Waiting

Just wanted to share this delightful picture from 1941.  Found via Shorpy.

They're waiting for a streetcar, I'm waiting on the bank.

Yet more faded days

You could be forgiven for thinking that all I do on the blog these days is compare photos of then and now... at the moment we're frequently trawling the real estate sites for potential homes, and then I get distracted by things like this.  This, of course, is not a viable option for us, but I like to daydream...I'm sure I'm not alone in having a yearning to live in an old converted schoolhouse or church.

So when I found this "schoolhouse" as the listing said, I felt a need for a quick Google (sounds rude!) which  led me to discover that this building is the old Caralulup PS974.  (944 Lexton-Talbot Rd, Burnbank 3371).

 Here it is in 1909 (I've borrowed the photo from here).  Better days - for the school at least.

Some information on the school is as follows (I've borrowed this from the same site.)

63 students at one stage.  If my memory doesn't fail me, that's more than was at my primary school in the 1970s. The "destitute children's clause"...oh dear.  I do think 'Caralulup' is a delightful name though.

So it closed in 1928, and appears to have been converted to a residence - when?...and here it is now, yours for $90,000.

Needs a bit (!) of work inside though.

Was this the old shelter shed?  There's also a derelict tennis court.

I guess I romanticise things, but I do hope someone buys it and gives it some love...imagine how delightful it would be!

Then and now

Playing around on the internet I found some old photos of Creswick...so I thought it was time to play Find-the-shop-on-Google-Maps.  Currently melting into the couch (hate hate hate the hot weather), so at least this is keeping me amused.

Draper's shop, Creswick, circa 1865 [source]  I love the thought of a draper's shop...when I was growing up in Creswick, there was Pat Burke the drapers, and I remember buying ribbon there for my Miss Piggy doll. It was in a beautiful old building, and inside it still felt like it was 1960. I can't remember if this impressed 1970s me or not, I was more interested in the ribbon and getting out before Mum ran into someone she knew and started chatting.
This drapery appears to have woollen clothes (?) and hats on offer...and a barber shop next door. We'll assume the man out the front in the impressive hat is the proprietor, with his faithful shop boy, Patsy.

This pic is sort of weird though, do the people to the right look ultra teeny tiny? Or is this just a fault of early photographic perspective? Having a look at Google maps, I'd confidently say it's one of these buildings (currently a estate agent and a French bakery next door):

 

Here's another photo I found of a bakery, circa 1930. [source] Why is it called the Perserverance, I wonder? Life was so hard and crappy that perseverance was a virtue?

 

This one I couldn't quite work out which building it is, although I do know it's Albert Street as well, as I found reference to a Miss Ida Bowley of Albert Street Creswick, in an newspaper of 1919. (She won 1 pound in a newspaper competition, surely very exciting at the time!) Is this Ida in this photo?  Was CC her father?
Here's a probate notice for CC, from The Argus, Wednesday 17th August, 1938.

Anyway, I do digress...is the building still there?
At first I thought it was this one:

But the more I think about it, I'm going for this one:

Another view:

Any thoughts? *crickets chirp*

More faded days

Idly looking through Museum Victoria's pics...I most like the ones where you can see the streetscape in the background...gives you a feel for how bare and new things looked way back when.

This fella is in Essendon:

[source] "This photograph shows Peter Oakes aged 3, at Lyon Street Essendon, 1949. Peter is playing in a wheelbarrow in the front garden of the family home."  I think this is where he was, courtesy of Google maps, Lyon Street Essendon.

Here in another photo (Moonee Ponds, in 1949), a young boy is captured in a quick sprint past the shops:

[Source]

I love the old store fronts, I wish I could see what's in the windows.

And here we are, in Puckle Street.

Little girl outside a newsagency, a bit later this one, in 1958. Menzies has just swept in, apparently.

[source] A young girl with curly hair and wearing shorts, standing in the doorway of a newsagent. There are newspaper headline pages in wire frames in front of her- 'Australian Post' and 'The Sun'. This photograph shows Rafferty's Newsagent, in Fletcher Street Essendon, 3 November 1958, with a local little girl Beth in the doorway. The photographer Judy Archer remembers: 'Beth's parents ran the local bakery in Napier Street, and in those days all the shop owners knew each other, so Beth would wander down the street to say hello.' This newsagent is where Judy used to work from February 1956 agent to June 1959 - she started there at age 14 when she left school."

I could be stretching it a bit, but a look around Fletcher Street and comparison of shop front and step, makes me think this is the shop now:

Here's a photo I can't place, it's captioned Derby Street Balwyn (but the only Derby streets I can find are Kew or Camberwell)...I think it's Kew, but there's been so many houses knocked down in Derby street, I'm not sure the house in the background is still standing.

[source] "Two girls in dresses, standing on the lawn of a front garden. There is a magpie in front of them on the lawn. This photograph shows Muriel and Edythe Watson in Derby Street Balwyn, circa 1935. According to the family: 'This was one of the rental properties the Watson family lived in, 10 years after the family's arrival from England. Edythe would have been about 20 years old. Mary their mother probably took the photograph, as she had a Box Brownie camera."

In other mystery locations, I'd very much like to see if this building is still as it was, I love the signwriting on the window. I had a little wander around Moonee Ponds on Google Maps, but couldn't find it.  Mmm, chocolates.

[source]"This photograph shows a child playing outside the shop-front of the Atkinson family's new milk bar, Moonee Ponds, 1949. This milk bar was purchased by the Atkinson family only six weeks after migrating from England. The Atkinson family's mother and father had given them some start-up money, 1000 pounds to buy a business. Unfortunately the young couple struggled and eventually bowed out of the business having learnt a hard lesson. They ended up moving to Gippsland when Cliff Atkinson found employment with the Gas & Fuel Corporation."

Old photos, I love 'em.

New-fangled horse drawn carriage

On the move...not me, these guys.

Black and white negative of a horse team moving a house from Creswick through Allendale, in Victoria about 1905 or 1909. Goldmining at Creswick was declining and there was less demand for houses in the area, hence the house was being moved. Jim Dempsey is driving the horse teams. Jack Dempsey is at right. Jim Mills is on the pony, Ginger. Jack Dempsey drove horses for the the Mills, and it is likely that the house removal company managing the move in this case was Mills. Source

Kingston

Easter came and Easter went. Easter Sunday night I spent the evening pondering real estate online and watching a really stupid movie.

Then I went for a "drive" on Google maps. Does anyone else do that, I wonder? Scroll along up the road to get a feel for the neighbourhood and the surroundings. I thought I'd have a look at Kingston, as it's always had an inexplicable appeal ever since I was a child. It's just a country town that's seen better days since the gold rush, and I don't even think it has any shops anymore (just a pub).

Anyway, some then and now pics~

General store then, circa 1963.

General store now:

Former Creswick Shire Hall (circa 1911)

Old council building now:

Just nostalgia I guess. Or a yearning for peace and space.

[Black and white pics from collection of State Library of Victoria.]

Can I rename it?

Apparently there's an old town for sale - Joadja NSW....

[above image from here]

This was in the paper today, and immediately the idea appealed to me. I'd love to have my own town, albeit a ghost town in the middle of nowhere.
The town's history goes that a cattle grazer's son discovered shale in the area and began mining in 1874.

"The Australian Kerosene Oil and Mineral Company was formed in 1877. They built a refinery, a railway line to Mittagong (which operated from 1880 to 1903) and began to erect a town for their employees. Coal was also mined with railway trucks being hauled up the steep inclines by rope.

Joadja's population passed 400 in 1879, well in excess of other Southern Highlands towns. A post office opened in 1878. There was soon a theatre, a store, a butcher's, a bakery and a school of arts. Joadja was also one of the first towns in the colony to be connected to the outside world by telephone The miners were largely experienced men from Scotland, perhaps enticed by the Scottish manager. They were housed in cottages made of local bricks.

In 1878 the employees extracted 5200 tons of shale. With the introduction of a mechanical coal-cutter in 1881 (the first to be used in NSW) output doubled to 28 000 tons in 1882. By 1890 it had increased to nearly 37 000 tons. However, reserves dwindled and went into a sharp decline after 1893. Employees were laid off. The post office closed in 1900 and operations ceased in 1903. The company closed and destroyed the plant and a fire swept through the town. A few residents stayed on to work orchards originally established by the mining company. The property was sold in 1911. Attempts were made to reestablish operations in the 1920s and 1930s but to no avail and Joadja became a ghost town." {quoted from above link}

Apparently "the only way into Joadja was the white knuckle railway line, which ran down a 45-degree slope. The mine closed in 1906. Picture is of the mine at Joadja in the 1800s." I don't think that this is still the only way into town, but it would definitely keep the door to door marketers away when you're trying to eat your dinner. Or we could put them here...


No idea who this family are, I got the picture from the cover of this book, which is now out of print. I wonder who they are and what happened to them?

Included, a cemetery to call your own.

[Image from here]

Although my Google search suggested that there might be some resident "ghosts"...

This one can be my house:
Now I just need an odd $3 million or so...

[pics from here unless otherwise credited]

Where did Summer go?

Apart from melting in Adelaide, Summer was a non-event for me this year. I even moved house to a flat next to the beach, and went there once. For shame.

Lucky the interwebs can remind us of Summery goodness, for those that Summer passed by...

[Bondi beach 1959]

[Manly 1960]

[Bondi 1966]

[Coffs Harbour 1967]

[Surfers Paradise 1971]

[Picture credits via main link]

Syd's and No fog, no frost!

Normally I'd put this on Bernice, but it just appealed to me so much I thought I'd put it in here today. An old pic of Chatham railway station, look at the empty fields and lovely old houses...I want to go to Syd's and get some furniture!

The image isn't dated on the site, but I'm guessing early 1920's?

A google to try and find a current picture of Chatham was fruitless, but I did find this interesting article. I'm rather attached to old railway stations, as I grew up right near the Creswick one.

Oh yes, we have a Centro where Mornington railway station was, because the world needed another Coles, Priceline and Target. Yeah.

Speaking of Mornington, from the same site, check out some of these travel posters:

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All these posters don't change the fact that my Kodak is currently still broken after being nom'd by Lola.

And here's one of the few pics I could find of Mornington station, I'm thinking that the "well known identity" is Santa on his day off. Ho ho ho.

Weathered by time

Image source

Coming from country Victoria, as I do, I grew up seeing heaps of these sort of buildings in the paddocks. They always intrigued me, ever since I was a little kidlet. Who lived there? I'd try and imagine the house in it's heyday, when it was full of people and life.

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Can you imagine the family sitting around the fireplace at night? I can.
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A couple of Christmases back, I remember seeing this one and taking a photo... accidentally coming across this pic on Flickr today reminded me:


Here's my pic, taken Boxing Day 2007 (from the car):

Still there, still beautiful. Well I think so.