Back to search results » Back to search page »

Smith Street

Other Name

Eastern Road

Location

Smith Street,, COLLINGWOOD VIC 3066 - Property No B7230

File Number

B7230

Level

State

Statement of Significance

What is significant? Smith Street forms the boundary between Fitzroy and Collingwood and was probably Melbourne's most important early suburban road. It was the main route from Melbourne to Heidelberg in the 1840s, and became a prominent local shopping and commercial strip by the 1860s. The coming of the cable tram along Smith Street in the 1880s stimulated further growth, and in the late nineteenth century it was the most heavily built-up shopping street outside the city itself. In the early twentieth century, it became second to Chapel Street Prahran, with its numerous large emporia, and became the furniture retailing centre for the northern and eastern suburbs. It includes a number of important commercial buildings from late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, several of which have associations with enterprises that have had a significant role in the broader history of manufacturing, retailing and commerce in Victoria. It differed from other major shopping strips in Melbourne in the particularly close association between manufacturing and retailing, the scale of its late nineteenth century enterprises, and also the emphasis on furniture, factories, warehouses and shops. Smith Street became identified with businesses such as Foy & Gibson's and Ackman's, which combined the sale of clothing, furniture and other goods with their manufacture on a large scale. These companies had extensive factories and warehouses behind their shops in Smith Street, of which the Foy & Gibson buildings along Oxford Street and Wellington Street are a most impressive reminder. The G J Coles stores also originated in Smith Street. Smith Street declined after WWII. Its emporia and factories closed, and many buildings were demolished or their upper floors abandoned. Many were eventually converted to office or residential uses. Today Smith Street remains an important local shopping centre, but is gradually becoming gentrified, following its near neighbour, café-lined Brunswick Street.
Smith Street has retained a diverse and mostly intact streetscape of late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings. A few 1850s shops survive amongst the many large ornate boom period and early twentieth century retail structures. Individual buildings of particular importance are: the Grace Darling Hotel (1854), 114 Smith Street, one of Melbourne's oldest continuously operating hotels; the Former Forester Hall (1868), 64-8 Smith Street; the Former Collingwood Post Office (1891), 174 Smith Street; the Stanford Block of shops (c1880), 119-129 Smith Street; the former Ackman & Co (1880s), between Hodgson & St David's Street; the former Union Bank (1889), 165-167 Smith Street; the Victoria Buildings (1888-9), 193-207 Smith Street; the former Paterson's furniture store (1911), 173-181 Smith Street; and the former Foy & Gibson Ladies' Store (1911) at 145-163 Smith Street.
How is it significant? Smith Street is significant for architectural, historic and social reasons at a State level.
Why is it significant? Smith Street in Fitzroy and Collingwood is historically significant as one of the most important examples of the shopping strips that developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries along Melbourne's cable tram routes. In the late nineteenth century, it was the most heavily built-up and popular shopping strip in Melbourne, rivalled only by the CBD itself. It is historically significant as the home of Foy & Gibson's, one of the most important retailers in early twentieth century Melbourne, and of G J Coles. It is also significant for its association with the large scale retail enterprises, particularly Foy & Gibson's and Ackman's, which developed vast manufacturing and warehouses directly behind their stores in Smith Street and in surrounding streets, building on the industrial base and working class population of Fitzroy and Collingwood.
Smith Street is architecturally significant as a substantially intact late nineteenth and early twentieth century retail and commercial streetscape, punctuated by a unique collection of large three and four storey shops and emporia.
Smith Street is socially significant as a well-known focus for furniture retailing in Melbourne from the 1880s to the 1940s, and for local shopping in Collingwood and Fitzroy from the 1850s until the present day.
Classified: 08/09/2004

Group

Urban Area