28 October 2024

The narrowest lane in the city ? Though really just a passageway. It runs off a lane off Little Bourke through to Lonsdale. Both the lane and passage are called Corrs Lane, and are a result of subdivisions of the original lots sold in 1837 that fronted both main and little streets; they were often cut up into smaller lots fronting a lane that ran off the little street, and maximised lot frontage on the main streets, leaving the lane as a dead end, or a much narrower connection just for pedestrian access. This one appears in a plan of the cbd drawn by surveyor Robert Russell in c1840, so it’s an early one ! It got its name by 1883, when the ‘Back Slum Committee’ said the “rookeries in the place are shockingly bad and filthy”. The only older buildings there now are three warehouses built in 1888 which look perfectly fine, last 2 pics, and good to see it’s still got its bluestone paving, complete with very narrow footpaths.

A very popular post, with many peeps knowing it, some pointing out there are others possibly narrower, but I say if you can’t walk down it, then it’s a gap, not a laneway. but yes there are I think more than a few that are this wide in the inner burbs, just enough room to go get the nightsoil.

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