south yarra cable tram engine house and tram shed

Melbourne Metropolitan Tramway Heritage Study 2010-11

Name: South Yarra Cable Tram engine house and Car Shed

Location: 241-257 Toorak Road, Corner Toorak Road and Chapel Street, South Yarra. City of Stonnington

Map Reference: Melways Map 29 H4 LAT: -37.75708 LONG: 144.9625E

Other / Former Names: Capitol Bakery / Fun Factory

Source: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BjA9HB5RzRc/S6mzUfM3LHI/AAAAAAAAEFg/_nUHZvQjmMQ/s1600/Bakery.JPG

HISTORY:

DATE BUILT: 1885, 1935-1937 LAST ALTERATIONS: 1980s

CONTEXTUAL HISTORY

Melbourne's cable trams, modelled on the system operating in San Franciso, were introduced by American born entrepreneur Francis Boardman Clapp an American emigrant who had purchased the Victorian rights to Andrew S Hallidie's cable patents, and his Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company in the mid 1880s. The company operated as a monopoly on a thirty year lease of the system owned by a Tramways Trust made up of the inner suburban municipalities. Within a few years Melbourne cable tram system grew to become one of the largest in the world.. Like the railways, the trams were an expression of Melbourne's land boom. While the railways radiated out from the city to sparsely settled outer suburbs, trams provided a localised service to the more densely populated inner suburbs.

The cable trams, which replaced horse-drawn trams and omnibuses, were pulled along by a constantly moving underground cable, powered by steam-driven winding engines. In November 1885 Melbourne’s first cable tram commenced on the route from Spencer Street, along Flinders Street to Richmond. Within a couple of years services to the northern suburbs of Fitzroy, Collingwood, Clifton Hill, Brunswick and Carlton had started.

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Melbourne's cable tram network was developed in the late 1870s as a planned public transport system for metropolitan Melbourne and was constructed as a single major infrastructure project from 1884 to 1891. The system consisted of the cable tram engine houses which drove the cables; the car sheds for housing the dummies and cars; the tracks and the cable tunnels and the associated pits and terminal pits.

The cable tram network was operated by two separate organisations. The Melbourne Tramways Trust built and owned the cable tram infrastructure which included the engine houses and the tracks and cables and represented the various municipalities that the tramways ran through. The operation of the system was contracted out to a private company, the Melbourne Tramway & Omnibus Company (MT&OC) who were responsible for providing the trams and building the car sheds. The company also operated connecting horse tram lines. Later, other companies built electric lines.

Engineer George S Duncan, who had built the Roslyn Tramway in Dunedin, New Zealand, the first cable tramway outside of San Francisco, was also responsible for the Melbourne Tramways & Omnibus Company's lines. His brother Alfred Duncan, who had been the engineer for the North Sydney cable car line in Sydney, Australia, later came to work on the Melbourne lines.

The first order of grip cars and trailers was built by the John Stepenson Company of New York, NY.

The building which was the head office of the MT&OC still remains at 669-673 Bourke Street. After 1916 the MT&OC's lease to run the system expired and a new body, the Tramways Board (TB), was established to replace both the MT&OC and the MTT and to run the whole cable tram system as a single body. All of the land and property of the MTT and the MT&OC was taken over by the TB.

The delay in commencing cable tram services to the more affluent suburbs south of the Yarra River was due to the fact that there was no road bridge with sufficient strength to take the weight of a tram. The new Princes Bridge, opened on 4 October 1888, was designed to be strong enough and wide enough to carry a tramway across from Swanston Street to St Kilda Road. One week after the bridge was opened, the Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company commenced running their tramway to Brighton Road, Windsor. An engine house for the winding gear was built on the corner of St Kilda Road and Bromby Street South Yarra.

The north-west corner of Toorak Road and Chapel Street was originally occupied by The Hermitage, a house built for the Forrest family in 1843. The site was purchased from them by the Melbourne Tramway Trust for whom their architect Robert Gordon, also the designer of the gloriously Gothic Flinders Street Fish Market building, designed the Prahran Engine House in 1886. A large house next to the engine house was once a doctor’s residence.

On 26 October 1888 the company opened its tramway along Toorak Road to South Yarra, turning into Chapel Street and running southwards through Prahran. The engine house for this line was built on the corner of Chapel Street and Toorak Road. In 1889 the Toorak Road line was extended to Kooyong Road, powered from the same engine house. These tramways played a major role in developing Chapel Street as a popular shopping centre, giving access to the shops for people from outside the area as well as local shoppers.

The Toorak Road engine house was designed by MTT architect Robert Gordon and is constructed of brick on a bluestone base and decorated with cement plaster mouldings, cornices and architraves. In appearance, it was quite similar to the old Tramways building on the corner of Nicholson and Gertrude Streets, Fitzroy – single storey with clerestory windows, two large car doors facing into Chapel Street, and a tower on the corner. The engine house commenced operations on October 24, 1888. It was one



of only five engine houses that powered three cables, the longest here being 22,110 feet. The chimney was 175 ft tall, standard for several engine houses including Carlton, St.Kilda and Richmond, while most of the other sites had 150Ft chimneys. At 170 ft by 96 ft, (not including the tram shed) the engine house building was also the largest on the system.1

The Chapel Street Facade retains the arched openings from the tram shed. The corner of Toorak Road was originally highlighted by a projecting doorway with a gabled parapet and tower above. The hipped metal truss roof is hidden by brick parapet. The building housed the engine, drive wheels and the cable tensioning mechanism. A single storey brick ancillary structure, believed to have been used as the engine house office, is attached to the rear of the engine house. The cable pits are believed to survive under the building's concrete floor.

The car shed was designed by architect Frederick Williams and is a utilitarian brick structure with a wide central doorway and narrow windows. A hipped roof with roof ventilator of three bays runs north south. The walls enclose a single open space that once included tracks, pits and a turntable for storing, servicing and turning the tram cars and dummies. It is believed that evidence of these structures may still exist under the concrete floor.

The South Yarra cable tram engine house and car shed were unusual in Melbourne's cable tram network in that they were located together. The practice elsewhere in the cable tram network was to locate the engine houses at the centre of the line and the car depot at the end. The only other instances of an engine house and car shed being located together was at Rathdowne Street Carlton (corner Park St.) and on the Northcote line. However the latter was privately constructed and operated and not part of the main MTT system until the early 1920s.

The South Yarra Engine House was the seventh to be built, opening about 2 weeks after the St. Kilda road engine house, and three years after the first engine house on Bridge Road (opened 11-Nov-1885). Four more engine houses opened in the following three years, making a total of eleven engine houses and 13 car sheds on the MT&OC system, while the separate Northcote cable tram had its own engine house and tram sheds built in 1890.

Architects Drawing, Toorak Road elevation, reproduced in the Age Friday 6 April 1990

1 Details of engine houses extracted from Tramway Trust reports by Robert Green.



Chapel Street Elevation of Car Shed (sketch provided by Robert Green)

At the time of its construction the MTT system was the largest cable tram network under single ownership in the world and the most technologically advanced. It was a major influence on the development of metropolitan Melbourne.

Northcote was built as an independent line but was eventually taken over by the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board.

The provision of the cable trams not only provided speedy travel to the city, but contributed to the commercial development of the streets through which they ran. As the cable routs were located where existing development assured good patronage, they were not intended to promote new development, as was the case with the outer electric tram lines. however, the concentration of passenger traffic in these streets, and the ease of cross town travel, meant that suburban strip shopping, not only in Chapel Street and Toorak Road, but in many of the streets served by cable trams such as High St Northcote, Smith and Brunswick Streets Collingwood, Victoria Street and Bridge Road Richmond.

By the time the Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company's lease expired in 1916, electric tramways were being established, initially with routes extending beyond those of the cable tramways. The major cable lines survived until the 1920's, after the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board was formed in 1919 to consolidate public transit, took over all tramways and set about converting the cable tramways to electric.

The first major line to close was the Windsor-Saint Kilda Esplanade line on 25-Aug-1925. The Richmond line closed on 29-Jun-1927. Other lines closed until the Great Depression stalled conversions. The last Melbourne cable tram operated on 26-Oct-1940.

The extension of the electric tram system, and following the formation of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board, the conversion of the cable lines to electric traction, saw the removal of cable services from Toorak Road and Chapel Street progressively between 1924 and 1927. As a consequence the cable tram engine house became redundant, the engines and winding gear were removed, and the cable tracks and tunnels in the streets removed during the track conversion. The Chapel Street and South Yarra cable routes were closed for replacement with electrified lines in 1926. When the Prahran line was electrified in 1926, the engine house became redundant.



Interior Views of South Yarra engine house shortly after opening (the Argus 1888)

Engine house in 1927, (from Malone & Slater 1988)



View along flooded Chapel Street from near river showing chimney and hipped roofs with ventilators.

Interior of cable tram powerhouse, (science Museum photo) 1916 State Library of Victoria H36280/1.



Steam Engines in South Yarra Engine House

Boilers in South Yarra Engine House



View down Toorak road showing tower of engine house on left.

With the closure of the Toorak Road and Chapel Street cable lines, in 1927, the engine house was acquired by Sullivan Brothers of South Melbourne

Dismantling steam engines the Argus 22. 10. 1926, with Mr James Hopkins .

The building was taken over and converted to a 'model' bakery by the Stockdale family, who had been bakers in Prahran since 1860. It was to be known as the Capitol Bakeries and the redundant engine house was eventually converted and re-designed by architect Harry Norris for Capitol Bakeries in



1933. The main façade structure was retained but was raised in height, stripped and rendered in Art Deco style, and the Chapel Street corner was cut back at an angle. You can still see the original 1888 plinth along the Chapel Street side. The dressed bluestone used for the large arched entrance nearest the corner is mostly original but the second entrance along Chapel Street has been moved south. The Car Shed at the rear was accessed from Chapel Street and is still quite recognisable as such if you walk around the back. From inside, much of the original roof structures and trusses of both the engine hall and car sheds remain clearly visible.

So, not only is this building important to Melbourne as a Harry Norris designed Jazz Moderne building, but this is an internationally important building for its origins as part of Melbourne’s cable tram system.

COST OVER £50,000 Automatic Bakery South Yarra Building On the site of the old power house corner of Toorak-road and Chapel street, South Yarra, a modern automatic bakery is. to be erected. The proprietors of Capitol Bakeries Pty. Ltd. have given instructions for an immediate start to be made with the construction of the new premises. Buildings and plant will cost more than £50,000. Construction generally will be steel framed with reinforced concrete, the walls being brick built in cement mortar. The interior finish will be on superior modern lines. The whole of the site, having-a front age of 135ft. to Toorak-road and 210ft to Chapel-street, will be covered, and will be two storeys in height to Toorak-road and three to Chapel-street. The original intention was to erect shops facing Toorak-road for revenue purposes, but this scheme has been abandoned, and the only shop, that on the corner, will be occupied by the proprietors. To avoid congestion at this corner it is proposed to set back the building line of the new shop 30 feet along each street frontage. In addition to opening view to vehicular traffic at this important crossing the footpath area given over to, pedestrians will be considerably increased. The architect has been instructed not to spare the expense in the interior finish of this shop, which will be treat- ed on modernistic lines, the principal materials to be used being silver chromium plate on black marble with maple and plastic texture background. The general treatment is to be spectacular. The architect, who is to leave shortly for New York City on other business, will inspect the better class shops in that country, and any modern ideas suitable for the bakery shop will be incorporated. There is a fall of 14ft. in the site at the extreme points. Advantage is being taken of this to place floors on staggered levels, which allows the bread in the different stages of manufacture to pass from machine to machine by gravity, in addition to belt conveyors on the same floor. The flour store will be on the ground floor at the northern end of the site in Chapel-street.

From the prover a serious of conveyor belts in continuous operation, the dough enters the oven. The ovens are 70ft. in length, weigh one ton to the square foot, and are entirely automatic in operation, the dough entering one end and coming out of the other as bread; Each oven, baking 50 tons of bread weekly, will cost more than £12,000. From the oven the bread is taken by conveyors to the coolers. This plant is 100ft. In length and 8ft. by 8ft. in area, and carry the bread on travelling belts for 212 hours, when the loaf is discharged on to a wood shoot and is fed by gravity to the wrapping machines. The despatch room will hold 50 carts at one time, and has direct access to Chapel-street by two wide door openings. The administrative offices, situated on the first floor at the corner, over the shop, will be finished on modernistic lines with textured walls and maple finish. The 'building will be fitted with mechanical devices counting the numbers of loaves passing different machines and ovens, dictaphones, inter-communication telephones, electric clocks, buzzers and bell installations, all controlled from



the main office. Externally the building will be cemented, and the existing outside walls are to be altered and modernised in detail. The architect is Mr. Harry A. Norris, of Melbourne.2

Capitol Bakeries continued to grow, becoming one of the largest commercial bakery companies in Australia. In 1938 the firm erected another large automated bakery in Brunswick, which later came to be known as the Tip Top Bakery.3

Harry Norris (12 June 1888-15 December 1966) was an important Australian architect who had a major impact on the character of Melbourne’s streetscapes in the early 20th century , becoming well known for his strong Art Deco Style. He consolidated his architecture study in America with Australian Architecture to become one of the most prolific commercial architects in Victoria, producing numerous building designs in the 1920s and 1930s. Most of his works were inspired by observations made during his regular overseas trips, mainly to United State, travelling overseas annually between 1928 and 1941to observe current architectural trend. As a consequence, his style developed and transformed continually. In 1929, Harry’s client, George James Coles, sent him to Europe and America to study architecture trend in designing chain stores. Soon after he came back, he finished the design of the new Coles store (now David Jones) in Bourke Street, Melbourne. He also visited the principal cities from August 1944 to October 1945 before he became an associate of R.V.I.A. in 21st of February 1946. 4

It can therefore be said that Norris was instrumental in promoting not only overseas Art Deco ideas, but a range of overseas architectural styles to Victoria and Australia, breaking with what had previously been a more parochial attitude to architecture.5 Harry Norris retired in his 75th birthday in June 1966 and died 6 month after, on 15th December 1966.6

2 Examiner (Launceston, Tas.) : Friday 27 February 1931, p.4.3 The Argus Tuesday 22 February 1938 page 11.4 Modern in Melbourne Melbourne Architecture 1930 – 1950 'Three Ways of Being Modern' RMIT course guide. http://users.tce.rmit.edu.au/e03159/ModMelb/mm2/lect/30%27s%20&%2040%27s/html/30%27S%2640%27s.html5 Grow, R. (2009) Melbourne Art Deco.6 Goad, P & Plaxe, K (2002) A Short History of Melbourne Architect. Pesaro Publishing.

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South Yarra. former Cable Tram Engine Shed, cnr. Chapel St. and Toorak Rd. J.T. Collins Collection, Jan. 26, 1976 State Library Victoria H98.251/919

The building was further modified for the creation of the Fun Factory in about 1986, to the extent of large openings being made in the Toorak Road facade and a colonnaded passage inside the property line. The upper balconies were enclosed and part of the 1930s two story section was re-roofed. The car shed has remained more intact with only internal alterations and changes to some window and door openings.

In 1990 a proposal to redevelop the site saw some public interest in the building, including the “Bluestone footings, obscured roof trusses, vaulted ceilings, exposed brickwork”. At this time it was reported that the National Trust would soon classify the remains of Melbourne’s cable-tram network, including the South Yarra engine house. It was also reported that the developer, Mt Marcel Gilbert, had commissioned a conservation architect to investigate what original elements remained and whether they could be included in the new building. The consultant Mt Lawrie Wilson was quoted as saying: “we are not denying the historic interest in the site …but I know of eight or nine other cable-tram buildings around inner Melbourne which are virtually intact” 7

7 The Age Friday 6 April 1990.

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Redevelopment of the site has been proposed for several years with the current proposal for Bates Smart designed a 38 floor tower to be known as ‘The Capitol’.

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DESCRIPTION:

The South Yarra engine house and car shed is a large complex of mainly brick buildings with Modernist and Classical Revival architectural and design features presenting a commercial frontage to the corner of the two streets with a splayed main entrance surmounted by a large pediment.

The engine house is constructed of brick on a bluestone base which is close to ground level near the corner, but several courses high further down Chapel Street due to the sloping ground. The facades are decorated with cement plaster mouldings, cornices and architraves.

The building was originally quite similar to the Fitzroy engine house on the corner of Nicholson and Gertrude Streets with pointed arch windows and a tower on the corner. The alterations for the bakery, apart from the removal of the tower and reconstruction of the corner on a splay, involved re-cutting of the window openings into tall slits, trimming and squaring the parapet, and stepping in the tops of the pilasters over the arched doorways. All over render and applied decoration in the form of column flutes, geometric frieze. Steel windows complement with further geometric motifs.

While the early images of the building show two large arched doorways on Chapel Street and there are two present today, it would appear that there has been an extension to the building with an additional doorway further down Chapel Street, and the doorway closes to the Toorak road corner has been removed in the reconstruction.. The three hipped roof sections are still evident, with the clerestory and ridge vents partly intact, although some additional projections for air-conditioning and services have been added. The cable pits are believed to survive under the building's concrete floor.

The Chapel Street elevation retains the arched openings from the tram shed and the original three hipped metal truss roof with ridge ventilators runs north south, hidden by a brick parapet. The car shed was designed by architect Frederick Williams and is a utilitarian brick structure with a wide central doorway and narrow windows. The walls enclose a single open space that once included tracks, pits and a turntable for storing, servicing and turning the tram cars and dummies. It is believed that evidence of these structures may still exist under the concrete floor.

CONTEXT:

The engine house and tram shed is located on the corner of Chapel Street and Toorak Road in the busy commercial and retail section of South Yarra. The large Como development is to the east, but the other corners retain similarly scaled development reflecting the early 20th century strip shopping character of the precinct. The presence of modern electric tram tracks in both streets reflects the changes in transport which made the site’s original use redundant.

INTACTNESS:

The buildings are partly intact to the extent of most of their original roofing, and perimeter walls. Modifications from the engine house period involve removal of machinery, filling of machinery pits and alterations of openings and decorative details of facades. Modifications to the bakery period include removal of fittings, refitting of interiors, alteration of roofs in central section and changes to openings in facade, including creation of covered walkway along Toorak Road within building footprint.

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Left to right - MMBW Plan showing extent of engine house and Tram Shed; 1945 Aerial photo showing original roof arrangement (Melbourne University); Aerial View of Engine House, and tram shed, (Near map) showing similar roof appearance apart from central (former office) section

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COMPARISON:

Of the previous 12 engine houses, only five survive relatively intact, (Queensbury Street North Melbourne, Rathdowne Street North Carlton, Gertrude Street Fitzroy, Brunswick Road Brunswick, and High Street Northcote), while two are only facades (City Road Port Melbourne and Johnston Street Fitzroy), one only retains a section of outer wall (Bridge Rd Richmond) and three have been extensively modified (Wellington Street Windsor, cnr. Chapel Street & Toorak Road South Yarra and cnr. St Kilda Road & Bromby Street South Yarra). Two have been completely demolished (Sydney Rd Brunswick, and cnr. Victoria Parade and Brunswick Rd Fitzroy although both may have surviving underfloor archaeological remains.

There were 16 cable car barns on the system, but few survive. Northcote was unusual in having the shed and engine house part of the same structure, with a similar arrangement at Rathdowne Street. There is a separate car shed building at the Toorak Engine house, detached and with its own entrance which appears to be the only relatively intact car barn. The facade of the Richmond car barn has been incorporated into a new building, but the shedding is gone. The Port Melbourne Car Shed of 1890 was a highly structure which contained the sole surviving in situ remnants of tracks of the cable tram system, but was unfortunately demolished about a decade ago for a new development.

The Nicholson Street car workshops were converted to the electric then bus depot, but a pitched shed may still relate to the original structure. The most prominent building apart from the engine houses is the MT&OCo office in Bourke Street.

There is no known visible cable trackwork in Melbourne, although an extensive section of buried track and cable tunnel was recently found in Abbotsford Street. The section of track at the west end of Bourke Street was removed about 15 years ago. Of the other Heritage Inventory listed places where trackwork may survive, the demolished Brunswick Street engine house is one of the more likely to reveal archaeological evidence in the form of engine flywheel and cable tensioner pits and sheave or wheel pits in the roadway.8

Comparable places are summarised in the following table.

Route Opened Via enginehouse Tram shed extant

Spencer Street - Richmond

11/11/ 1885. Spencer from Bourke to Flinders, Flinders to Wellington Parade, Bridge Road to Hawthorn Bridge.

Bridge Road, at Hoddle Street,

demolished for a left turn lane.

Bridge Road Facade only

North Fitzroy 2/10/1886 Collins St Brunswick St, St Georges Rd

NE corner of Victoria Parade and Brunswick Street.

demolished

St Georges Road

demolished

8 Lancelloti, Lucia, & Green, Robert, n.d. “The Fitzroy Cable Tram engine House (And part of the road reserve), 81-89 and part of 93-103 Victoria Parade Fitzroy: the identification of potential Archaeological Remains.” Unpublished report Heritage Victoria; Ellis, A, 2007, Archaeological recording: Cable Tram Tracks Abbotsford Street, North Melbourne. report prepared for Heritage Victoria June 2007.

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Victoria Bridge 22/11/1886 Collins St Victoria Street Shared with North Fitzroy

Victoria St south side near river

demolished

Clifton Hill 10/8/1887 Bourke St Evelyne, Gertrude, Smith, Heidelberg Rd, (later combined with Northcote Cable tram in High St

SE corner of Nicholson Street and Gertrude Street.

extant

Queens Pde Clifton Hill

Demolished Later Tramways Board office extant

Nicholson Street 30/8/1887 Bourke St Nicholson St Shared with Clifton Hill

Nicholson St, near M&MTB depot

demolished

Brunswick 1/10/1887 Elizabeth St Sydney Rd NW corner of Brunswick Road and Black Street.

extant

Sydney Rd at later M&MTB depot

demolished

Johnston Street Bridge (Carlton)

21/12/1887 Lygon Elgin, Johnston north side of Johnston Street, near Brunswick Street.

Facade only (supermarket)

Johnston St near river

demolished

Brighton Road 11/10/1888 St Kilda Rd Brighton Rd St. Kilda Road and Bromby Street

altered

Brighton Road near Chapel St

demolished

Prahran / south Yarra

26/10/1888 Swanston St St.Kilda Rd Domain Rd Park St Toorak Rd Chapel St

NW corner of Toorak Road and Chapel Street.

altered Converted to capital bakery

Adjacent to engine house

extant

North Carlton 9/2/1889 Lygon Elgin Rathdowne Sts SW corner of: Rathdowne Street and Park Street.

Extant altered apartments


extant

Toorak 15/2/1889 Chapel St Shared with Prahran


extant

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North Melbourne 3/3/1890 Elizabeth St Victoria St Errol St, Queensbury St

SW corner Queensberry Street and Abbotsford Street.

Extant altered apartments

Flemington Road

demolished

West Melbourne 18/4/1890 Spencer St Flemington Rd Shared with North Melb

Howard St Possibly extant but altered

South Melbourne 17/6/1890 Clarendon Park, Montague Victoria

City Road, South side near Cecil Street.

Facade only

Victoria Ave Middle Park

Shed demolished office extant

Port Melbourne 20/6/1890 City rd, Bay St Shared with Sth Melb

Beach Road Port Melbourne

demolished

Windsor to St. Kilda Esplanade

17/101891 Wellington, Fitzroy, Esplanade Acland

North side Wellington Street, near Marlton Crescent first major line to close on 25 August 1925.

Possibly extant.

Acland St St.Kilda

Demolished

High St Northcote

18/2/1890 High St Merri Creek to Miller St.

East side High Street In engine house building

extant

STATEMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE

What is significant? Significance Level: State

The South Yarra Cable Tram Engine House and Car Shed comprise a group of large brick buildings with timber framed, corrugated iron clad hipped roofs, which form the former engine house and tram car storage sheds for the Toorak road and Chapel Street cable tram lines, constructed in 1888 by the Melbourne Tramway Trust, and operated by the Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Co. following the conversion of the Toorak Rd and Chapel Street cable lines to electric traction the buildings were subsequently remodelled externally by Architect Harry Norris, for the Capitol Bakeries Pty Ltd in 1935. Further changes occurred in 1985 for the creation of the Fun Factory, an entertainment and hospitality venue.

How is it significant?

The South Yarra Cable Tram Engine House and Car Shed are significant for scientific (technical), historic, social and aesthetic/architectural, reasons at a State level.

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Why is it significant?

The South Yarra Cable Tram Engine House and Car Shed are of historical significance as an important surviving remnant of the once extensive cable tram network which represented the technical, financial and administrative powers of Marvellous Melbourne at the end of the nineteenth century.

The site is significant for its association with the dramatic mid twentieth century expansion of Melbourne's tram network and the preceding role of the site since the construction of the cable tram depot in 1888. It is significant as one of a network of formerly twelve engine houses that were built to power the Melbourne cable tram network, itself internationally significant as the world’s largest single cable tram system, i.e. it was all owned and managed as one system. The San Francisco cable tram network, for example, was made up of eight separately managed systems. What buildings that remain dotted around Melbourne city and suburbs are still the largest surviving collection of intact cable tram buildings left in the world, although the collection is steadily growing smaller.

The Toorak Road engine house and Chapel Street car shed are therefore significant as the only relics of the Toorak line. the site forms an important landmark on the Toorak Road/Chapel Street intersection.

The buildings are also significant as an important example of the work of Harry Norris, a prolific Australian architect who was instrumental in introducing ideas of modernist architecture to Melbourne in the 1920s and 30s, including the distinctive ‘Art Deco’ decorative style which is well represented in this building.

The building is also significant for its associations with the Capitol Bakeries, which in the 1930s developed one of the most up-to-date commercial bakeries in Melbourne, using state-of-the-art mass production methods including automatic dough preparation machines, ovens, convenors, wrapping machines and counters.

The site is of technical significance for its layout and arrangement of facilities, demonstrating the unique aspect of the cable tram system in requiring an engine house roughly midway along the cable routes, and convenient to the two different lines that converged at this corner. The likely survival of archaeological evidence of the original tracks and cable tunnels beneath the building itself and the surrounding pavement would contribute to its technical significance, as so far, only one section of cable track has been identified intact (Abbotsford St North Melbourne). the juxtaposition of the tram shed with the engine house is an unusual feature, represented only at the Rathdowne Street site (although only two bays of the tram shed remain) and the separately operated Northcote cable tram site – where the one building was shared between engine house and tram shed.

The alterations for the Capitol Bakeries, may also assist in understanding the technology employed at this time.

The site is of social significance for the association of the building with a recreational use in recent decades which has contributed to the cultural life of South Yarra, despite the site being seen as somewhat tacky today. Community interest in the history and heritage of the site remains today, with considerable discussion of the pros and cons of conservation versus development, and the merits of the architectural and streetscape values of both the existing building and the proposed replacement.

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It is of aesthetic and architectural significance for the wealth of Modernist and Classical revival design detail, and the unusual combination and massing of forms with its abstracted classical facade unusual for its type. The delicate detailing of Art Deco motifs on the facade, including the stylised name sign across the main entrance parapet are of note, and reflect the advanced state of Harry Norris’s architectural style as applied to industrial buildings.

While there are various isolated elements of the former cable tram system still extant around Melbourne, the gradual loss of various components is severely diminishing the potential to represent the significance of what was once one of the most important public transport systems in the world.

EXTENT:

The classification extends to the entire building with emphasis on the surviving original fabric related both to the 1888 engine house (including brick walls, cast iron columns, roof trusses and supports, and underfloor foundations and pits for cable machinery and tracks) as well as the 1935-7 conversion by Harry Norris including external ‘Art Deco’ decorative motives, windows, and any surviving internal fittings.

EFERENCES:

Davison, Graeme, The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2004.

Malone, Betty, Discovering Prahran, Area 1, Prahran Historical & Arts Society, 1998

Malone, Betty, Discovering Prahran, Area 2, Prahran Historical & Arts Society, 1999

Wilde, Sally The History of Prahran Vol ll 1925-1990, Melbourne University Press, 1993.

Keating, J. Mind the Curve A History of Cable Trams, Melbourne 1970

Taylor, Michael, Conservation analysis: Cable Tram Engine House (Former Cable Tram Engine House (later known as Capitol Bakeries and The Fun Factory) corner Toorak Road & Chapel Street, South Yarra, Vic 3121 : conservation analysis), for The Capitol (Vic.) Melbourne 2010,

Tramway Museum Society of Victoria Ltd, Running Journal, Vol 9 No 6, December 1972

B Malone & L O Slater, Walking Tour of South Yarra Central, Prendergast Publications 1988

Current listings

Heritage Listing NumberRNE/National/CommonwealthVictorian Heritage RegisterNational Trust Classification B6699 LocalMunicipal Heritage Overlay HO128 Stonnington. Cunningham and

Oxford Streets PrecinctHeritage StudyHeritage Inventory H7822-2219 Former South Yarra cable

tram engine house track precinctH7822-2231 Car shedH7822-2259 car shed track precinct

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Hermes database 59115

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south yarra cable tram engine house and tram shed

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