Gainsborough Charles Parsons Building on Brunswick Road

First it was the bricks that I liked about this building. Then it was the Art Deco features above the main entrance and the back entrance, although I am not sure how old the building actually is. It spans a long stretch along Brunswick Road, and I walk past it every time I go to Nicholson Street. However, it will not be there for much longer.

Update on Countryman Clothing building: stained glass windows

The back and roof have gone, but this wonderful little building continues to be a gem – just look at the lovely sight that has come about due to the combination of demolition and street art. The midday autumn sun shining through these windows is delightful.

Here is the view from the back of the building. Through the destruction, we can still see the lovely symmetry of the front entrance and side windows.

Countryman Clothing building Brunswick Road

When I arrived home late one afternoon, Vince said: “Do you know that the back of the Countryman’s building has disappeared?”  I had to rush down and see. I knew that the building had recently been up for sale but I did not know whether it had sold. My dream of a museum of manufacture on this site had obviously not occurred to anyone else. What a pity.

So I went down and snapped a few photos. Then my day just got better:

Aladdin's Cave

It is rare enough nowadays to find an Alcoa Cash for Cans centre. Until we get container deposit legislation, it is only the very motivated who try to make a few dollars from recycling cans. However such a rare place is to be found along Brunswick Road, just a few doors from where the great Sydney Road begins. And when I went there, I found what looked like a treasure trove.

Brunswick Road

A man is fixing up his house. The dimensions of the dwelling seem to be about three metres across and from what I can see of the roof line, not much more deep. It is almost like an oversized cubby house. He is stripping paint on the front porch, and the wooden plank juts out over the pavement. The front door is less than a metre away from the black bitumen of the footpath. Not far away, however, behind the row of houses that front onto Brunswick road, there is a large slate roof, and two tall palm trees. I have not been able to find an alley way which leads to this house. I am curious about what it looks like. It must be one of the oldest dwellings around here, and all the other jumble of buildings have grown up around it.

The laneways between Brunswick Road and the linear park which forms the southern boundary of the City of Moreland, exist in a dimension of their own. Unlike the long back lanes of Carlton, where the view is channelled onto the city skyscrapers in the distance, these small lanes lead you past a series of gates, doors and fences in unexpected twists and turns. A morning glory creeper covers an old chimney. A fig tree breaks through palings and a passionfruit vine trails over a wall. Walking down the bluestone cobbles, turning the corner, I get the same feeling as in the medieval alleys of Prague. Except that all of a sudden you come across a weatherboard house that, were it in the Australian bush, would scream “rural poverty”. But it is probably worth a small fortune.