11 September 2021

The Corkman hotel on Leicester Street Carlton, was illegally demolished over the weekend of 15-16 October 2016. The pub was built in 1856, and enlarged in 1889.

20 June 2019

So sad, the colonial era 1856 #CarltonInn aka the #CorkmanHotel is still a pile of rubble 2 1/2 years after it’s illegal demolition in oct 2016. I say illegal, but the penalties are only about doing ‘works’ without a permit – there arnt any special laws about demolishing a heritage building, there’s no clear rule that they have to rebuild ! – but still, the fines add up to $1.9 mill, not nothing, but not enough since the planning rules that would have allowed facading and a 12 storey tower still apply, so its worth a lot. No wonder when the developers Stefce Kutlesovski and Raman Shaqiri appeared in court ‘Shaqiri was admonished for #smirking’. It would be nice to think they could be forced to rebuild, using the bits that remained – all the windows are outlined in #bluestone blocks, and the bricks could be reused too, and of course it should be a pub or similar again, with some room for higher development behind say the front rooms. I think that would be a better result than going to jail, or making it into a park. @ Corkman Irish Bar

10 September 2021

We will never forget. Pleased to hear that Raman Shaqiri and Stefce Kutlesovski lost their appeal against jail for contempt of court and $400,000 of fines. But if VCAT accepts the apology they finally made, they might not actually have to spend time behind bars. The site of the Corkman / #CarltonInn is now a little park. Planning laws have been somewhat overhauled since then, but demolishing a heritage listed place still isn’t an offence separate from doing something without a permit. First photo Broadsheet, 2nd The Age (James Bowering), last one FB.

4 November 2022

This is a design submitted for planning approval for the Corkman Pub site. It’s a 3 level pub (when they could have had 10 levels), and has been designed by 6* architects with reference to ‘historic buildings in the area’, in precast concrete, bright coloured tiles, and screens made of terra cotta pipes. I quite like it. I don’t know if the site is still owned by the heavily fined developers who demolished the 1850s Carlton Inn way back in 2016, but I presume so.

6 November 2023

The Corkman Hotel is to be rebuilt! After all this time. It seems that with all the VCAT hearings and court cases, as well as $1.1 million in fines and spending 21 days in jail in 2021 (I didn’t know that bit), the guys who demolished it in 2016 – Raman Shaqiri and Stefce Kutlesovski – had to start building something by June last year, or rebuild the pub, or go to jail again. They had a plan for a three-storey pub (which changed a bit, not for the better, second last image), but the @cityofmelbourne and the Minister for Planning simply refused to give them a permit, so now we’re getting a rebuild. But they say it might be a salvos food bank instead of a pub not sure why. It’s supposed to be a exactly as it was before demolition, fir which there are already drawings (3rd image), but personally I’d go for how it looked at an earlier point, perhaps in the 1930s when it had fewer doors and with two colour tiles – image 3 is 1957, image 4 via @heraldsunphoto_retro is 1937.

Whatever they do, I just hope it’s a good replica, like the one in London that was rebuilt in 2021 (last image). While they can’t recreate the patrons of age, that will come with time, assuming they use bricks render and bluestone like the original.

20 June 2025

I last reported on the illegally demolished Corkman Hotel in Carlton in Nov 2023, when it seemed that the final outcome was building a replica, and this is indeed what’s happening – thanks to @lumopixel for the photo. Disappointing that so far it’s tilt slab concrete panels, not exactly the brick and bluestone it was originally built of – but possibly this is the internal skin, and there’s going to be brick or at least smooth render over it all, and there do seem to be slots for bluestone window sills.

I can’t find any documents detailing what exactly is being rebuilt, just a part elevation from a FB page, so I don’t know if it’s going to be just like before, but I think they’re going for maybe the 1930s, when the doors were a bit different, the tiles weren’t painted, and the finials were still in place. Inside I presume is going to be all new, and not sure it’ll be a pub.

25 June 2026

The Corkman Hotel has been resurrected ! Well the exterior anyway. And reported in The Age today, so went and took pics. I think they’ve done an amazingly good job – even though it’s on a base of precast concrete panels, the joints aren’t visible, and all the materials you see are traditional, like cement render (a lovely ochre) and bluestone around the windows, marked like originally. It all looks way too new, but then it is what it is, a new reproduction. I think the green tiles in particular are fantastic, @oldeenglishtiles managed to reproduce the deep colour variations typical of these 20s/30s tiles that were added to just about every pub. They must have had some remnant ones. What they’ve built is pretty much what was there before the demolition in 2016, but as if it was cleaned and painted up nice (though there’s a couple of window changes, and not sure the charming timber detail in the windows was there before). The heritage architect was John Briggs who is the advisor for the @cityofmelbourne.

The corner section of the pub was built c1856, with those unusual bluestone window surrounds. Then probably in the 1880s it was extended to the east, but with higher floor levels and raising the parapet and adding a balustrade. Various more later additions to the rear, and the interior altered many times probably (last pic shows 1970s exposed bluestone and new openings). It’s got four walls aha a roof but the interior is just a huge empty shell ! No uses as yet, could be a pub/hospo or offices or anything.

The idiots who demolished were Raman Shaqiri and Stefce Kutlesovski, who ended up paying $1.1 million in fines and spending 21 days in jail in 2021. Mr Shaqiri seems kind of contrite now, he says this reproduction has cost $10mill.

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