Roleystone's name originates from a 5666-acre farm—named "Rolleston"—established by Charles Blisset Churchman in 1830. The property included much of what is now Roleystone and Bedfordale, and remained untended after Churchman's death in 1833 until it was purchased by Thomas Buckingham in 1858, who referred to it as "Rollingstone". The area was also referred to as "The Rolling Stone" and "Rowley Stone" in early police reports. In 1865, Buckingham built a sawmill, which was located at Sparrow's Place, later known as Butcher's, on the Roleystone Road, about 6.5 kilometres from Kelmscott. The area was subdivided into farmlets in 1902, and was subsequently developed as orchards and market gardens. Buckingham's homestead still stands along with a brick and mortar sheep plunge dip on the property of Araluen Golf Resort. In 1905, Roleystone was opened up for closer settlement, with property brochures extolling the virtues of the scenery and fertile valley soils. Roleystone is now an area of large residential "R5" zoned properties—with 1500-2000m² minimum block sizes—surrounded by larger rural properties of native bushland and fruit orchards. The residential gardens, and surrounding council and regional reserves are home to a variety of native wildlife with bandicoots, brushtail possums, shingleback lizards and children's pythons in relative abundance. Large numbers of Western Grey Kangaroos are found in bush surrounding the suburb.
Facilities
The main suburban residential area to the west of Roleystone is served by a neighbourhood shopping centre, with Stargate Kelmscott and Armadale Shopping City providing other commercial services. The suburb originally contained a primary school and Roleystone District High School. The two schools were amalgamated into Roleystone Community College after a community consultation process held in 2009, using new and existing buildings on the site of the existing Roleystone District High School, with State Government and Federal funding. The majority of Year 11 and 12 students travel to schools in nearby suburbs, including Kelmscott Senior High School, Lesmurdie Senior High School, Mazenod College and Saint Brigids's College. The Araluen Botanic Park and the Araluen Golf Resort are located in the south of the suburb off Croyden Road and are popular picnic and wedding locations, especially during "Springtime at Araluen" when all the flowers are in bloom. Araluen is also known for the Araluen Chilli Festival, which was held in the park each year until 2009. In 2010, the festival was relocated to the Fremantle Esplanade and renamed Araluen's Fremantle Chilli Festival, and since then has continued to be operated by—and to provide funding for—the Araluen Park. Brookton Highway runs through Roleystone. The suburb is served by a number of school bus services and by Transperth bus route 241 which runs every hour during the day, connecting the suburb to Kelmscott train station and Stargate Kelmscott shopping centre. All services are provided by the Public Transport Authority.
Local sporting clubs
Roleystone is home to an Australian Rules Football Club The Roleystone Tigers. There is both a junior football club and a senior football club, with the latter having amateur league team. The Roleystone-Karragullen Cricket Club was established in 1950. The club currently fields five teams in the Swan & Helena Districts Cricket Association and celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2010. The Roleystone Country Club is located on Wygonda Rd and has views down the Brookton valley.
Roleystone is home to the Roleystone Musicians Club. The club was established in March 2007. The town was immortalized by Kevin Peek, a guitarist and member of the band Sky, who named a Sky song after his home town of Roleystone. Roleystone is also the home of the Roleystone Theatre - both the venue and the group. The group was formed in 1933 as the Roleystone Choral and Dramatic society, with a name change in the 1970's to the Roleystone Theatre Group. The Group is a vibrant community theatre presenting high standard plays and musicals throughout each year. The Roleystone Theatre, first built by Roleystone-Karragullen residents in 1922 and now owned by the City of Armadale, is currently closed for remedial building works. The Roleystone Theatre Group is utilising the Roleystone Hall as their temporary home until it is re-built and re-opened.
There are two local newspapers: the Roleystone Courier and the Valley Reporter. Both papers are owned by local residents. There is also a community website called RoleystoneNet that contains a local forum, local events calendar and an online flea market called Eflea.
Bushfire 2011
On 6 February 2011, a declared total fire ban day, a bushfire occurred on private property adjacent to the Brookton Highway in the Roleystone/Kelmscott area. There were a total of 72 homes destroyed and 37 homes damaged. This is the second biggest house loss in Western Australia to a single bushfire event behind the January 2016 fires in Yarloop.
