Madame Brussels Lane
Historical Walk Self-Guided Tour
Take a stroll back in time.
The Urban Workshop at 50 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, stands in the city’s historic
Little Lon precinct, a place once characterized by lanes, alleyways, working class
residence and employment.
Prior to European settlement, the land belonged to the Woiwurrung and Bunwurrung
people of the Kulin nation, the traditional owners of the area now occupied by
greater Melbourne.
Following settlement, this corner of Melbourne was slow to develop. When the land
was eventually sold in 1847, central Melbourne was beginning to spread eastwards,
and this area attracted cheap lodging houses and a fledgling entertainment quarter.
The gold rushes of 1851 accelerated the activity, and a network of small streets and
lanes was soon crowded with cottages, basic hotels, shops and backyard industries.
The residents were a diverse cultural and social mix; many were newly arrived
immigrants, who moved on when they could, but some people lived here for
decades witnessing their neighbourhood gradually give way to clothing and furniture
manufacturers, engineering works, warehouses and a more visible ‘red light’
district.
The Commonwealth government compulsorily acquired the complete Little Lon
precinct in 1948, an action that effectively preserved the lanes and buildings. A
major phase of construction began in 1988, initiating the first of several intense
archaeological and historical investigations into Little Lon.
Construction of The Urban Workshop at 50 Lonsdale Street initiated investigations
in 2002 and 2003, and generated the largest archaeology project ever undertaken in
Victoria. From the Little Lon yards, the cesspit fills and under-floor spaces came an
extraordinary treasure of 300,000 artefacts. The most interesting items are
displayed in the foyer. They are part of a multi-layered interpretation scheme spread
over a number of locations in the foyer and rear courtyards, offering insights into the
development of Melbourne and the people who once lived and worked in this corner
of the city.
1. Black Eagle Hotel
Our walk begins at the former Black Eagle Hotel, which flanks the principal entry to
the Urban Workshop on Lonsdale Street. Stonemason William Kennon constructed
this pair of buildings in 1850 to serve as a hotel. It did a roaring trade during the gold
rushes, and by 1856 was competing with about six other hotels in Little Lon. Public
houses played important roles in the everyday lives of Little Lon residents, and in
the late nineteenth century, temperance reformers targeted this area with their
campaigns against alcohol consumption. The Black Eagle became a boarding
house in 1908, and then a Chinese furniture factory; from 1919 to 1977 was home to
a printing business. Today the former hotel is significant as one of the oldest
surviving buildings in the City of Melbourne.
2. Storyboard
Standing in the former yard of the Black Eagle Hotel, a large storyboard of five
interconnecting panels offers an overview of Little Lon’s history and the
archaeological excavations conducted between 2002 and 2003. Providing context
and orientation to the various parts of the interpretive scheme, it incorporates a
thematic text, historic illustrations, maps and images of artefacts recovered from the
dig.
3. Footings, Foundations & Cesspits
Substantial evidence of former structures were found across this site - wall and
hearth foundations, footings, cellars and cesspits, as well as laneways pitched with
bluestone. The excavations at the rear of the Black Eagle Hotel revealed brick and
bluestone paving and footings, probably relating to a stable floor. Some of the
historic bluestone has been reused in the foyer floor to indicate the extent of the
Black Eagle’s yard and outbuildings. A cesspit has been recreated where two pits
made from wooden barrels were excavated in the yard. Cesspits served as dumps
for rubbish and sewage and were common in Melbourne before they were abolished
in 1879. Those excavated across the site yielded about one-third of the artefacts
recovered in the entire Little Lon dig, all dating between 1848 and c.1880.
4. Lightbox
Near to the storyboard, a lightbox presents photographs on the theme of an
excavation grid. The images show archaeologists and other specialists, students
and some of the dig’s 500 volunteers engaged in the process of archaeology. They
also record the intense public interest in the project and the huge press coverage it
received.
5. Floor Patterns
Crossing to the middle of the foyer, you may not be aware that you’re standing in
what was once the middle of Little Leichardt Street, the former lane on which the
axis of the building foyer now lies. The name is perpetuated in the floor’s large white
lettering, its width exactly matching the width of the original lane. Other floor
markings indicate the footings of small houses along the lane. William Kennon,
builder and owner of the Black Eagle Hotel, also built ten, two-room brick cottages
on this lane.
6. Artefact Cabinets
Right in the middle of the former laneway stands an irregular-shaped glass cabinet.
It showcases some of the most interesting artefacts recovered from the site, things
from everyday life that fell between floorboards, were lost in the street or discarded
in backyard cesspits. They tell us a lot about the people of Little Lon – their class,
gender and social mix, their domestic lives, how they treated their children and
spent their leisure time, and what they were buying and making. Text on the glass
introduces the display-case themes, and the ‘Blue Willow’ motif refers to the pattern
most frequently found on the thousands of ceramic fragments recovered from
across the site.
Two aperture boxes near the lift lobby provide for more focused displays. One
features boots made in the 1850s; the other presents a range of smokers’ pipes,
many found beneath the floorboards of the grocer shop that once stood on the
corner of Little Leichardt Street.
Deeper into the foyer, a glass cabinet encircles a concrete column. Inside are
discarded bones, many bearing marks from cleavers or knives, some the gnaw
marks of rodents. The bones are convincing evidence that Little Lon households
were big eaters of mutton. They also ate huge quantities of oysters, as testified by
the incredible numbers of shells found in cesspits.
7. Brass Discs
Keep a look out for the occasional brass disc in the floor. A trail of nine extends
through the foyer and into the rear courtyards, recording places of special
archaeological interest. Nails mark the site of Lugton’s foundry, and dolls mark the
site of the Tucker house, where broken china dolls and a cache of marbles were
discovered. Other discs signal major finds of teaspoons, tableware, interesting
shoes and boots, wine bottles and smokers’ pipes. A gold ‘love’ ring was recovered,
but the rare, ‘Anti-Transportation’ medal, made in 1853, was the most startling find –
both artefacts retrieved from cesspits.
8. Art Installation
The final cabinet in the foyer is the art installation by Melbourne artist Rosslynd
Piggott. It juxtaposes clean, new glass with opalescent and textured glass shards
recovered from the excavations. The new and old glass reflect and refract the past
and present.
9. Rear Courtyards
At the rear, the foyer opens to a series of small courtyards, the form and scale of the
courtyards inspired by Little Lon’s former lanes and alleyways. One leads to a brick
cottage in the adjacent laneway called Casselden Place. Built in 1877, it is all that
remains of a long row of workers’ houses, and today functions as an office. Its two,
small rooms and yard survive as a reminder of the living conditions that commonly
prevailed here. A large panel on the outside wall of the yard faces the public space
of the courtyards. On it are hundreds of names and occupations of Little Lon
residents and workers, sourced from rate books and postal directories. The names
provide links to the past. They also offer insights into the daily lives and social status
of Little Lon’s working community, and demonstrate that the world of work has
changed greatly, with many occupations, such as bellows maker, costermonger and
chandler, having long since vanished from everyday life.
10. River Red Gum Tree
The remains of an ancient River Red Gum tree are displayed in a sheltered part of
one of the courtyards. The relic was discovered in 1988, during the first
archaeological dig in Little Lon, when the foundations of an early house were being
investigated. It is possibly the only tangible reminder of the woodland that once
covered central Melbourne. Maps indicate that Little Lon was one of the city’s last
areas to be sold and cleared of its trees. Two seeds recovered in the 2002 dig
provide further evidence of this original vegetation. An upper jawbone of a quoll
(native cat), a marsupial long since extinct in Melbourne, was also found nearby.
11. Odd Fellows Hotel
The former Odd Fellows Hotel is the second of the historic hotels retained in the
development. It was constructed on the corner of Little Leichardt and Little Lonsdale
Streets in 1853, at the height of the gold-rush accommodation shortage. As its name
indicates, it was affiliated with the brotherhood of Independent Order of Odd
Fellows, a friendly society, rather like a workers’ union that provided welfare
services to its members in times of need. After the hotel closed in 1912, the building
became a Chinese cabinet-making factory and was acquired by the Commonwealth
government in 1948. Meat hooks, bones, silver-plated cutlery, toys and coins from
all phases of the building’s history were found beneath the floorboards. Two almost
complete dinner sets were recovered from the hotel’s rubbish pit and some of these
items are displayed in the foyer cabinet.
Text written by Michele Summerton, Historica.