Back to search results » Back to search page »

STATION PIER

Location

110 BEACH STREET PORT MELBOURNE, PORT PHILLIP CITY

File Number

FOL/16/29425

Level

Registered

[1/19]
2018, Gatehouse.jpg
[2/19]
2018, Looking North.jpg
[3/19]
VHR Extent Diagram VHR Number
[4/19]
2018, Aerial view.jpg
[5/19]
2018, Looking South-east.jpg
[6/19]
Permit Policy and exemption
[7/19]
Amendment Diagram 2019
[8/19]
1 station pier port melbourne
[9/19]
station pier entrance building
[10/19]
station pier port melbourne
[11/19]
station pier port melbourne
[12/19]
station pier approach view
[13/19]
1930s, Aerial view.jpg
[14/19]
STATION PIER, 2008
[15/19]
2012, Gatehouse.jpg
[16/19]
1958, Migrants arriving on
[17/19]
1930s, Entrance to Station
[18/19]
1930s, Passenger ship at
[19/19]
1858, Railway Pier.jpg

Statement of Significance

What is significant?

Station Pier, including the main pier, the west Wing Pier, the low-level timber landing structure to the immediate south of the East Kiosk, the Inner and Outer Terminal buildings, West and East Kiosk buildings, Gatehouse and adjoining lengths of palisade fence, Stothert and Pitt portal crane, East Railway Office and canopy roof. The additions to the East Kiosk building from the 1990s onwards, and the other late-twentieth and twenty first century structures and features on the site are not significant.

How is it significant?

Station Pier is of historical and architectural significance to the State of Victoria. It satisfies the following criteria for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register:

Criterion A

Importance to the course, or pattern, or Victoria's cultural history.

Criterion D

Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places and objects.

Why is it significant?

Station Pier is significant at the State level for the following reasons:

Station Pier is historically significant for its ability to reflect important phases in Victoria's development. It was the place of arrival and departure in Victoria for gold-seekers, immigrants, refugees and tourists between the 1850s and 1970s. They included the many service men and women who left Australia for the Boer War, World War I and World War II, and the European refugees and immigrants who arrived in Victoria following World War II and under the Australian Government's assisted migration program. The West Wing Pier is associated with excursion vessels which carried tourists and residents between bayside destinations. The Stothert and Pitt portal crane on this Pier demonstrates the historical process of mechanised cargo-handling practices prior to the widespread adoption of shipping containers. Station Pier is associated with the national waterfront strikes of 1928 as one of the sites of violent conflicts between unionised wharf labourers and armed police. It allows the clear association with these uses and processes to be understood better than most other places in Victoria with a similar association. [Criterion A]

Station Pier is of significance as a notable example of a shipping terminal in Victoria. Its extant wharf structure and collection of terminal buildings, elements and features demonstrate passenger and cargo-handling practices from the 1920s to the 1970s when international and domestic travel was commonly undertaken by ocean-going ships. The West Wing Pier is a notable example of a tapered and angled pier designed to allow the rapid manoeuvring of Port Phillip Bay excursion vessels. [Criterion D]

Group