Top of the Town: a story of temperance and sin in Melbourne's city centre.
- jeskarees
- Apr 1, 2024
- 4 min read
This fascinating building was listed on the Heritage Inventory in 2013 - and what a tale it has to tell! Starting as the locus of the Victorian temperance movement - offering workers an alternative to the lure of alcohol - it is now a celebrated brothel, offering the lure of sex in the city centre.
The site's history
The site lies within the south-east corner of the original Melbourne Hoddle Grid plan of 1837. By 1956 Melbourne was a rapidly expanding city stimulated by the Victorian gold rush and the Bibbs Map of that year shows that the site included or bordered upon the Mercantile hotel and a foundry, plus other unidentified structures of varying sizes and building materials. Then addressed as 121 Flinders Street, the site was occupied from 1865 until 1879 by Thomas Bergin, ‘Grocer, wine and spirit merchant’.
A locus for temperance
Apparently repudiating the alcohol trade in 1879 and embracing temperance, Thomas Bergin was instrumental in raising funds to lease the site for a building designed by Lloyd Tayler and built in 1879-1880 as Coffee Tavern (No.2). The tavern would serve tea and coffee as an alternative to alcohol as part of the popular temperance movement, to ‘counter attractions to the public houses [by] providing equal attractions without the evil temptations’ of alcohol (Argus, 9th August 1879). Coffee Tavern No. 2 was the second to be established in Victoria after Coffee Tavern No. 1 in Bourke Street in 1879 (now demolished). Unlike other coffee ‘palaces’ fashioned from grand hotels in the 1880s, Coffee Tavern (No. 2) was aimed at working men and was situated close to Melbourne’s wharves to attract dock workers and sailors. It was also unusual in having been funded by concerned citizens rather than by single investors (Graeme Butler and Associates, 2011, p. 316).
Coffee Tavern (No. 2) was highly publicised within Melbourne, with newspaper articles covering the purchase of the site (The Australasian, 29th March 1879) and the laying of the foundation stone (Argus, 9th August 1879). The building was officially opened by city’s Mayor on January 10, 1880, in a ceremony also attended by Victoria’s Chief Justice William Stawell and noted temperance evangelist Father Matthew Burnett (Leader, 10th January 1880). The coverage it generated reflected the popularity of the temperance movement in Victoria in the 1880s: at least twenty taverns or palaces were opened by 1889.
Architectural style
The four-storey building features a mannered Italian Renaissance Revival style with cemented façade. The second storey features five arched sash windows, around which painted cornices The third storey features six arched sash windows, around which are painted pilasters. The fourth storey features two attic-style rectangular windows with pilasters painted in deep red on either side of a central domed square.
Upon its grand opening the building was reported to include a ground-floor counter
with marble-topped tables; a first-floor smoking room and billiard room; a second-floor ladies’ refreshment room, servants’ quarters and kitchen; and third-floor smaller rooms for drying linen. The three cottages behind the building were rented out and alongside the main ground-floor room a space was rented out to a hairdresser to boost income (Leader, 10th January 1880).
After temperance
By 1890 Flinders Street had been renumbered and the site assigned its current address of nos. 516-518. By then, though, the temperance movement had collapse, leaving the once-grand building to be gutted and converted into warehouses or commercial trading rooms.
The longest serving occupants were Henry Mcdonough’s merchant’s office out of no. 516 (from 1900 until the 1930s) and the Major family’s tea and luncheon rooms at no. 518 (from at least 1935-1975). The residential cottages appear to have survived until the turn of the century. The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works map of 1895 shows one cottage to have a verandah, with shared outside ‘closets’ and a tiled area also evident. By 1910 the cottages had been demolished and a second building added behind the 1880 frontage, separated by stairs and reaching Mercantile Lane.
After years of anonymity... a brothel opens
The commercial viability of the site was compromised by the construction of the Flinders Street overpass in 1959, which impacted the aesthetics of and foot traffic within the area (The Age, 13th June 2005). This may have influenced the choice of the site in 1990 as Melbourne’s first licensed brothel, which remains trading today. The news report of its opening indicates significant remodelling of the building’s interior (The Canberra Times, 21st June 1990). The ground-level was also altered to one single entry and new windows added. The Flinders Street overpass was demolished in 2005 in an effort to rejuvenate the area ahead of the 2008 Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne (The Age, 13th June 2005)
The site has been reviewed multiple times for its heritage value and in 2013 was one of 87 properties from the Central Business District added to the Victorian Heritage Inventory (ABC News, 5th June 2013).
Why is 516-518 Flinders Street important?
516-518 Flinders Street is associated with the beginning of the Victorian temperance movement in the late 1870s and 1880s that established coffee taverns or coffee palaces across the state. It is
the earliest existing former coffee tavern in Victoria
the only purpose-built former coffee tavern remaining in Melbourne's CBD and
a rare example of a temperance tavern aimed at Melbourne’s workers.
It's also a great story of a building surviving, being adapted and repurposed as the needs of a community change. (And have you seen that facade detailing? It's gorgeous!!)
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