SHOPS

What is significant?

The shop at 195 Elizabeth Street was probably built in 1853, in a prominent position opposite the Melbourne Post Office. Elizabeth Street was the beginning of the road to the goldfields, and in the early 1850s was the preferred location for the town's gold brokers. The shop was used from 1853 to 1854 as a gold broker's office run by M Simmons, after which it had various uses: as premises successively for a clothier, a boot-maker, a hairdresser and then a draper. For over forty years from 1867 until 1910 it operated as an oyster saloon, a type of restaurant common in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and frequented mainly by the less well-off, as oysters were then very cheap. In the 1880s there were at least sixty oyster saloons in the city. They could be established by those with little capital, Greek immigrants in particular being commonly associated with oyster saloons, and in the 1880s Greeks ran the oyster saloon at 195 Elizabeth Street. From 1912 to 1951 the shop was used as a hairdresser and tobacconist, and since then has continued to operate as a tobacconist.

The shop occupies a long narrow site only about three metres wide. It is a two storey brick building on bluestone footings. The front facade is rendered, with a modern shopfront on the ground floor, but intact on the first floor. Above the modern cantilevered verandah is a string course and remnants of the original verandah flashing, with decorative consoles at each end. The single wide window on the first floor has triple double hung sashes, a moulded architrave and a hood mould. The cornice above is similar to the verandah level string course, also with the decorative consoles at each end. The rear elevation is of brick and bluestone, with remnants of old paint finishes; the exposed base wall is of bluestone rubble construction; the window sills are of dressed bluestone; and there is a dressed bluestone lintel extending the full width of the building over the ground floor openings. In front of the ground floor rear window are iron bars, probably dating from the nineteenth century. The roof has been replaced. Internally, on the ground floor is the long narrow shop area at the front, from which a thick solid timber door and bluestone steps lead to a smaller room at the rear, which includes a later toilet. A timber staircase, with turned balusters and newel posts decorated with mirrors, leads to the first floor. Upstairs are what were once the living quarters, also of two rooms: a long room at the front, probably originally the living room, and a smaller room, probably a bedroom, at the rear. What was once a timber-lined lantern light above the stairs at the rear of the front room has metal bars beneath, and is now covered by the new roof.

How is it significant?

The shop at 195 Elizabeth Street is of historical and architectural significance to the state of Victoria.

Why is it significant?

The shop at 195 Elizabeth Street is of historical significance as one of the oldest surviving shops in Victoria. It is significant for its use in the early 1850s as a gold broker's office, located on what was then the main route to and from the goldfields. It is significant for its use for forty years in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as an oyster saloon, an early type of restaurant which has now disappeared; these were patronised by the less well-off, and were the forerunner of modern cafes. It is also significant for its association with early Greek immigration to Victoria. It is significant as an unusual surviving example of the small shops with residences above which were once common in the city, and of the small building sites in the central business district which have progressively disappeared during the twentieth century as they have become amalgamated into larger blocks. Its narrow frontage reflects the lack of building regulations and the diverse nature of land use in Melbourne in its early years.

The shop at 195 Elizabeth Street is of architectural significance as a now rare example of a modest shop of the 1850s with a residence above.

Group

Retail and Wholesale

Category

Shop