An interesting talk about some of the old buildings of Goulburn in Market and Montague Streets is being held on Monday, February 18.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Bill Young will be giving the talk on behalf of the Goulburn and District Historical and Genealogical Society.
Heather West from the group said some buildings are still standing, with a change of usage.
"Unfortunately, others have been demolished to make way for supposed 'progress," she said.
"The photos will promote discussions on the businesses, which once occupied these central locations in the city.
"The variety of architectural styles also give a hint to the era of construction."
Mrs West said Bill Young has collected many photos of Goulburn and is keen to share his interest in the buildings and their history.
The talk
Mr Young gave a rough itinerary of the buildings he would be covering in the talk, which will be accompanied by a Powerpoint presentation.
"We will be starting off behind the Courthouse, leading up to the Roses Café and Mechanics Institute," he said.
"Then I will discuss the transformation of the Dimmeys Building and the demolition of some of it, which used to be the old Rogers building.
"They had a four-storey and three-storey building in Montague St, but nothing of these buildings remain.
"They were where the entrance to Cartwright Square currently is.
"Then I will be discussing a photo of a street scene that must have been taken from the steeple of the St Saviour’s Cathedral.
"I will work my way down Montague Street from there, past the old fire station building to Auburn St."
He said he would then start at the bottom of Market Street and work upwards.
"I will discuss the buildings that used to be on the site where the Goulburn Soldiers Club currently is," he said.
"This will pre-date even the former Goulburn Hotel on that site."
This was a notorious watering hole where bushranger Fred Lowry was shot dead and strung along the bar for all to admire until his body was taken away.
Mr Young will discuss the transformation of the buildings in Market Street that lead up to Auburn St, including the Goulburn Club, which was once the home to the world famous Dr Waugh's Baking Powder, before it became a gentleman's club in the 1890's.
He will also discuss the famous 1843 Bull and Woodward Arch and the Cobb n Co Coach business that was carried out from behind the laneway here.
Then he will discuss the history of the former glorious Knowlman's building (established 1888), which used to be on the corner where the Harvest Cafe is now, until it was burned down in 1999 by arsonists.
The city went into mourning for an old favourite building, full of fond memories. Two teenagers were subsequently charged over the blaze.
"A lot of people knew that as Knowlman’s Corner and the slogan on the awning read - the right store on the wrong corner," he said.
"Prior to that it was Stillman and Lanes and then Lanes and then Knowlmans – they were all similar stores."
Bill Young
Mr Young is a retired mechanic, who said he never really gave much of a thought about history before he realised he had amassed so many photos of old buildings in the Goulburn district.
"When we first came to Goulburn in 1982, I was a mechanic," he said.
"I had previously been to Goulburn during my apprenticeship days though and had raced motorbikes at Boxers Creek.
"But I was never interested in history as such, yet if I saw an old photo of a place, I was always captured by it and I tried to procure them.
"So I wound up with about a few hundred old photos at one stage and then someone asked me to put together a DVD of them for Goulburn’s 150th celebrations.
"I did that but it never saw the light of day - as in a public showing - due to copyright issues - because I had so many photos I could not remember where some of them had come from.
"In the process of showing these photos to people I knew, more old photos came out of the woodwork to me and I could credit those ones because I knew where they came from.
"So I started getting absorbed in the history of researching them and scanning and digitizing them, until I realised recently I had a collection of over a thousand of them."
"Sometimes you wonder why you start doing something, especially when you realise you have undertaken such a massive task."
Bill Young
He has a lot of old plate negatives in his collection as well.
"Now I am culling a lot and I am down to about 1200 photos.
"Sometimes you wonder why you start doing something, especially when you realise you have undertaken such a massive task - and it is to archive them," he said.
"I have mostly concentrated on photos from Goulburn, but I also have some on the Towrang Stockade and old houses on properties such as Inverolochy.
"I have so many it might be an ongoing series of talks."
He said this talk follows on from a previous talk he gave at the Lady Belmore Club.
The talk is open to all members of the public and it is free.
The talk will be held at the Goulburn Soldiers Club from 6pm to 7pm on Monday, February 18.
- To RSVP, email historygoulburn.events@gmail.com with the subject line - Old Photos