I wouldn’t like to count the number of times I have walked around this corner But that was many years after this photo was taken in 1906 at the corner of Barker and Templeton Streets in my home town of Castlemaine in Central victoria.
Sepia Saturday tempted us this week with a photo of an imposing but austere hotel. I am much fonder of Australian buildings with their verandahs to protect us from the sun or to provide a place to sit and catch the evening breeze in the hot weather.
This well worn postcard has 1906 handwritten on the back, but no message. The hotel was originally built in 1875 as a single storey building but in 1906 was converted to a fine two storey building. The next image shows the re-opening in 1906.
This image came from The Hub at 233 Barker St Castlemaine which is the present name of the building. They have a fine collection of photos of the Hotel over the years. De-licenced in 1970 in its present life The Hub is home to fifteen offices and one restaurant.
This is how Google Earth saw it in 2010 when it was undergoing its most recent renovation.
But my imagination takes me down the hill in the 1940s past, among others in the first block , the lawyers where for a while I thought that might be a good thing to do on leaving school, the bike shop where once stood a bike which was labelled with my name as it waited for my birthday, the hairdresser – first perm, the shop where I spent my first ever earnings on a Toby jug for my mother, the shop where I bought a hat with money i had earned myself, the cafe where I washed dishes one school holidays, the newspaper shop where the morning paper cost tuppence, the excellent photographer and the dreaded dentist.
As I said, I knew that corner well though I was never to go into the hotel.
More interesting hotels and big buildings can be seen through the links in
