hotels – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

James Garton: Hospitality and Horses

People, Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 8, 2023

by David F Radcliffe James Garton was granted the licence for the Pier Hotel in May 1853. Over the next decade or so, there wasn’t much that happened in Sandridge that did not involve him. Born in Bath, Somerset, he arrived in Melbourne aged 24 with his brother Richard in March 1850.[1] A brewer by trade, Garton is reported to have started out…

A L Nathan of the London Hotel

People, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 17, 2023

by David Thompson A L Nathan. The Record, 23 January 1923. In December 1922, Alfred Lewis Nathan retired as publican of the London Hotel, Beach Street selling the hotel to Mrs Emily Elsie Cotter of the Wayside Inn, City Road, South Melbourne intending to take a trip to Europe in May the following year.[1] A L Nathan had taken over the…

Now and Then 2021 – 108 Bay Street: Bianca Apartments

Port Melbourne HistoryAugust 2, 2021

Bianca Apartments (2021). Photo: David Thompson, PMHPS Collection. A Hotel by many Names Scott's Hotel and National Bank of Australasia, Bay Street (c. 1878). Photo: Charles Nettleton, City of Port Phillip Collection. In 1854, Henry Charles Farrell opened the Sandridge Inn located on Bay Street where Bianca Apartments now stand. This early pub deteriorated and in 1871 it was described as…

Victor Lane Uniacke and Family

People, Port Melbourne HistoryApril 9, 2021

Ray Jelley Victor had an intriguing way of letting his mother know that he would soon be arriving close to home so that she could deliver his lunch to him without interrupting his work-day – he blew the train whistle. This oral history record was made by Margaret Nayban in 2006 and written into the Port People database. Margaret went…

Prince Arthur Hotel

Collection, Port Melbourne HistoryJanuary 22, 2021

Thomas O'Brien established the Prince Arthur Hotel on the corner of Nott and Spring Streets, opposite the Bowling Club, in 1870. That original structure was rebuilt in 1882 to a design by architect T J Crouch. The Prince Arthur was among the ten Port hotels that were delicensed in 1915. For the next seventy years or so the…

John Turnbull and the Auld Reekie Hotel

People, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 23, 2020

by Ray Jelley As we have seen from previous articles about the history of Port Melbourne the many wooden cottages and their closeness to each other made them susceptible to fire spreading from one building to those adjoining it, should a fire break out in one. The lack of a reliable high-pressure water supply and the relative crudeness of firefighting…

Liardet Street

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 7, 2019

LIardet? or Lee-ar-day? There may be some uncertainty over the pronunciation but anyone living in Port Melbourne would know this street running between Pickles St to the east and Princes St to the west. Liardet St has two quite different characters: heavily trafficked east of Bay St and quietly residential west of Bay St. W.F.E. Liardet Liardet St is named…

Why Bother Going to the Riviera?

Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 1, 2016

Port Melbourne foreshore (at Princes St) around 1947. PMHPS Collection. This image from the PMH&PS collection shows the foreshore at the foot of Princes Street, Port Melbourne, taken from the jetty that covered the main drain outlet around 1947. As a boy, I lived further along Princes Street and this was "my" beach. By the late 1950s, much of the planking on…

A Brief History of the London Hotel

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryMarch 25, 2016

The London Family Hotel held the best position of all Port Melbourne's waterfront pubs, next to the Station and nearest to Railway/Station Pier. Meet me at the London 1930 image - Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society There was a time when this 28 room hotel was the most grand in Sandridge, which can be attested to by valuations of over twice as…

First Flush at the All England Eleven

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 29, 2015

corner Princes and Rouse Streets, Port Melbourne, October 2015 This unprepossessing corner was once the site of the All England Eleven Hotel. The hotel was demolished in 1953 according to this account in The Herald of this week's date: "If you stand in Princes Street, Port Melbourne and look in through the windows of the derelict All England Eleven Hotel, you…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians