17 January 2025

I went looking for this laneway a couple of weeks ago; I thought it was Spark Lane, off Flinders near Spring, but it was all covered by scaffolding. I did find a picturesque light well / building gap though, and some nice bluestone (too neat to be completely original though).

I now realise I was working from a memory probably from the 90s, before the Herald building tower, and before the 1996 carpark building that’s now being replaced, when there might have been some timber stairs here – but it was never like the photo – which is actually the back of Robbs Building (Robbs Lane) that once stood on the corner of Collins & King, demolished in 1982. And the photo is from 1956, found in the 1994 book about Melbourne’s lanes ‘Essential but Unplanned’.

If anyone knows of a laneway still existing that’s still got old multiple timber stairs and hydraulic lift enclosures, let me know, cos I can’t think of any.

Pic 7 is Spark Lane in 2018 borrowed from @bdagius. Last image is a map of the area in 1923; seems the whole set of buildings and lanes not subdivided until c1900.

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