Moonee Ponds Creek, 1915

Two boys at the Moonee Ponds Creek, Brunswick West, circa 1915. 

Courtesy Museums Victoria. MM 111126.

It's hard to visualise now, when the Moonee Ponds Creek has been reduced to little more than a concrete channel in places, but since the first land sales in the area in the 1840s the Creek has been an important feature of this western perimeter of Brunswick and Coburg (and beyond). 

Perhaps you've never thought about why it's called Moonee Ponds Creek but it was actually a series of marshy ponds when European settlers arrived and this area was a large floodplain. Near its entry to the Yarra River (in the area known as Batman's Lagoon) its salt water marshes were extensive and early next year this area will be the subject of a major exhibition at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. But more news on that later.

If you're interested in reading about the history of Moonee Ponds Creek, you will find more in Moreland Council's Thematic History of the area. You will find that here. It's a searchable document, so just search for Moonee Ponds Creek. There is much else of interest in this document, so beware - it's a bit of a rabbit hole!

The other resource you might find interesting is Moonee Valley Council's Our Moonee Ponds Creek website. You can look at that here. It doesn't just look back at the history of the creek, but outlines future planning possibilities and asks people to get involved. Well worth taking a look.

And if you'd like to read a little more about the saltwater lagoon I mentioned earlier, you could do no better than to seek out David Sornig's new book Blue Lake: Finding Dudley Flats and the West Melbourne Swamp. It's a terrific read and won the 2019 Judges' Special Prize at this year's Victorian Community History Awards. There's a bit of social history there, as well as the geographic. It's a neglected part of Melbourne's history and this book is a well worthwhile addition to your reading list. You can read more about the awards here. 

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297 Lygon Street, Brunswick East has been sold

Not long ago, on one of my walks around the area, I took these photos of the side wall of Carbone Master Tailors at 297 Lygon Street, Carlton. 

It was a pleasant surprise to see the Robur Tea advertisement still visible on the side of the building and it brought to mind the days when our family were almost exclusively tea drinkers and our preferred brand was Robur. 

Our neighbours were dedicated Lipton tea drinkers. It was always tea leaves, of course - I'm talking about the days before tea bags. They collected the cards that came with the packets of tea and I'd spend hours going through them and working out which were missing and try to organise swaps with kids at school. I wasn't a dedicated swap carder like my sister, but I did love those little cards (they were quite a bit smaller than swap cards).

Back to 297 Lygon Street ...

The building was erected in the late 1920s in what Heritage Victoria call the Interwar Greek Revival style. It is located on the west side of Lygon Street between Albert and Victoria Streets. It is now Carbone's Master Tailors, but from 1929 when it was built, until the mid-1930s it was the home of the Perfection Knitting Mills (previously in Rathdown Street, Carlton and later in Peel Street, Collingwood). It's hard to believe now, but there were quite a few knitting mills in the Brunswick and Coburg area. It has also been the premises of a shirt manufacturer and a paper bag manufacturer.

I only found a few references to Perfection while it was based in Lygon Street, a reminder that the 1930s Depression years were terrible times and that ladies' hosiery (stockings) were a valuable commodity - easily hidden and there must have been good black market opportunities.

 Age, 30 July 1931

I noticed the Robur tea ad that sparked my interest in February 2018, mostly because it was being painted over to make way for Carbone advertising and it seemed to me a metaphor for what is happening all around our suburb. This photograph tells it all - no words needed.

The building was sold in June 2019, and we can only hope that it won't be the victim of yet another high rise development in this corner of Brunswick. 

And by the way, as I write, a building is going up in the space next to Carbone, so the ad on the wall is now well and truly gone.

Making your Deb - Coburg, June 1946

Age, 21 June 1946

They look happy, don't they? Debs were a big deal in the 1930s right through to the 1960s, although by my era (late 1960s) they were a bit old hat. Still lots of girls made their debut and still do.

Don't suppose anyone recognises any of the faces?

And here's a photo from the Coburg Historical Society collection of the Deb Ball held in 1937. (ID number 15789)

You can find more Coburg images from the Coburg Historical Society collection here and here.

Housing Commission dwellings go up in East Coburg, January 1946

Age, 12 January 1946

The State Library of Victoria has some interesting images of the newly constructed buildings in this Housing Commission Estate, all by photographer Lyle Fowler and all donated in 1994 by local man Harold Paynting. They include:

Newly completed houses, c1945-1949. 

Image H94/150/96. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Kitchen interior. Note the ice chest to the left of the sink. 

Image H94/150/18. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Bathroom interior. Note the gas bath heater and the pedestal basin. All the mod cons! 

Image H94/150/19. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Barkly Brick Company chimney demolition - 1946

Herald, 10 January 1946

Long before the days of Barkly Square there was a brickworks on the site. Established in 1909, it closed altogether in 1962. As you can see here, a one hundred foot (30.5 metre) chimney was demolished in January 1946. 

It would be great to hear from anyone who remembers those days, or has any stories to relate about the site in its various incarnations.

DIY veggie growing - Brunswick, 1946

Herald, 14 March 1946

Biographical note: Frances Charlotte White was the wife of Robert John White, a plate layer. They married in 1914 and lived in the Kew/Auburn/Glenferrie area for a number of years before moving to West Brunswick where they lived at 67 Whitby Street. In the late 1960s or early 1970s, Frances, then widowed, moved to Lower Templestowe where she died in April 1976 aged 87. (Sources: Victorian BDM indexes and Victorian electoral rolls)

A note on Whitby Street: Whitby Street runs parallel to Victoria Street, near Pearson Street. It is named after Edward Whitby, who lived in Brunswick from the 1840s and built the house known as Whitby House, now #28 in the early 1850s. It has changed over time with alterations and additions, especially in the 1920s and later on it was subdivided into flats. Even so, it is one of Brunswick's earliest surviving houses and a rare example of the Gothic Revival style homes built in the Melbourne in the 1850s. You can read more about Whitby House here.

Whitby House, December 2010. Courtesy Tim McKenna.

1956 views of Pentridge from the air

Argus, 8 May 1956

It's a pity this image is so dark, but at least the labels help you work out where everything is located. 

The reporter mentions the waves from the prisoners from the 'painfully tidy' grounds of Pentridge, but my attention was caught, too, by her description of the 'miles of washing - the housewife's banner - [that] billowed on the line.' 

Those were the days. I wonder how many of the lines were those new-fangled Hills Hoist, introduced a decade earlier. 

Or perhaps (and possibly more likely in the older areas) they were the old prop washing lines, strung out along the back yard.

Monday morning in New York City, 1904.

I had a prop washing line in my tiny miner's cottage backyard in Bendigo in the early 1980s and then again in the late 1990s when I moved to Brunswick. Now I just have drying racks that I move near the heating in the winter and put outside in the sun in the summer. Thank goodness I don't live in an area where hanging my clothes out to dry is controversial or illegal. Read about that here and here.