Category: The Melbourne Files

The Yarra River is an intrinsic part of Melbourne;  but did you know its current course is a man-made construct, very different to how it flowed out to sea originally?

Victoria’s first amusement park was the ‘Cremorne Pleasure Garden’ on the banks of the Yarra, the lifelong dream of an obsessive English confectioner.

The first exhibition at the NGV was a bold choice: strange, cutting edge art from a group of unknown artists. Welcome to ‘The Field’ show.

Melbourne was once the home of the world’s biggest bookstore, home to more than a million books. Welcome to Cole’s Book Arcade.

You can still see the bullet holes from the Trades Hall Robbery in 1915, the remnants of a shootout between bandits and police.

Sailor, artist, businessman and iconoclast, Wilbraham Liardet was one of early Melbourne’s most unique early inhabitants.

The Saint Kilda Solar System stretches for 6 kilometres along Melbourne’s foreshore. It even includes Pluto.

Until the 1960s, Australian pubs used to close at 6pm, and getting a drink after work was a fraught experience. This is, The Six O’Clock Swill.

Overlooking a river in Footscray, in Melbourne’s west, is something unexpected; an ancient Chinese goddess. Meet Mazu, The Heavenly Queen of the Maribyrnong.

The Point Nepean Quarantine Station was many people’s first taste of Melbourne: sick arrivals were once kept in extended quarantine, before entering the city.