Flinders St protection
The Heritage Council of Victoria has strengthened protection of Melbourne’s iconic Flinders Street Railway Station by expanding the area covered by the Registration of the site.
As well as the main station building and platforms, the Victorian Heritage Register now recognises Campbell Arcade, Platform 14 and the Flinders Street Station Mural.
The revised extent of Registration gazetted on 9 July was approved by the Heritage Council on 30 June.
Recommended by the Executive Director of Heritage Victoria, the changes ensure all significant fabric and surviving examples of early engineering and early materials are included in the registration which recognises the place is of state significance.
Early materials include extensive use of pressed metalwork inside and out – believed to be the most extensive use in a public building in Victoria.
Other features now protected include the Copper domes, leadlight and stained glass, original Edwardian Majolica wall tiles in the subways and at the Degraves St entrance. and open truss verandahs with circular steel brackets on the platforms and canopies over the external areas of the Station.
Features which reflect early engineering achievements include signal bridges and an overhead structure which are likely to date from the electrification of the railways in 1911-23, steel columns and bluestone piers beneath Swanston Street and the buckle plate, corrugated galvanised steel roofs and granite spoon drains in the Elizabeth Street and Central/Degraves Street subways.
Other quirky reminders are the money safe on platform 14, the Parcels Yard weigh bridge by the Australasian Scale Company, the Träegerwellblech system of floor and ceiling construction and he Parcels Yard and Dock (formerly known as the Milk Dock).
The Flinders Street Station Mural, a mosaic and painted cement mural by Mirka Mora, is an outstanding example of Mora’s playful and sensuous iconography that is beloved by many Melbournians.
Campbell Arcade which was the first major public infrastructure to be built in the city following WWII and is a rare and substantial example of late Art Deco design. If features salmon pink wall tiles, pink and black terrazzo floor, polished black granite columns and chromed steel.
Platform 14 (the eastward extension of Platform 1) is the last remainder of the long standing connection between the Flinders Street Railway Station Complex and the former Princes Bridge Station.
Land to the east of Swanston Street, where structures had been removed in 1996 under permits for the Federation Square development. Federation Square were removed from the registration.
The added protection, coupled with the recent Government announcement regarding a $100 m investment in the maintenance and conservation of the station, will ensure the future of the iconic station.
Read about Flinders Street and other recent Registration Decisions.