January 2026

Right next to St Paul’s Cathedral is another very fine Gothic Revival design from the 19thC, with pointy arches, gables and a cute stepped tower, and would be better known if it was somewhere else.

The site had been the old ‘parsonage’ for the Cathedral, which they sold in late 1890 when the church was nearly finished. It was built for the Metropolitan Gas Co, with extensive showrooms and their offices, completed in 1892. It was designed by #ReedSmartAndTappin, the successor firm of Reed & Barnes, who had overseen the completion of the Cathedral, and designed the Chapter House, and it’s often said this was designed to ‘match’ the Cathedral – BUT it was originally redbrick, with some stripes in Waurn Ponds stone to boot, looking far more strident than now, not matchy at all. Pic 2 is just on completion, but by pic 3 in 1912 it had mellowed. But before St Paul’s towers were built in the late 20s, the little tower here was actually taller.

In the early 1930s it was decided to renovate because the stone had decayed, and the architects #TompkinsAndTompkins said the stone wasn’t repairable, so they rendered the whole thing with a crushed stone product. They probably thought the stripes were old fashioned, and a stone effect would match the Cathedral better. The Gas Co became the Gas & Fuel in 1950, then moved across the road in 1967, and then this became the home to Clark Rubber for ages. The State Lib has a set of showindow pics from the 30s showing their Gothic detailing, but they were gone by the 1972 pic.

I think sometimes time in the 80s it was done over again, turning the shop fronts into an inset gap, rather than having a verandah, and doing some bad repair of the render on the corner. It was renovated again in 2016 by @lovellchen, who fixed up the patchy render, but didn’t reinstate the shop windows.

The Gas Co had its gasworks out in what’s now the Docklands, approximately where the extension of Collins crosses Harbour Esplanade, partly a park. It was on the river so they could get coal in easily, since the gas was made from coal, somehow. They had their own little train to move it around. And by the 1880s gas lit every home and streetlight office building and shop, so there was a lot! Though by 1891 they knew electricity was going to affect their business.

Pic 1 mine 2018, pic 2 comes from the files of the @nationaltrustvic, don’t know where it was from originally, rest @library_vic.

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