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Produced and published by the School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne
Published July 2008
Published July 2008
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The first documented occupancy of Alfred Place was in 1850, and the lane connects Collins Street to Little Collins between Russell and Exhibition Streets.
In its early days, at the Collins Street end, Alfred Place was genteel residential. Towards Little Collins Street, however, it put on workaday clothes. After the Eastern Market was built, on market days the area was crowded with gardeners and their greengrocer customers, some of whom stopped off, no doubt, at the Adam and Eve Hotel on the Alfred Place corner. [Weston Bate, Essential but unplanned, p.40]
By 1860 the lane contained many surgeries, doctors and dentists, as well as several boarding houses and a school for ladies run by 'Miss Glenn'. In the 1890s Alfred Place contained Alex McKinley & Co, printers and publishers of Melbourne Punch, Once a Week, the Jewish Herald and the Australasian Schoolmaster. In 1935 Felton Grimwade and Duerdin, makers of surgical implements, occupied the lane.
Of particular interest in Alfred Place is a building designed by Henry Koch, which initially served as the premises of the German Association in the 1890s, but which then became the Naval and Military Club and in 1984 Mietta's Restaurant. The lane's 1860's focus on health and well-being returned a century later in the form of a Yoga School and the Dental Division of the Drug Houses of Australia. In 1990, The Park Royal Hotel was allowed to build a walkway bridge over the alley because it owned property on both sides of the street. In 2008 the lane contained clubs and cafes.