor-Wentworth Park Elementary (k-6)
• Rockingham Elementary (k-6)

Information and images courtesy of Wikipedia.com

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