A photo from 1874 looking west along Flinders Street from the intersection with Swanston Street.
The famous Prince's Bridge Hotel on the far right was originally built as a three-storey bluestone residence in 1853, with butcher James Graham's shop on the ground floor, and a young ladies school run upstairs by a Mrs Nicole Cook. The block of land that this building is on was originally purchased by John Batman in 1837 for £100, during the first land auction.
The Prince's Bridge Hotel opened there on 1st of July 1861, with John Toohey as the first licensee. The licence was transferred to James Hogan in 1862, then to Joshua Roberts Mooney in 1866. In 1875 the licence was acquired by two Irish gold diggers from Dublin, cousins Henry Young and Thomas Jackson, who had been licencees of the Sparrow's Hotel in St Kilda. Fortunately for Melbourne, the Princes Bridge Hotel still stands, and since 1904 has been the home of "Chloe", a very famous French nude painting from 1875.
The large building on the left was originally built as Melbourne's Fish Market in 1865. As Melbourne grew and health regulations and traffic congestion increased, a new location for the Fish Market was built at the western end of Flinders Street, on the south-east corner of its intersection with Spencer Street. The original building continued as a fruit market and bicycle stables until the late 1890s, at which time plans were being developed for an enlarged Flinders Street Station which was completed in 1909, and the new Fish Market was completed in 1892.
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Photographer was Charles Bayliss.
This is a digitally retouched reproduction of the original held by the State Library of New South Wales, held in their Mitchell Library. All prints are reproduced without the HOTPRESS watermarks.
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