CROSSLEY BUILDING. 54-62 BOURKE ST. MELB. BUILT 1848
⚡️ Few people travelling past this building would realise it was built when Melbourne was just 13 years old. It pre-dates the Gold Rush (1851) by several years.
⚡️ The Crossley building was constructed in 1848/9, although No. 54 was altered in 1853. It is built in the simple Georgian style prevalent in Melbourne at the time. The block runs between Crossley St (opposite Pellegrini’s) and Liverpool Street.
⚡️ Numbers 60-62 housed butcher William Crossley, who used it as a shop, slaughter yard and residence. The distinguished landscape artist Eugene von Guerard lived at no 56 in 1857/8. The lane behind was once called Romeo Lane due to the number of brothels that operated there.
⚡️ Though it has became somewhat run-down over the years and the shopfronts have altered, the essential building remains much as constructed.
▪️ For the record, Melbourne’s oldest construction still in it’s original position is St Francis Church (1841) cnr Lonsdale and Elizabeth Sts. (See below). St James Old Cathedral is older (1839) but was shifted from it’s original location on the corner of Collins and William Streets to King Street in 1914 (See below). Russell’s Old Corner Shop in King Street dates from a year or two after the Crossley Building, at the start of the Gold Rush.
▪️More photos below
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