6 July 2025

Would you believe Hoddle Street and Punt Road weren’t connected by road until 1938? It must have been so quiet up on the hill. Punt Road got its name from a punt established in 1842, which was joined (or replaced) by a footbridge in 1895. The first photo is 1922, which clearly shows the misalignment (perhaps laid out at different times with no idea that one day they might be joined). As car and truck traffic increased hugely in the next 30 years, a bridge was commissioned, and rather surprisingly the footbridge trusses were reused across the Maribyrnong as a stock bridge near the cattle yards, still there as a footbridge.

The new Punt Road bridge was named the Hoddle Bridge, after the increasingly famous founding surveyor Robert Hoddle. Architects Hughes & Orme were employed to ‘harmonise …it into one pleasing structure’, and the balustrade and pylons have nice Art Deco lines (and rather incongruous lamps matching the 1920s CBD ones).

The whole slightly scary steep slope and S-bend arrangement is something modern traffic engineers wouldn’t allow, but gives you a brief nice view of what’s left of the silos. All pics via Facebook, old ones mostly @library_vic.

June 2026

Everyone’s been over the Hoddle Bridge a million times, but just yesterday I had a good look. The railings and pylons are nice enough, but an uncertain combo of traditional styles with some Art Deco flourishes, and very discordant old school lamps. I do like the blue though. On the other hand, the arches are graceful and low, with fun speedlines in the buttresses, and you can see the board marked concrete underneath.

Hard to believe that it wasn’t built until 1938! There was a lot of excitement in the newspapers leading up to its construction, and I found an illustration from mid 1937 which shows that it was more traditional at first, with low pylons topped by pairs of lamps (probably just like the one on Princes Bridge, added in 1926, last pic).

Some architects disliked the design, and I think that’s why the Country Road Board consulted Percy Everett, and then got the architects Hughes & Orme (notable for their Toorak Georgian houses) to ‘harmonise the road, balustrade and pylons … into one pleasing structure’. Which resulted in more Moderne/Art Deco styling, revealed when it was opened by the Premier, Albert Dunstan. The first vehicle to cross was a ‘Tramways’ bus running from Clifton Hill to Elsternwick, the same one I used to get home.

Old pics via Facebook, mostly @library_vic.

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