Screening Melbourne Laneway Walk Preview

RMIT, building 11 (the Chapel Courtyard behind the Old Melbourne Gaol) - entrance from 377 Russell St.

The Old Melbourne Gaol is constructed of bluestone and was built between 1852 and 1864.

Turn right onto Russell St. and walk south.

Cross La Trobe St. at the lights and continue down Russell St., past rear of the State Library of Victoria (SLV) on your right.

Look right at ground and eye level to see the large bluestone building blocks that make up the foundations of the SLV.

At the next set of lights, turn left from Russell St. into Little Lonsdale St., heading east.

A residential precinct developed around Little Lonsdale Street during the late 1840s and early 1850s, on what was then the north-eastern edge of Melbourne. From 1987-88 it was the focus of an ambitious urban archaeology project. Found artefacts reveal a socially diverse neighbourhood. On your left you will pass Bennetts Lane, site of the famous jazz club (recently closed; and soon to be re-open at a new location). On your right you can see a cluster of bluestone buildings: the Wesley Church and Wesley Mission Victoria complex. The oldest buildings date from 1858-59

Turn right at Jones Lane; walk through to Lonsdale St.

Jones Lane is in the Victorian Heritage Archaeological Precinct. Most of the bluestones have been removed, keeping just one line of stones in the middle of the lane. In the middle of the lane, on the right, look at the current archaeological dig.

Cross Lonsdale St. to Cohen Place

*NB. You can use the lights at Exhibition St and Lonsdale St. if more comfortable.Cohen Place is a delisted Heritage Inventory site: it joins Smythe Lane. Look left as you walk along Cohen Place to see an intact, original bluestone laneway (Smythe Lane, no signpost). Compare those awkward cobblestones with the smoothed ones of Cohen Place. Turn around to view the “Love Your Laneways” sign on the corner of Cohen Place and Smythe Lane. In 2002, Cohen Place and Smythe Lane hosted the art installation ‘Duty and Desire–The Lives, Loves and Music of the Chinns of Cohen Place and Smythe Place’, created by David Williams and Carol Porter as part of the City of Melbourne’s Laneway Commissions 2001-2002. You are now entering Melbourne’s Chinatown. The Chinese Museum is on your left.

Continue along Cohen Place as it opens into Chinese Museum Square, then turn left into Little Bourke St.

In ‘Chinatown’, the ‘Facing Heaven’ archway stands across the entrance of Cohen Place between Russell and Exhibition Streets and welcomes visitors to the Chinese Museum. This arch is a replica of a gate in Nanjing; the arch was made in China and the pieces assembled in Melbourne in 1985 to mark Victoria’s 150th anniversary.

Continue east along Little Bourke St., cross over Exhibition St. at the lights, go past Crossley St., and turn right into Liverpool St.

Continue south along Liverpool St. to Bourke St.

Liverpool Street connects Bourke and Little Bourke Streets. Originally known as Juliet Terrace, with neighbouring Crossley Street known as Romeo Lane, it has one foot in Chinatown and the other in Melbourne’s theatre district.

Turn left at Bourke St. (you are now facing Parliament House)

As you approach Spring St., observe the bluestone foundations of the Imperial Hotel on the corner. Do they look different from others you have seen? Look more closely and you will see they are artificial bluestone facings, only a few centimetres deep. Look carefully at the very corner of the building as you turn left into Spring St: you will see where two pieces of bluestone façade have been joined.

Turn left at Spring St. and walk a few metres north to Turnbull Alley.

Parallel to Bourke and Little Bourke Streets, Turnbull Alley extends west from Spring Street, forming a dogleg to meet at the rear of the Princess Theatre. Several private residences occupied Turnbull Alley in the late nineteenth century. It has original bluestone paving. If you have time and it is not too busy, walk down the lane and observe the high bluestone walls on the left hand side.

Go back to the lights at the corner of Bourke and Spring Sts. and cross Spring St. to Parliament House.

Parliament House was constructed in Spring Street between 1855 and 1929. A fine example of neoclassical architecture, the building comprises a Stawell sandstone façade and carvings, set firmly on locally-quarried bluestone foundations.

Facing south again, walk past Parliament House towards the Old Treasury Building to Stanford Fountain, which is on your left between Parliament House and Macarthur St.

William Stanford’s bluestone fountain (c. 1870) features a boy on the upper tier, encircled by birds and fish on the lower tier. This scene of innocence was created while Stanford was serving a sentence of 16 years in Melbourne’s Pentridge Prison. Stanford carved the fountain from bluestone from the prison quarry, which was the only material available to him. He modelled the fountain’s avian adornments on a stuffed eagle-hawk and modelled the boy on the governor’s son. The fountain was installed in 1871, following Stanford’s release on the grounds of ill health. The Illustrated Australian News reported the fountain was ‘not only a work of great beauty but ... executed under circumstances of extreme difficulty …’. Stanford died in 1880 from ‘stonemasons’ disease’, having inhaled a surfeit of fine dust while creating his beautiful fountain.

Continue south along Spring St., cross Macarthur and Spring Sts. at the lights and you are now at the Old Treasury Building

Facing south down the once elegant Collins Street, the Old Treasury Building was the first major government office built in Melbourne after the gold rushes. Recognised as one of the most significant 19th-century buildings in Australia, the design drew on the palazzo form popular at that time and was influenced by C.R. Cockerell’s Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Both Parliament House and the Old Treasury Building have bluestone foundations.

FINISH. Head back and around the corner of the Old Treasury Building on Macarthur St. Turn right at the statue of George Higinbotham.

The entrance to the Victorian Treasury Theatre is signposted and down the stairs on the right. Wheelchair access is available. Go past the front of the Old Treasury Building, turn left to the end of the Building, turn left and the Treasury Theatre is on your right.