by Melbourne is a young city; its European history stretches back less than 200 years. Only a handful of structures remain from before 1850, here is a list of Melbourne’s oldest buildings.
European settlement began in Melbourne in 1835 with the arrival of two expeditions from Tasmania. John Batman and John Fawkner were rival pastoralists looking for opportunity, each headed up private ventures that arrived in Port Phillip Bay within a few months of each other.
A colony was established on the banks of the Yarra, where Elizabeth Street is today. This was the location of the town’s first dock, and also a small waterfall which prevented boats sailing further upstream (you can read more about the Yarra waterfall, here).
There was a substantial Indigenous population already living in this locality: the Wurundjuri people of the Kulin nation. Batman initially attempted to negotiate a kind of land purchase from them, when this contract was later deemed invalid, the European settlers simply took the land they wanted anyway.
The early years of Melbourne were modest; while the surrounding area was perfectly suited to farming, life was rugged in this remote outpost. The original city buildings were made mostly of wood, and many were considered only semi-permanent.
The city would change forever in 1851 when gold was discovered near Clunes, in regional Victoria. The resulting gold rush would see a massive influx of people and money, causing Melbourne to expand dramatically.
After 1851, the city would be almost entirely rebuilt, and in a much grander fashion. There are now only eight buildings in central Melbourne constructed prior to this date.
THE MITRE TAVERN
5 Bank Place
The city’s oldest building dates from 1837, when it was built as a private residence. This was a significant year for Melbourne: the settlement had originally been illegal, and only gained official sanction two years after the first Europeans arrived.
Also in 1837, surveyor Robert Hoddle arrived and laid out the framework of what would become the city’s central area. This is the famous ‘Hoddle Grid’, still a prominent feature today.
The city’s first buildings were constructed around Market Street, which was adjacent to the dock. The building that became Mitre Tavern was then right near the heart of the settlement.
It remained a dwelling until 1867, when Henry Thompson bought the property and turned it into a tavern. The name came from the street it stood on; now called ‘Bank Place’, the original name was ‘Mitre Lane’.
As well as providing food, drink and accommodation, the tavern served as headquarters for many local groups, including polo, dog and hunting clubs.
Changing hands a number of times, various owners contributed to the building’s distinctive appearance. The most significant change came in the early 20th century, when wooden shutters were added to the windows, providing a medieval appearance.
In 1930, the tavern was put up for auction and a large crowd turned out to watch it sell for 22 000 pounds. The buyer was the Royal Insurance Company, who intended to demolish it and use the land to expand their offices on an adjoining block.
They later had a change of heart, and the hotel was re-sold and turned back onto a tavern in 1937. It has remained in operation, and largely unchanged, since.
The hardware chain ‘Mitre 10’ is named after the tavern. The founding members of Mitre 10, seven independent hardware store owners who wanted to pool their resources, used to meet at the pub in the 1950’s to discuss their incorporation plans.
Their new company’s name was coined at one of these meetings. Why Mitre 10 and not Mitre 7? Some historical mysteries are not meant to be solved.
ST FRANCIS’ CHURCH
326 Lonsdale Street
Father Patrick Geoghegan was only 35 when he arrived in Australia from Dublin in 1838. Geoghegan was a missionary; initially based in Sydney, he was soon sent to Melbourne to tend the new city’s Catholic flock.
He first provided services from a wooden church hastily constructed from old floorboards and construction offcuts.
Geoghegan proved an adroit fundraiser, and within two years had raised sufficient money to build a permanent Catholic Church on Lonsdale Street. Construction began in October 1841 and the first mass was conducted in May 1842.
The church became one of Melbourne’s most prominent.
Mary McKillop, later to be Australia’s first saint, took her first holy communion at the church in 1850, the same year the parents of Ned Kelly were married there. In 1854, St Vincent de Paul’s commenced operations in Australia, originally based out of St Francis’.
While the church grounds and surrounding neighbourhood are very different, the principal church building still appears much as it did when first built.
COLLINS STREET BAPTIST CHURCH
174 Collins Street
Another early Melbourne church was the Baptist Church on Collins Street. This congregation had an even more modest start than the city’s Catholics: originally comprising 16 members, the Baptists took their services in a tent on vacant land, where the Regent Theatre now stands.
As the city developed, money was secured to build the first proper Baptist church across the street, which was completed in 1845. A substantial expansion of the building was undertaken in 1862, overseen by famed local architect Joseph Reed (designer of Melbourne Town Hall).
The new design featured four Corinthian columns at the front, intended to make the church recall an open meeting place from classical civilisation. This reflects the Baptist belief of the church as a meeting place for like-minded individuals, rather than a sacred building.
JOHN SMITH’S HOUSE
300 Queen Street
John Smith was an adventurous man of the sort drawn to frontier environments like early Melbourne. Arriving from Sydney in 1840, he initially worked at the Indigenous mission in South Melbourne, where the original inhabitants had been moved as the city expanded.
Later, Smith went into business for himself, working as a grocer and then publican.
A hard worker, canny with money, and conservative, within a few years Smith owned a string of hotels, and by the end of the decade was one of the wealthiest men in the city. His interests expanded with his success; he opened Melbourne’s first theatre, the Queen’s Theatre Royal, and was also the main sponsor of the city’s first benevolent organisation.
In 1848, Smith commissioned an elegant residence on Queen Street. Built of stuccoed brick, the cream two-storey house featured a symmetrical design, common in early Melbourne; a third storey was added in 1852.
The substantial property then featured 17 rooms, an entrance hall, two cellars, and a coach house and stables.
Later in his life, Smith turned to politics. He graduated from city councillor to Lord Mayor, before switching to state politics where he would sit for twenty years in the Legislative Assembly. When he passed away in 1879 he was known as, ‘the father of the house’.
Smith sold his Queen Street house in the 1860s, and it went through several different guises after his departure.
It was first purchased by the State Government, who used it as offices for the Treasury and the Health Department. It was then bought by David Munro, a railway tycoon who built a substantial fortune, which he lost in the crash of the 1890s.
In the early 20th century it was turned into a boarding house, and remained so until World War II, when it was requisitioned as housing for the city’s nurses.
After the war it went back into Government service and was used for the offices of the Mental Hygiene Authority.
In the early 1970s the property was leased by RMIT, who used it for a variety of purposes. It finally became home to their Graduate School of Business and Law, and remained so until the school relinquished their lease in 2010.
This highly adaptable building is now private office space, for lease.
THE CROSSLEY BUILDING / JOB WAREHOUSE
54 – 62 Bourke Street
This row of shops on Bourke Street was built in 1848 for William Crossley, and are a rare example of the simple Georgian school of design prevalent in early Melbourne.
The Western end of the row, numbers 60 – 62, were occupied by Crossley himself, a butcher who ran a shop with a small slaughterhouse at the rear. It was here that Crossley trained or apprenticed many of the city’s first butchers.
The small side street at that end of the block, originally called Romeo Lane as it housed several brothels, now bears his name.
Noted landscape painter Eugene von Guerard, originally from Austria, also lived in the block in the 1850’s. von Guerard arrived in Melbourne in 1852, and after an unsuccessful stint prospecting for gold, settled in the city where he built his reputation as a painter.
Best known for his large-scale landscapes of the Australian bush, several of von Guerard’s paintings are now in Australia’s public galleries.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the top end of Bourke Street had largely been taken over by the apparel industry. A number of tailors and dressmakers set up shop in the Crossley Building and its adjacent laneways, a relic of which can still be seen on the sign on the building’s edge.
After World War II the building came to be known as ‘Job Warehouse’, and the principal tenants were the Zeimer family.
Brothers Max and Jacob Zeimer arrived in Melbourne in 1948 as Polish refugees. Several members of the family had perished in the Holocaust, before the war they had worked in the Polish fabric industry.
Setting up as cloth traders in Melbourne, the pair slowly expanded their business and took over most of the Crossley Building. The Zeimer’s eventually handed over to their own children, who continued to run it for many decades.
The fabric business was only closed by Jacob’s son David, in 2012.
A bookstore is the only business currently operating in the Crossley Building. The row of shops has been purchased by a redeveloper, its future is unclear.
ODDFELLOWS HOTEL
33 Little Lonsdale Street
THE BLACK EAGLE HOTEL
44 Lonsdale Street
These two small taverns, both built in 1849, sit on parallel streets and are all that remain of one of Melbourne’s most notorious slums; a district known for a hundred years as ‘Little Lon.’
The outline of Little Lon was marked by four main roads – La Trobe, Lonsdale, Exhibition and Spring – and within this boundary lay a rabbit warren of laneways and side streets, full of run down shanties, flop houses, small factories and taverns. A map from 1895 shows the honeycomb of narrow streets that made up the area, each crammed to overflowing.
While living conditions in Little Lon were poor, it did provide a glimpse of Australia’s multicultural future; by the end of the 19th century the area was also home to many migrants from Ireland, China, Lebanon and Italy (among other countries).
In 1948, as part of a ‘slum renewal’ program, the Federal government compulsorily acquired Little Lon and began a wholesale demolition program. The block was completely levelled and replaced with modern high-rise buildings, to serve as Commonwealth Government offices.
As two of the oldest buildings on the block, The Black Eagle and Oddfellows were spared for heritage purposes, along with a handful of small buildings on Little Lonsdale St. They remain a faint echo of the block’s original character; Madame Brussels Lane, stretching between the two, has a permanent display of artefacts that were uncovered during the redevelopment.
There is also the stump of a petrified red gum tree, which pre-dates the arrival of Europeans.
The fancy new buildings that replaced the tenements were themselves soon out of date, and the area was redeveloped further in the 1970s and 80s. Several high rises now fill most of the block, home to state government and private offices.
RUSSELL’S CORNER SHOP
330 King Street
Another simple, Georgian style building, this combined shop and residence was built in 1850. Across its life, the downstairs has been used as a newsagent, pharmacy, laundry, haberdasher and cafe, while the owner/proprietors have usually lived above.
The building was purchased in 1899 by Valletto Azzopardi, who would leave it to his family.
His granddaughter, Lola Russell, was born above the shop and would eventually inherit it. She ran the café downstairs and would live in the property for 99 years, before finally selling in 2021.
The new owner was Melbourne investor Yan Qiu, who promised to restore the building and put it to ‘its best and highest use’. At time of writing, the building is vacant.
Robyn Annear, one of our city’s best and most skilful chroniclers, ends her book ‘Adrift in Melbourne’ with a description of 330 King Street. Final word to her:
‘Will it still be standing when you read this? The best argument for keeping old buildings in a modern city is one of human scale. The sense they convey of someone having been here before us. The solid presence of old places gives the city and its inhabitants their bearings across time. Lose that, and your city’s a machine.’
