Cremorne, Victoria
Encyclopedia
Cremorne is a suburb in Melbourne
, Victoria
, Australia
, 2 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district
. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra
. At the 2006 Census, Cremorne had a population of 1396.
Cremorne is a small suburb in inner Melbourne bounded by the Yarra River
, Punt Road, Swan
and Church Streets, and divided down the middle by the railway to South Yarra
. Covering only about a square kilometre, until 1999 Cremorne existed only as a locality in the larger suburb of Richmond
. Cremorne's charm is in its rather chaotic mix of uses and the unique character resulting from being 'walled in' by main roads and railways on all sides. There are industrial icons such as Bryant and May
, Rosella and the Nylex Clock
side by side with Victorian
cottages, modern townhouses, office
s and light industries
.
Cremorne takes its name from the Cremorne Gardens
, an amusement park which occupied a riverfront location in the western half of Cremorne for a period in the mid 19th century.
Cremorne Gardens occupied a riverfront location in the western half of Cremorne for a period in the mid 19th century. They were established in 1853 by James Ellis who had earlier managed gardens of the same name on the banks of the Thames at Chelsea
in London
. They were later acquired and expanded by entrepreneur and local identity George Coppin and became one of Melbourne's major attractions at the time with patrons arriving by train or boat to see wild animals, dancers and other entertainment. They were short-lived however and by 1863 they had been sold and subdivided for housing and an asylum
.
Although a largely residential area in its early history, the banks of the Yarra were home to many offensive industries such as tanneries and the Richmond Power Station
which opened in 1891. Into the 20th century Cremorne became increasingly industrial. Large manufacturing complexes were built including the Bryant and May
and Rosella factories
. In the mid 20th century light industry flooded into Cremorne with the construction of hundreds of small to medium factories which were occupied by the rag trade, mechanics, printers and small engineering businesses.
The residential areas increasingly became slum
s with some areas threatened with clearance. Throughout the 1970s
and 1980s
Cremorne became a centre for crime
. Well known Melbourne criminal Dennis Allen
was known to own around a dozen homes in Cremorne which were used for a variety of illicit purposes. One was demolished in 1989 by police
searching for evidence in the Walsh Street police shootings
. It had earlier been seized by the Australian Taxation Office
. Other shadowy businesses in Cremorne Street in the 1970s included a brothel, a door-to-door business selling fraudulent oil paintings, and clothing sweatshops.
Things started to improve in the 1990s
however. The inner city was desirable again and large industries found it uneconomic to operate in inner urban areas. The Richmond Power Station, Bryant and May and Rosella were all converted to office space. Tenants such as Just Jeans
, Country Road
, Mattel
and John Wiley & Sons
are just some of the companies with offices in this area. The small Victorian terraces and cottages which abound in Cremorne were snapped up in a renovation boom. Today Cremorne is a mixture of period and modern housing, cutting edge offices, art galleries, funky bars
and a diminishing light industrial sector.
, full of discounted seconds and distressed stock, it also has an eclectic collection of restaurant
s and clearance shops. The street also features some fine examples of Edwardian and Victorian architecture.
Punt Road is the major north/south link in inner Melbourne and is busy 24 hours a day. Church Street is lined with furniture showrooms.
. The freeway makes the Yarra River
virtually inaccessible. The suburb is connected to South Yarra via three bridges, the Punt Road Bridge, Cremorne rail bridge and Church Street Bridge. Freeway exits at Church Street and Punt Road are particularly busy. Cremorne is characterised by several narrow one-way streets. Balmain Street and Cremorne Street are the main streets that pass within Cremorne.
Both Swan and Church Streets have regular tram services.
Cremorne is near the junction of the two busiest groups of railway lines in Melbourne. They form a barrier between east and west and cut Cremorne off from Richmond to the north. Cremorne has one station within its boundaries, East Richmond
, however the station is bypassed by most trains. Trains on the Lilydale, Belgrave, Glen Waverley, and Alamein lines pass through it, heading towards the eastern suburbs. Some early railway maps of Melbourne show a Cremorne station, just north of the river, on the modern Caulfield group of railway lines, but it lasted little more than a year, closing in 1860. Richmond station
is slightly to the north of Cremorne, Melbourne's busiest outside the central business district
.
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, 2 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district
Melbourne city centre
Melbourne City Centre is an area of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It is not to be confused with the larger local government area of the City of Melbourne...
. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra
City of Yarra
The City of Yarra is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia, located in the inner eastern and northern suburbs of Melbourne. It has an area of 19.5 square kilometres, and at the 2006 census it had a population of 69,330...
. At the 2006 Census, Cremorne had a population of 1396.
Cremorne is a small suburb in inner Melbourne bounded by the Yarra River
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
, Punt Road, Swan
Swan Street, Melbourne
Swan Street is a major street running through the Melbourne suburbs of Richmond, Cremorne and Burnley. The section of the street between Punt Road and Alexandra Avenue is now known as Olympic Boulevard....
and Church Streets, and divided down the middle by the railway to South Yarra
South Yarra, Victoria
South Yarra is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Stonnington and Melbourne...
. Covering only about a square kilometre, until 1999 Cremorne existed only as a locality in the larger suburb of Richmond
Richmond, Victoria
Richmond is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra...
. Cremorne's charm is in its rather chaotic mix of uses and the unique character resulting from being 'walled in' by main roads and railways on all sides. There are industrial icons such as Bryant and May
Bryant and May Factory, Melbourne
The Bryant and May Factory is located in the suburb of Cremorne in Melbourne, Australia. It was constructed in 1909 as the Empire Works to a design by prolific Melbourne architect William Pitt...
, Rosella and the Nylex Clock
Nylex Clock
The Nylex Clock is an iconic neon sign sitting atop malting storage silos in the suburb of Cremorne, Victoria, Australia. It is located adjacent to the northern bank of the Yarra River and the Monash Freeway and displays the time and temperature alternately. The text also alternates displaying the...
side by side with Victorian
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
cottages, modern townhouses, office
Office
An office is generally a room or other area in which people work, but may also denote a position within an organization with specific duties attached to it ; the latter is in fact an earlier usage, office as place originally referring to the location of one's duty. When used as an adjective, the...
s and light industries
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
.
Cremorne takes its name from the Cremorne Gardens
Cremorne Gardens, Melbourne
Cremorne Gardens were a pleasure garden established in 1853 on the banks of the Yarra River at Richmond in Melbourne, Australia. The gardens were established by James Ellis who had earlier managed and leased similar gardens of the same name on the banks of the River Thames at Chelsea in London...
, an amusement park which occupied a riverfront location in the western half of Cremorne for a period in the mid 19th century.
History
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. They were later acquired and expanded by entrepreneur and local identity George Coppin and became one of Melbourne's major attractions at the time with patrons arriving by train or boat to see wild animals, dancers and other entertainment. They were short-lived however and by 1863 they had been sold and subdivided for housing and an asylum
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
.
Although a largely residential area in its early history, the banks of the Yarra were home to many offensive industries such as tanneries and the Richmond Power Station
Richmond Power Station, Victoria
Richmond Power Station is a Victorian era coal fired power station which operated on the banks of the Yarra River in Richmond, Victoria, Australia from its construction in 1891 until its closure in 1976. It was one of the first alternating current electricity generation plants in the state...
which opened in 1891. Into the 20th century Cremorne became increasingly industrial. Large manufacturing complexes were built including the Bryant and May
Bryant and May Factory, Melbourne
The Bryant and May Factory is located in the suburb of Cremorne in Melbourne, Australia. It was constructed in 1909 as the Empire Works to a design by prolific Melbourne architect William Pitt...
and Rosella factories
Factory
A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...
. In the mid 20th century light industry flooded into Cremorne with the construction of hundreds of small to medium factories which were occupied by the rag trade, mechanics, printers and small engineering businesses.
The residential areas increasingly became slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
s with some areas threatened with clearance. Throughout the 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
and 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
Cremorne became a centre for crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
. Well known Melbourne criminal Dennis Allen
Dennis Allen
Dennis Allen was a Melbourne based drug dealer who was reported to have murdered many victims. He was the oldest son of criminal matriarch Kath Pettingill. He died of heart disease in 1987 in prison custody awaiting trial for murder....
was known to own around a dozen homes in Cremorne which were used for a variety of illicit purposes. One was demolished in 1989 by police
Victoria Police
Victoria Police is the primary law enforcement agency of Victoria, Australia. , the Victoria Police has over 12,190 sworn members, along with over 400 recruits, reservists and Protective Service Officers, and over 2,900 civilian staff across 393 police stations.-Early history:The Victoria Police...
searching for evidence in the Walsh Street police shootings
Walsh Street police shootings
The Walsh Street police shootings was the 1988 murder of two Victoria Police officers, Constables Steven Tynan, 22, and Damian Eyre, 20. The officers were responding to a report of an abandoned car when they were gunned down about 4.50am in Walsh Street, South Yarra, Australia on 12 October...
. It had earlier been seized by the Australian Taxation Office
Australian Taxation Office
The Australian Taxation Office is an Australian Government statutory agency and the principal revenue collection body for the Australian Government. The ATO has responsibility for administering the Australian federal taxation system and superannuation legislation...
. Other shadowy businesses in Cremorne Street in the 1970s included a brothel, a door-to-door business selling fraudulent oil paintings, and clothing sweatshops.
Things started to improve in the 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
however. The inner city was desirable again and large industries found it uneconomic to operate in inner urban areas. The Richmond Power Station, Bryant and May and Rosella were all converted to office space. Tenants such as Just Jeans
Just Jeans
Just Jeans is an Australian apparel chain store, owned and operated by the Just Group. The Just Group owns and operates Portmans, Jaquie E, Jay Jays, Just Jeans, Peter Alexander, Smiggle and Dotti store brands, and currently has over 950 stores throughout Australia and New Zealand.-Profile:Just...
, Country Road
Country Road
Country Road is an upscale store located in Australia and New Zealand clothing retailer, with 68 free standing stores and 77 department store concessions. It is traded on the Australian Stock Exchange, with South African company Woolworths Holdings Limited owning 88%...
, Mattel
Mattel
Mattel, Inc. is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from...
and John Wiley & Sons
John Wiley & Sons
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing and markets its products to professionals and consumers, students and instructors in higher education, and researchers and practitioners in scientific, technical, medical, and...
are just some of the companies with offices in this area. The small Victorian terraces and cottages which abound in Cremorne were snapped up in a renovation boom. Today Cremorne is a mixture of period and modern housing, cutting edge offices, art galleries, funky bars
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
and a diminishing light industrial sector.
Streets of Cremorne
Swan Street is one of Melbourne's most popular shopping strips. Famous for the Dimmeys department storeDepartment store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
, full of discounted seconds and distressed stock, it also has an eclectic collection of restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
s and clearance shops. The street also features some fine examples of Edwardian and Victorian architecture.
Punt Road is the major north/south link in inner Melbourne and is busy 24 hours a day. Church Street is lined with furniture showrooms.
Transport
The southern border of Cremorne is the Monash FreewayMonash Freeway
Monash Freeway is an urban freeway in Victoria, Australia linking Melbourne's CBD to its southeastern suburbs and the Gippsland region. The entire stretch of the Monash Freeway bears the designation...
. The freeway makes the Yarra River
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
virtually inaccessible. The suburb is connected to South Yarra via three bridges, the Punt Road Bridge, Cremorne rail bridge and Church Street Bridge. Freeway exits at Church Street and Punt Road are particularly busy. Cremorne is characterised by several narrow one-way streets. Balmain Street and Cremorne Street are the main streets that pass within Cremorne.
Both Swan and Church Streets have regular tram services.
Cremorne is near the junction of the two busiest groups of railway lines in Melbourne. They form a barrier between east and west and cut Cremorne off from Richmond to the north. Cremorne has one station within its boundaries, East Richmond
East Richmond railway station
East Richmond railway station may refer to:*East Richmond railway station, Melbourne, in Victoria, Australia*East Richmond railway station, Sydney, in New South Wales, Australia...
, however the station is bypassed by most trains. Trains on the Lilydale, Belgrave, Glen Waverley, and Alamein lines pass through it, heading towards the eastern suburbs. Some early railway maps of Melbourne show a Cremorne station, just north of the river, on the modern Caulfield group of railway lines, but it lasted little more than a year, closing in 1860. Richmond station
Richmond railway station, Melbourne
Richmond is a railway station in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, located in the suburb of Richmond. It is classed as a Premium Station and is in Metcard Zone 1.-Facilities:...
is slightly to the north of Cremorne, Melbourne's busiest outside the central business district
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
.
See also
- City of RichmondCity of RichmondThe City of Richmond was a Local Government Area located about east of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The city covered an area of , and existed from 1855 until 1994.-History:...
- the former local government area of which Cremorne was a part.