'Strachan, Murray and Shannon Woolstore (facades only)

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE:

The Strachan, Murray, Shannon and Company wool-stores stand at the corner of Moorabool Street and Brougham Street, Geelong, on the site upon which pioneer merchant James Ford Strachan constructed his first bonded store in 1840, the first stone building in Geelong, Systematically developed as the wool industry expanded, this four storey brick complex is stylistically unified from the 1889 section onwards to present an impressive austere Classical Revival structure of great streetscape and precinctural impact. The Company premises have been associated with the wool industry since 1840. The interior spaces are traditionally designed and the construction system typical of the period.

RECOMMENDATIONS: PROTECTIVE MEASURES

Geelong Regional Commission Register

Australian Heritage Commission Register of the National Estate

REFERENCES:

Aitken, Richard - "Edwardian Geelong : An Architectural Introduction', Deaking University, Geelong, 1979 - pp 70-71.

Selenitsch - "Geelong Woolstores" - History of Australian Architecture, University of Melbourne, 1967; includes detailed history and illustrations, pp 19-21

Strachan, G. L. - The History of Strachan and Company Limited, 1965, pp 11-14.

Vidler, E. A. - The book of Geelong, Frank & Co, Geelong, 1897.

Geelong Past and Present , Frank & Co, Geelong, 1891.

Strachan, H. M. - Some notes and recollections, Melbourne, 1927

Geelong Historical Records Centre, photograph 1877.

Brown, P. I. - James Ford Strachan (1810-1875) in Pike, Douglas (ed) Australian Dictionary of Biography M.V.P. Melbourne 1967, p 492.

The Development of the Strachan and Co site from 1840-1925 is exhaustingly treated in Sclenitsc's "Geelong Woolstores" with illustrations of various stages of construction clearly illustrated in Figs 45-51. (Source of all illustrations is noted).

Only the facade survives intact in 1986.

Group

Retail and Wholesale

Category

Shopping/retail complex