September 2026
The York Butter Factory in King Street, looking fine in the winter sun shadows.
For its first 50 years it was actually two separate bluestone warehouses built around 1854, one wider than the other, which housed a variety of businesses (pic 11 is a high of what it looked like from Old Treasury Building Facebook page). The current look came about in 1902, when the Hansen and Farrell Co. Butter Factory took over both, and then the first floor was rendered and the balustrade was added. They were taken over by or changed their name to York Butter Factories at some point, who painted the sign in c1940. Must have been well done because still there in the mid 70s when it was listed on the Heritage Register. The listing talks about the intact internal structure of cast iron and Oregon beams, I could only find a couple of pics. The sign was repainted by 1985 about the time it became a restaurant/nightclub (pic 6, City of Melb), but now looks nicely aged again. I don’t know who Fred N Depson Co was, but another nice sign.
It’s part of a remarkably intact row of bluestone warehouses, which by the late 70s were being reused as nightclubs, and some still are.
This one and Inflation and the Grain Store are next to but never a part of the Rialto development – but since c2000 Lorenz Grollo bought all three, thinking to do something, then put them up for sale in 2023, but nothing seems to have eventuated. In fact not sure this one is occupied.
