Austral Lane is located the south-east of the city centre, between Queen and William streets off Little Collins Street. It is a dead-end with no footpath, and serves as the entry to a car park. It may have been named either for the Bank of Australasia's Collins Street premises built in 1840, or possibly for the Australian Club on the north-west corner of the block, the grandest surviving example of a late nineteenth-century clubhouse in Australia. In 2008 the entrance was flanked to the west by the gigantic Irish tricolour hanging from the front of the Irish Times Hotel, and to the east by an art gallery. Several other hotels, bars and amenities populate the block, which is in the heart of Melbourne's banking district.