21 November 2018
#ClarendonStreetSouthMelbourbe is very intact because of its unique history – the whole block, the #EmeraldHillEstate, was originally the Melbourne Protestant Orphan Asylum, till 1877, when they sold the middle bit for the #SouthMelbourneTownHall, but hung onto the rest, leasing the blocks for 50 year terms, so it was pretty much all built in the 1880s boom years. Then, in 1974, the state government bought the lot (not sure why, maybe to save it, and many of houses then became #publichousing). Anyway, glad they did, cos then they restored all the shops nicely, an early example of #heritagecolours, and rebuilt the long lost #castironverandah’s, which were / are continuous, all one thing, totally unique, also very wide, also nearly all the shopfronts are pre WW2. Sold off by Kennett in 1997 (of course) but the whole lot is on the #VictorianHeritageRegister, and it’s still in heritage colours ! If you like earthy colours, which I do….one thing though they didn’t put elaborate pediments back, spose no idea what they looked like. The 1st 15 shops are still on one title, sold in 2015 for $30mil.
Photos 2024:
9 March 2025
Some very fine terraces next to the South Melbourne Town Hall, built c1888, possibly designed by Sydney Smith. Restrained, but nice details like the little cast iron balconettes. Bought by the then City of South Melbourne in 1973, I think they then became social housing, and have been very well maintained. Next door there’s a cute ex-hayloft I think.
9 March 2025
Very grand and long terrace row in Cecil Street South Melbourne, built 1891, showing a lot of then newish Queen Anne influence. An early design by Sydney Smith & Ogg, it features red brick and simple pediments, and very nice ‘bellied’ cast iron balustrades. It’s actually not as long as it looks, it’s in two parts, a row of 5 (one with a great side entrance) and another of four, separated by a different row of four but the colour scheme is similar. They’re part of the whole city block once occupied by an Anglican Church orphanage, which moved out in 1878, but they retained ownership so everything was built on leased land. When they decided to sell 1973, a campaign to save both the buildings and the poorer occupants was successful, the State Government buying it with Whitlam $, and the houses passed to the Housing Commission. Then the whole block became an early heritage restoration project, and they’ve basically kept it the same ever since, which explains the matching colour schemes and picket fences (which must have been very solidly built ! or perhaps replaced at some point). Photos last winter.
23 March 2025
The rather decorative front to a shop/office thing in Bank Street South Melbourne almost next up the town hall. Took these photos mid last year, and since then @melbourne_ghostsigns has researched it, and tells me that it was the main shop and HQ of Crofts Stores, which started in 1905, and grew to 127 outlets by WW2 – and there’s a bunch of ghost signs (copied a few, Cocoa for kid cricketers!), which I’m guessing are on the east wall, now visible within the more modern building next door. Can’t work out when it was built, looks 1920s, earliest ad for this location is 1921, so could be then, but local histories say 1930s, but that might be the upper floor section, which looks 30s stylised classical.
Storey of Melbourne 