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Town Hall, 333 Bay Street, Port Melbourne
Town Hall, 333 Bay Street, Port Melbourne

Sign of the Swallow

Port Melbourne HistoryMay 14, 2015
This Port Melbourne story is reproduced with permission from Stephen Banham's wonderful book Characters: Cultural stories revealed through typograpy . 'Real estate development can be unkind to signage. The urgency to convert a site from industrial to residential often promotes a 'scorched earth' approach - complete erasure of what once occupied a site. However, amid the crashing bricks and billowing dust there often lie…

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Centenary Bridge

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryApril 30, 2015
Centenary Bridge c1949 It was not known as Centenary Bridge when it was built, but as the ‘Overhead Bridge at Station Pier’. It was constructed in 1934 to make the ‘disgraceful’ Port Melbourne waterfront more attractive in Victoria’s 100th year. For decades, complaints about our waterfront’s unsightliness had gone unsorted. The piers with their handsome gatehouses at least had been completed, but…

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Sandridge Court House

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryApril 28, 2015
The Sandridge Court House on the corner of Graham and Bay Sts, was designed by Public Works Department architect John James Clark. It was built in 1862. He also designed the Sandridge Post Office (cnr Rouse and Bay Sts), now part of the campus of Albert Park Secondary College. It is on the Victorian Heritage Register. Together with the Police Station (now McClusky's lawyers)…

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Anzac Day in Port Melbourne 2015

Port Melbourne HistoryApril 23, 2015
A wet Anzac Day in 2015 Anzac Day 2015 On Saturday 25 April, people gathered at the World War 1 Memorial Fountain in Port Melbourne to commemorate Anzac Day. The tradition has been upheld in Port for many, many years though the form it has taken has changed over time. The scene below is at once familiar and unfamiliar to current Port eyes. Anzac Day…

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A crazy, crowded green pub in Bay Street

Port Melbourne HistoryMarch 17, 2015
Molly Blooms* was the place to be on St Patrick’s Day in the ‘nineties. Transformed into a ‘traditional’ Irish pub in the late ‘80s with its Joyce’s Restaurant, live Irish music, Guinness on tap and walls hung with Dublin memorabilia, it was one of the most popular Irish pubs in Melbourne. So popular did it become that on St Patrick’s Day Rouse…

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An Invisible Woman

People, Port Melbourne HistoryMarch 6, 2015
Brought to light - the story of Janet Adams Margaret Bride writes: International Women’s Day is an opportunity to reflect on the many women who have influenced my life yet of whom there is little or no documentary evidence. Janet Adams is one of these women, though I never met her. In the early years of the 20th century Janet, a…

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Swimming in the Yarra

Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 27, 2015
Norman Barry, well known dairyman in Port, was also a swimmer. He trained with the Port boys between the Piers. He swam in the 3 mile 'Race to Princes Bridge' in 1928 and finished in 1 hour, 40 minutes and 13 seconds. He was awarded a certificate illustrated by Percy Lindsay from the famous Lindsay family. The swimming race was discontinued because of…

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Beached – the SS Nairana

Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 18, 2015
Beached! From a fighter to a tame commercial ship – the tale of one vessel Such indignity! Fighting the Germans, the Bolsheviks and followed by years of battling the treacherous Bass Strait. And where does the coastal trader SS Nairana end its life on 18 February 1951? Beached, like a stranded whale, on a Port Melbourne beach. And later cut…

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Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians

We respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet and work, the Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation and pay respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.