Victorian Heritage Register: Quirky Items Victorian Heritage Register: Quirky Items

The Victorian Heritage Register and the Victorian Heritage Inventory is full of interesting and quirky items as highlighted by Najma Sambul in an excellent article in TheAge.

The Register is a comprehensive listing of Victoria's most significant places, objects and historic shipwrecks. The Heritage Inventory lists all known historic archaeological sites and relics.

All places on the Victorian Heritage Register and the Heritage Inventory are legally protected under the Heritage Act 1995.

Victorian Heritage Register

Victorian Heritage Inventory

What's the quirkiest thing on Victoria's heritage register?

Najma Sambul - July 2, 2023

This article by Najma Sambul is from the July 2 issue of The Age Digital Edition.

Public toilets, a mural and a McDonald's all have significance to the state - just check Victoria's Heritage Register. It's not only Edwardian homes or baroque architecture that we deem worthy of protection. There are some weird and wonderful things on the list.

'' People might be surprised,'' says architect and HLCD director Helen Lardner, the former chair of registrations at Heritage Council.

'' It's not just the big monuments that we're celebrating. It's having a better understanding of the everyday-type heritage that means things to people.''

So, why are a pipe organ and a neon sign on the register? Justine Clark, an architectural critic and writer, explains it's about the cultural significance . '' Often you have places and buildings that seem unimportant on the Heritage Register but have an important place in history.''

These are some of Melbourne's curious heritage-protected places and things:

Queen Victoria Market sheds

Queen Street, Melbourne.

These sheds are on the national heritage register, too.

The open-air sheds, on the site of Melbourne's first colonial cemetery, are used by market traders and have been around for more than 145 years.

Ten of the 12 sheds have been restored since 2020, and the controversial redevelopment of the market precinct has been watched closely by Heritage Victoria. '' These sheds are steeped in history, and are at the centre of the market experience Melburnians and visitors know and love,'' says Lord Mayor Sally Capp.

Mordialloc Railway Station water tower
Location: Mordialloc Railway Station

This concrete and red-brick inverted cone tower provided water to steam locomotives in the early 1900s, holding up to 20,000 gallons at a time. It was built in 1910 by James Younger in a simplified Edwardian style, but only made its debut on the heritage list this year through an application by the Mordialloc and District Historical Society.

'' In the past, steam trains used to pull up underneath the tower and a big snorkel would drop down and pump water into the locomotive before it drove off again, something that's completely disappeared now,'' says Peter Ratcliff from the society.

'' It's one of the last visible symbols of steam train travel on this side of Melbourne.''

Keith Haring mural
Outside the old Collingwood Technical College Tech School in Johnston Street, Collingwood.

In 1984, already a global star, contemporary artist Keith Haring arrived in Melbourne from New York for a month-long visit and created an outdoor mural at the former Collingwood Technical College on Johnston Street.

The mural was added to the Victorian Heritage Register in 2004 and restored in 2013. That same year, a small door that was stolen from the bottom of the mural and was missing for 29 years was anonymously returned to Arts Victoria wrapped in black plastic.

The Collingwood mural is one of only 31 known murals created by Haring across the world.

Kingston's mighty wurlitzer
Kingston City Town Hall, Nepean Highway, Moorabbin.

Constructed in 1928, the Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ was ordered for the new State Theatre, now known as The Forum in Melbourne's CBD.

The organ, one of three in Australia, was purchased by the City of Moorabbin in the 1960s before it was heritage listed in 1998. The organ now resides at the town hall in Moorabbin, where it is played on special occasions such as citizenship ceremonies.

'' What's known now as Kingston's mighty Wurlitzer is a beautiful instrument, and we've invested a lot of volunteer hours and a lot of money into making sure that it's maintained,'' says Kingston councillor Steve Staikos.

The old cast-iron public toilets in the CBD
Across the CBD including on Bourke Street and Flinders Street.

Melbourne's first public toilets were built after complaints to the Melbourne City Council about '' indecent nuisances' ' being committed in public places.

Made of iron and timber, the first public toilets were built directly over the city's gutters, where the waste would go into the Yarra River, in the late 1850s. While many of the toilets were removed, the surviving eight we see around the CBD today are heritage listed.

According to Heritage Victoria, the toilets '' reflect an important era of sanitary, technological and social reform in the early 20th century'' .

McDonald's restaurant
Corner of Queens Parade and Heidelberg Road, Clifton Hill.

A heritage building adorned with McDonald's golden arches? Yes. This 1930s jazz moderne building was once the United Kingdom Hotel. It was designed by James Hastie Wardrop, the architect behind the Shrine of Remembrance. The pub was de-licensed in 1988 before it was turned into a McDonald's .

Pelaco sign
21-31 Goodwood Street, Richmond.

Before billboards, the popular advertising method was largescale neon tubes like the Pelaco sky sign in Richmond, erected on top of the shirt factory in 1939.

Its heritage listing is in part a recognition of the rare design of the sign and an acknowledgement of the significance of Victoria's clothing and textile industry, particularly in Richmond.

Eight-hour day trade union banners
Melbourne Museum

Constructing the law school building at the new University of Melbourne in 1856, a group of stonemasons tired of their working conditions, put down their tools and marched to Parliament House.

The strike was successful and all stonemasons were granted an eight-hour workday. Just 12 banners created for the marches remain today. Eight are held at the Melbourne Museum.

Women's Christian Temperance Union drinking fountain
Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, near the corner of Victoria Street.

The 122-year-old granite and marble fountain was presented to the City of Melbourne by the Women's Christian Temperance Union to commemorate the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York.

The fountain is a physical manifestation of the union's aim to encourage absistence and provide an alternative to alcoholic drinks.

Stork Theatre
Fairfield Park, Fairfield.

A local attraction on the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne's inner north, Stork Theatre is believed to be the only Greek-style amphitheatre in Australia.

The 1984 bluestone amphitheatre was included on the heritage register last year after a community campaign to protect its future in Fairfield Park.

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❊ Web Links ❊

➼ Victorian Heritage Register: Quirky Items 

❊ Also See... ❊

➼ Victorian Heritage Register | Victorian Heritage Inventory






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