L&A-History

=History =

Laneways
The Hoddle grid is the arrangement of streets and lanes in Melbourne's CBD, it was designed in 1837 by Robert Hoddle.The grid covers the area from Flinders street to Queen Victoria market, and from Spencer street to spring street. When this grid was created no lanes were included but it was later extended and lanes were added.

The idea of laneways was not thought of through planning yet instead was by accident when one block of land was sold as two with a space left in the middle. Due to this governor Bourke realised that this was a great invention and therefore decided that these should be included in the hoddle gird.Within this grid he added narrow paths (now known as laneways) to cater for getting behind buildings for delivery, the reason they were so narrow was because they only had to accommodate for horse and carts as during those days cars were not very common and most things were delivered in by horse and cart. Not only was it used for delivery it was also sadly used for dumping rubbish meaning that in those days lanes were not the nicest of places due to the fact that they were extremely unhygienic and disgustingly smelly.

By 1856 there were approximately 80 named lanes and 112 unnamed lanes. Most were privately owned for stables, piggeries and cow sheds, meaning they were badly maintained. Skipping forward 40 years to 1895 there were 158 named and a further 106 unnamed laneways. When lanes started to become publicly owned they became spoiled by garbage and were not the best place to visit at night due to the large amount of criminal activity taking place as it was the perfect place for a crime with it being cold, dark, with no on watchers. These days most lanes are lively and always busy, fulled with cafes, bar and more which attract people to these amazing creations.

Arcades


Arcades are arched or covered passage ways with shops and cafes. Arcades within melbournes CBD have been around for many years. The very first arcade built was the Royal arcade in 1869 which we talk talk about in more detail in our arcades page. Over the years arcades within melbournes CBD have changed and improved and as each year passes they modernise more and more.

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