25 May 2023

I had this print above my desk when I was a teenager – I guess mum got it for me, and where my heritage interest started ! It’s by Samuel Calvert, ‘a birds eye view’, but i think entirely done from the ground, not a balloon. You can download a very large version from the @library_vic, and blow it up – I’ve shown some details of the Exhibition Building, Parliament House without its front, St Patricks without its spires, and the grand Eastern Market. You can see join marks and gaps, and just how wonky it is in parts eg Latrobe Street almost not there, and Victoria Parade looks parallel to Bourke Street. Lots of cute tiny horse and carts. I’m thinking of doing a version of that end but based on my plan of what Hoddle should have done, and Parliament House with it’s dome finished – do you think that would be worth it ?

Yep I’m doing it ! I must be crazy. Can only trace parts, rest I have to do from scratch. Plus I’m improving and correcting it, eg putting in Latrobe Street. In progress by mid June :

Parliament House with dome – it was quite elaborate, rather Baroque in style, with projecting diagonal bays on the drum, then tall brackets, and the dome itself was sort of scalloped. It was all drawn up perhaps about 1888, ready to go, but the 1890s crash got in the way.

18 July 2023

This part is the Little Lonsdale Street block, between Exhibition and Spring Street, which I’m assuming would have developed as it did. Regarded as a slum, the block between Little Lon and LaTrobe was subdivided with lanes off lanes, with tiny lots for two and three room houses, and some sheds, yards and workshops. Some houses were to the back or to one side of the lot, so that the privvy could be on the front, since there no back lanes. In Cumberland Place, there was one in timber and there’s a photo of it from 1901 and another one from 1950, just before it was cleared with all the others for the Commonwealth office block. There’s a number of photos from then, showing other little houses in the various lanes. The MMBW maps from 1895 and 1915 also show them pretty clearly. It was certainly more crowded than indicated in the original 1880 view (last image), I guess he didn’t want to show something that didn’t fit the impressive image of Melbourne he wanted to portray (or too much effort – they are tiny, and I couldn’t fit them all in ! All photos @library_vic.

27 July 2023

Latest part of my big drawing of Melbourne as it might have been, the triangular area east of Spring Street at Lonsdale. I’ve drawn the Model School, built in the 1850s and replaced by the College of Surgeons in the 1930s – the school was a terribly complicated building ! So I simplified. And school is out, I put in little figures leaving. And I had a smaller triangle which now has a sort of Chinese garden and the parliament station entry but didn’t have anything before, except Burke & Wills for a time, so I put the 8 hours monument on the corner. It was actually over in Gordon Square until 1903. There was still a bit of room, so I put the morgue there ! With a hearse out the back. The morgue was actually right on the corner of Swanston and Flinders until 1888, only old photo is at an angle, and when the Yarra was in flood, showing a rather elegant small c1860 building.

4 August 2023

Latest instalment of my Melbourne as it might have been in 1900 birdseye view – drawing St Patricks so small was quite fiddly ! And though I’ve drawn Parliament House completed, I did St Pats without spires, which weren’t added till the 30s, though in 1900 one of the towers was lower for some reason. From old photos they didn’t plant any trees around it. And I appreciate its architecture more looking at the plans, though the detail of the really quite interesting buttresses is lost looking at them because it’s all dark bluestone. Wonder who and why they chose bluestone? Guess in 1858 it was definitely cheaper.

24 August: Latest instalment of my Melb as it might have been 1900 Birds Eye view – the bottom corner of Fitzroy, based on a few photos and the mmbw map from 1896. Ive been as accurate as I could. On the right, I’ve got a corner of the cyclorama (an entertainment consisting of a giant realistic painted scene wrapping around the viewer), St Patrick’s school next door (didn’t know that was there), the beginnings of St Vincent’s hospital in its terraces next to that. The curved parapet is the 1890 freethought hall, only the facade left now. A rather blurry detail of an 1889 coloured ad provides good clues too; seems there was large block of three storey terraces near the corner of Nicholson Street, which itself seems to have been empty from the 1880s at least, so I’ve drawn it empty.

I’ve got one last triangle of land – behind the model school facing the Carlton gardens – and I’ve decided to put the homeopathic hospital there – it was actually built on st kilda road in 1885, a rather mad eclectic combo of Queen Anne gables, cast iron verandahs and spiky mansarded towers by Crouch & Wilson. It was built in stages, and then from the 1930s replaced in grand modern style as Prince Henry’s, sadly blown up in 1994. Anyway, I’m drawing it from behind, and making the end towers taller …

2 September 2023: And it’s finished ! My Melbourne as it might have been, if Hoddle had included public squares and more wide streets. So I’ve ended up with a park areas in front of Parliament House, which has a forecourt as well and with dome competed, and both Nicholson Street and Victoria Street as 198 ft boulevards. Im worried there’s not enough traffic – more horse and buggies ? (I can’t draw horses at all properly!). I’m not sure what to do next – a nice ink wash ? Leave as is ? And some details i maybe havnt shown before – the Homeopathic Hospital (from behind) facing the Carlton Gardens, the space in front of Parl House, with Burke & Wills statue, St Patrick’s Cathedral with adjacent College, Gordon Square with Stanford fountain, and the Eastern Market. It’s been fun, sad it’s over actually.

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