Melbourne fragments – Model School, Spring Street

Original post 2 June 2020

Photos Jan 2020

If you go round the back of the College of Surgeons in Spring Street, and look into the sunken courtyard, you’ll see these random bits of #columns, which were discovered when they were digging it out in 2004 for new wings – they’re all that’s left of the the ‘model school’ that was built there in 1854, designed by #FMWhite. It was rather a complex design, and was either built more elaborately than the drawing, or was soon added to, as seen in the photo from the 1860s. It had porticos on both sides providing separate entrances for boys and girls (and they look like the source of the fragments) while the front part housed the government school administration, and teacher training. It was a state supported school meant to be a ‘model’ for others. After 1905 it became a state high school, one of the first, with the boys moving out to Melb Boys High in 1927, leaving the girls in a deteriorating building, condemned in 1930, when they went to government house, then to Macrob in 1934. The school was demolished in 1933, and somehow the College of Surgeons got this prime site (at least they havnt tried to sell it off !)..