The Parliament of Victoria features a grand colonnade of massive Corinthian columns that stretches across the entire front facade, overlooking Spring Street. Built during the nineteenth-century gold rush, this building served as the…
Parliament and Fitzroy Gardens
This walk leads you past Melbourne's grandest gold-era civic landmarks into the tranquil lawns and historical curiosities of Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens.
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1. Parliament of Victoria
2. Old Treasury Building
The Old Treasury Building features a facade of golden Bacchus Marsh sandstone and prominent columns that echo the Renaissance style of the mid-nineteenth century. Designed by nineteen-year-old architect John James Clark, it served as the…
3. Treasury Gardens
Treasury Gardens features a series of ornamental ponds and wide, sloping lawns framed by mature Moreton Bay figs and English elms. Established in eighteen sixty-seven, the site reflects the Victorian era's passion for formal landscaping…
4. The Conservatory
The Conservatory in Fitzroy Gardens stands out for its high, arched roof of glass and ornate white wrought iron. Built in nineteen thirty, this building replaced an earlier greenhouse on the same site. City officials commissioned the…
5. Cooks' Cottage
Cooks' Cottage is a stone house with small, lead-paned windows nestled within the Fitzroy Gardens. Its history began in seventeen fifty-five in Great Ayton, England, where it belonged to the parents of Captain James Cook. In nineteen…
6. Scarred Tree
A large, jagged oval scar runs vertically up the trunk of this river red gum. The bark has curled away from the heartwood, exposing the smooth, weathered interior where Aboriginal people once cut away a section of the living tree. They…
7. Model Tudor Village
The Tudor Village is a cluster of miniature half-timbered cottages and shops scaled to one-twelfth life size. Sir Robert Best commissioned the village during the nineteen thirties, drawing inspiration from the historic architecture of…
8. The Fairies Tree
The Fairy Tree sits inside a glass case in the Fitzroy Gardens, defined by the intricate carvings of elves, gnomes, and kookaburras covering its stump. Artist Ola Cohn spent years chiseling these figures into the dead trunk during the…
9. St. Patrick's Cathedral
The twin spires of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral rise three hundred and forty feet above the city, built from bluestone and sandstone that glows in the afternoon sun. While it serves as the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne,…