Curious objects, signs, tiny details, records and overlooked city rituals. 13 discoveries, each with sources and a clear explanation of its record.
The Fairies’ Tree
Sculptor Ola Cohn made an intricate fairy world from one of the garden’s original red gums. Look for it on a walk through the park.
Presgrave Place
The city’s street-art walk singles out this small lane for framed photographs, posters, stickers and found-material pieces.
Gog and Magog at Royal Arcade
Look up above the arcade shops to find the figures flanking Gaunt’s Clock. Their hourly performance makes an ordinary shopping passage a peculiar timekeeping stop.
Williamstown Timeball Tower
Once a lighthouse, the Williamstown tower later used a falling ball to signal time to ships. Hobsons Bay Council identifies only three other working towers beyond Williamstown and Greenwich.
Federation Bells
A set of outdoor bells whose sound design is the unusual feature: the city identifies them as the world’s first harmonic bells.
Coop’s Shot Tower
Melbourne Central describes this industrial tower as one of three surviving nineteenth-century shot towers in Australia.
Spotswood Pumping Station
Museums Victoria identifies the station as a key part of Melbourne’s first centralised sewerage system.
Melbourne Zoo’s giant tortoises
Zoos Victoria identifies its Aldabra giant tortoises as Melbourne Zoo’s oldest residents.
Fitzroy Gardens Model Tudor Village
A miniature village sent from England as thanks for wartime food parcels.
Elvis Presley Memorial
The city guide records a fan-club memorial unveiled by Johnny O’Keefe.
Grainger Museum
A museum shaped around composer Percy Grainger’s own life, which opened in December 1938.
Cooks’ Cottage
Visit Victoria records the cottage’s construction in Yorkshire and relocation to Melbourne in 1934.
Herring Island
Parks Victoria records that a new river channel cut through a former quarry created this island.