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Robert Hoddle, the surveyor who laid out the grid of early Melbourne, tells us in his journal how However Governor Bourke came to his tent one morning with names of the streets.

Edmund Finn came to Melbourne in the early days of European settlement and worked as a journalist under the name of Garryowen. Here is what he tells of the city street names. ...Read Full article

Port Melbourne, a residential and industrial suburb, is 4 km. south-west of Melbourne. It is bounded on its north and west by the Yarra River, on the south by Hobsons Bay and on the east Bay South Melbourne. The residential part adjoins South Melbourne.

In 1839, four years after the first permanent settlement of Melbourne, Wilbraham Liardet settled at Port Melbourne, building a hotel and jetty on Hobsons Bay and operating a mail service to Melbourne. The area became known as Liardet's Beach, although the official district name was Sandridge. Land sales were delayed until 1850. The gold rush immigration brought passengers and freight which made use of a government pier on Hobsons Bay, served by Australia's first railway line from Melbourne to Hobsons Bay....Read Full article

Jolimont is a residential precinctin East Melbourne, 1.5 km. from the G.P.O., Melbourne.

In 1839 Charles Joseph La Trobe arrived in Melbourne as the Superintendent of Port Phillip. He brought a transportable dwelling and was obliged to buy land on which to erect it. He was the successful (and only) bidder for five hectares, off the south side of Wellington Parade,set in the corner of the Government Paddock (later Yarra Park). The name Jolimont was reputedly given by La Trobe's French-Swiss wife: joli mont - a pretty hill....Read Full article

Southbank,on the south side of the Yarra River opposite Melbourne's central city area,was first defined as an area for redevelopment by the State Government in1984. Two years later the Government published a strategy document for theredevelopment process.

Southbank's easternand western boundaries are St. Kilda Road and Montague Street. Its southernboundary is irregular in shape, but south of the Westgate Freeway. Nearlyhalf the area was owned by the State Government or its agencies when thearea was defined. ...Read Full article

Carlton is a residential, commercial and educationalarea adjoining the northern boundary of central Melbourne at Victoria Street. Its other boundaries are Elizabeth Street/Royal Parade, Cemetery Road/PrincesStreet and Nicholson Street. The University of Melbourne is in the postcodearea of Parkville, but is treated here as being in Carlton. The area north of Cemetery Road/Princes Street is Carlton North.

The subdivision and settlement of Carlton came later than that of Fitzroy and Collingwood.. By the gold rush, 1851, two thirds of those suburbs were subdivided, often in a hap-hazard way calculated to maximize profit on the resale of land. When Robert Hoddle, Government surveyor, came to survey Carlton in 1852, care was taken to lay out streets in an orderly grid, with reserves for open space and religious institutions....Read Full article

East Melbourne is a residential and commercial suburb which retains a number of religious and institutional buildings on land grants made during the nineteenth century. It borders central Melbourne's Spring Street, and its other boundaries are Victoria Parade, Hoddle Street/PuntRoad and the Yarra River.

The Government surveyor, Robert Hoddle, prepared a plan for East Melbourne in 1837, with roads correctly running north-southand east-west on contrast to the skewed directions of central Melbourne's streets which took their axis from the direction of the Yarra River. Hoddle's plan had a grid layout north of the extension of Flinders Street, i.e. WellingtonParade, and the north-south Police and Government Paddocks from WellingtonParade to the river. The plan was not implemented, and settlement leap-frogged East Melbourne to Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond....Read Full article

South Melbourne, between the south bank of the Yarra River and Port Phillip Bay, originated at the elevated area first known as Emerald Hill, 2 km. south of Melbourne.

Emerald Hill, an old volcanic outcrop, stood out from the surrounding swamp land and had greener vegetation. Its elevation above the Yarra delta attracted the initial settlement. During Summer, the swamp land dried out and it could be used for recreation or military training. ...Read Full article

Melbourne's central city area has traditionally been defined as the "Golden Mile", which is the checker-board survey by the government surveyor, Robert Hoddle, who in 1837 fixed a township of six blocks by four blocks. The boundaries were Spencer, La Trobe, Spring and Flinders Streets.

The "Golden Mile" sufficed until the postwar years for defining Melbourne's commercial and retail heart. During the 1960s town planning surveys extended the northern boundary to Dudley Street, the Queen Victoria Market and Victoria Street. Shortly afterwards notions of a central business or activities district pushed the boundaries of the "central area" into East Melbourne, down St. Kilda Road, beyond Flinders Street and across the Yarra River to Southbank and beyond Spencer Street to Docklands. Postcode boundaries have not mirrored these expansions, and the Queen Victoria Market is in the West Melbourne postcode....Read Full article

Willie, the child of James Goodman was the first person to buried in Melbourne, Port Phillip District. He was buried on 13th May 1836 at Burial Hill, today's Flagstaff Gardens. This site was only used for about 6 burials.

Bounded by Queen Street to the east, Peel Street to the west, Franklin Street to the south, and Fulton Street (which no longer exists) to the north, the Old Melbourne Cemetery was established in 1837 in West Melbourne. The first person to be buried on this site was also a child. He was Frederick William Craig, the infant son of Skene Craig. As Melbourne grew, this site was recognised as being too small and the Melbourne General Cemetery (or new Cemetery), that we know today, in Carlton, was established by an act of the New South Wales parliament in 1850 and was opened on 1st June 1853. ...Read Full article

West Melbourne, an industrial, commercial and residential suburb, adjoins the north-west corner of Melbourne's central business area. The Flagstaff Gardens and the Queen Victoria Market are included in West Melbourne's postcode area.

West Melbourne is generally associated with North Melbourne, as both were surveyed and proposed for sale at the same time. The dividing line between them, however, is Victoria Street and its westerly prolongation to the Moonee Ponds Creek....Read Full article

South Yarra is a residential suburb extending from St. Kilda Road to Williams Road, Toorak, bordered on the north by the Domain, the Botanic Gardens and the Yarra River, and on the south by Commercial Road, Prahran. Its prestige as a residential address approaches that of Toorak. Its railway station, 3 km. from Melbourne, is about in the middle of South Yarra. The western part of South Yarra is in Melbourne city and the other in Stonnington (previously Prahran) city. That has been a cause for the western part wanting to secede from Melbourne at various times.

South Yarra was the location of the first of three Crown land sales for Prahran, the subdivisions beginning south of the Yarra river in 1840s and ending at Dandenong Road ten years later. A purchaser in 1840 was Lieut.-Colonel Charles Forrest. He built two residences on Forrest Hill, the most northerly becoming the site of the Melbourne Boys' High School. Local clay supplied the bricks, and later became the site of the South Yarra brickworks. West of Punt Road in 1846 the former Norfolk Island Commandant Lieut.-Colonel Joseph Anderson acquired the choice site of the South Yarra Hill which overlooked the St. Kilda Road track which straggled through lower-lying sandy and swampy terrain. Anderson Street is named after him. Access to South Yarra was by boat or punt - hence Punt Road - until Princes Bridge was opened in 1850....Read Full article

Collingwood, an industrial and residential suburb, is 3 km. north-east of Melbourne. Its western boundary is Smith Street, Fitzroy, and its southern boundary is Victoria Parade.On its east are Clifton Hill and Abbotsford, both included in the former Collingwood municipality. It was named after Admiral Lord Collingwood, who fought at Trafalgar.

Along with Fitzroy, Collingwood was subdivided in 1838 into allotments each of about 12 ha. At that time both districts were generally known as Collingwood, although the Fitzroy part was differentiated by being known as upper Collingwood or Collingwood west.
...Read Full article

North Melbourne is a residential, commercial and industrial suburb immediately north-west of central Melbourne. It is often associated with West Melbourne (in which is situated the North Melbourne railway yards), and the boundary between the two is Victoria Street.

In 1842 the first institution of significance erected in the North Melbourne area was a cattle yard at the corner of Elizabeth and Victoria Streets (now the Queen Victoria Market). In 1851 a Benevolent Asylum was built between Abbotsford and Curzon Streets, straddling Victoria Street and thus partly in North Melbourne. The opening of the asylum coincided with the Melbourne Town Council's overtures for a new township to accommodate the gold-rush population influx. A site for the township was found by severance from an open-space reserve of 1,035 ha. that had been approved by the Governor of New South Wales in 1845. The result was a smaller reserve - now Royal Park - and a township called Parkside which now comprises North and West Melbourne. Town allotments were put up for sale in September, 1852....Read Full article

Heading away from the river and crossing the busy Alexandra Avenue you come to the Queen Victoria Gardens. The frontage along St Kilda Road is suitably manicured and includes the large Floral Clock and an equestrian statue of King Edward VII. the Lady Janet Clarke Rotunda as well as lakes and rose gardens.

This site was chosen in 1905 for gardens to commemorate Queen Victoria, and naturally enough contain a large statue of the monarch as a centrepiece. The gardens also contain a small artificial lake and waterfall, rose gardens, rockeries and garden beds as well as impressive landscaped lawns and well established trees.

Affiliated: VFA 1879-80 and 1899-1907...Read Full article

The lands Alexandra Gardens were created in the late 1860s from land reclaimed from the re-routing of the Yarra River. The gardens were reconstructed and laid out in their current form in 1904 and quickly became a focus for weekend recreation and promenading. The section of the Yarra with the Alexandra Gardens on one side and Birrarung Marr on the other are among the most picturesque and most often depicted areas of the city. The Alexandra Gardens are best known to the locals for the rowing sheds and as the venue for Moomba and similar festivities. For refreshments you can wander a little further upstream to one of Melbourne's favourite barbecue spots, sit on the grass and enjoy a burnt snag while the river flows slowly by. Or, if you prefer, you can wander a little further downstream and sip your cafe latte at Southgate complex while the river still flows slowly by. The Yarra is in no hurry, so why should you be?

The Henly-on-Yarra regatta has been held here annually since the reconstructed park opened in 1904, and it was on this stretch of the Yarra that the oarsome foursome trained. The small judges box built on the riverbank in the 1930s at the finishing line of the regatta can still be seen, as well as a war memorial for oarsmen who were killed in WW1. The Riverslide Skate Park attracts hundreds of skateboarders every day, and at the base of Princes Bridge you can hire a bike and ride for many kilometres along the bike paths which follow the river....Read Full article

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The historic Carlton Gardens are a Melbourne icon, and the setting for the contrasting structures of the Royal Exhibition Building and Melbourne Museum.

The Royal Exhibition Building and surrounding gardens make up one of the few surviving 19th-century exhibition precincts in the world. In July 2004, they were inscribed on the prestigious World Heritage list, which gives the site global recognition and legal protection....Read Full article

When the first European settlers arrived in Melbourne in 1835 there was no permanent crossing point of the Yarra River. Over time various punt and ferry operators set up business but there was still no bridge. In those times there was no point in waiting for the government in Sydney to provide a bridge and most of Melbourne’s early infrastructure was provided by private enterprise. On 22nd April 1840 a private company was set up with the intention of constructing a bridge across the Yarra.

In our own time, we have become familiar with activist groups in country towns who agitate for a bypass to be built around their town and then become surprised that no-one seems to visit there and spend money anymore and much of the employment dries up. Things were different in the 1840s. The traders in Elizabeth Street vied with those in Swanston Street to have the through traffic that would be generated by a bridge. Lieutenant-Governor Latrobe favoured an Elizabeth Street crossing, but despite such official pressure the private company favoured the construction conditions at Swanston Street and it was there in 1840 that they opened their wooden toll bridge. Until that time William Street had been the de facto main street of Melbourne since it led down to the docks, Coles Wharf and the Western Market. With the construction of the bridge, Swanston Street quickly became regarded as the main street and remained so until recent time when it was decided that the thoroughfare should not be freely available to either traffic or pedestrians....Read Full article

The Kings Domain had been used for many purposes before becoming parkland in 1854. It has been progressively developed since that time with the most striking feature being the re-routing of St Kilda Road to create an artificial hill for the Shrine of Remembrance making it a dominant view along the city's Swanston Street. A section of the domain became a unique setting for Government House, the home of Victorias Governor.