August 2026
I think if this was in Bourke or Collins we’d all be swooning over it, wanting to stay there, but no, it’s at the dag end of Flinders Street behind a big tree, so you just don’t see it. But the ex-Markillie’s Hotel is great !
It’s a quite an elaborate front, most details kind of Victorian, but the big arch with the bow verandah below is very Edwardian Baroque. It’s a bit retro for 1915-18 actually, but a move on from the red brick Edwardian the architects Sydney Smith & Ogg were doing just previously, eg the nearby Kilkenny Inn in King Street.
It was a rebuild of a little Victorian pub called the Prince of Wales, and from its reopening was run by Arthur Markillie, who ran it into the 1940s. I guess it was never a high class hotel, but perfectly fine, did well enough to build an extra wing behind facing Downie Street in 1927 (now lost in the gloom of new towers all round).
By the 1980s or earlier it was very downmarket, I went in once in the 90s to maybe rent a room but it was pretty far gone. Then in 2005, Youth Hostels Australia bought it, and fixed it up, and now you can rent a bunk bed for $80/night. There don’t seem to be any original interiors left.
