Ancient Times House

The Ancient Times House on Lonsdale Street stands out with its mock-Tudor facade, featuring heavy dark timber beams and white plaster walls that look like a misplaced slice of sixteenth-century England. Built in nineteen thirty-two, it served as a showroom for an antique furniture business run by a man named William Frith. Frith filled the space with reclaimed medieval woodwork and stained glass, intending to provide a proper, atmospheric setting for the heavy oak pieces he sold to Melburnians hungry for European history.