The SHERRY MONOCLE Tour Part 2

Continuing from the last post...here are some photos of the suburb of Northbridge (directly north of the CBD) that were taken too late to be included. But that's okay because it kind of deserves a post on its own. Here are a few neat things I found:

 

 

Here we have an area that celebrates Egyptian culture and the reign of the Pharaohs. This particular fellow was a well-known king in the 14th century BC. He is honoured by the locals by affixing pink googly eyes on him, meaning he can see all. It also assures a brief period of mirth for all who gaze upon his noble and virtuous features.

 

 

 

And a Middle Kingdom-era Egyptian frieze depicts his kingly visage in a high relief style, by the stonemason 'Shisha'. This resplendent mural predates Perth itself. I expect it to be behind clear perspex before too long. The mural bears the legend 'Post no bills – $150 fine – Littering Act 1979'. This message has puzzled hieroglyphics scholars for centuries. (Posting bills counts as littering? Okay then!)

 

 

 

I've been to all three of these places.

 

 Nothing says solitude

Like

A rare box of Fortune Cookies

Basking in the

Thursday morning

Raspberry sun

The SHERRY MONOCLE Tour of Perth's suburbs with a train station

Welcome back to my blog for 2024, friends. It's the blog's 15th year, so I promise to make more than three posts to celebrate this 'landmark' year.

The folks at Transperth decided to make public transport – buses, trains and ferries – free for SmartRider holders from Christmas Eve to most of January. Their spokesperson said it was because they get less customers this time of year, but yours truly reckons it's because they're about to 'transition' to a new credit-card-based payment system and will probably 'roll' it out when the free travel time is over. So I thought I'd milk it make best use of this generous offer to see certain suburbs that people have been crowing about. Do they measure up to the hype?

First up is Hillarys, which I visited on New Year's Day. I used to occasionally come to the boardwalk here as a teenager. The boardwalk is still there, but it has been redeveloped a bit, prompted by a fire that destroyed six of the shops (and apparently part of the boardwalk as well) in June 2003. There's now a water play park there. It's meant to be for kids, but was soon taken over by smarmy teenagers. Luckily, one of them spontaneously combusted while underwater and I managed to catch the moment on camera.

Next up is Fremantle. Freo is a great place. I used to hang out there when I was doing work experience at the Maritime Museum. Lots of historical buildings, but the historical signage is just as interesting. Here's an old painted advertisement for MacRobertson's Freddo Chocolate Frogs, at the entrance to the markets.

And one that was most likely painted in 1983 – the boxing kangaroo emblem holding a can of Swan Lager. "It's a symbol of fascism", quoth one passer-by. Well I never.

Right, next on my travels I hit up the bohemian enclave of Maylands, next stop but one from both 'Baysie' (Bayswater) and 'Basso' (Bassendean) on the Midland line. Despite having no dumb shortened name, it can hold its own in the hipster stakes, although if you're not out to pose on the coffee strip you had better go peddle your Matt Damon aspirations elsewhere, matey. 

Hey, I found this ancient knocker on someone's door that's shaped like a hand. This alone makes the trip to Maylands worth it (although the riverside area is meant to be nice, too. I didn't see it though, it was 40 degrees that day).

 

 

Why is there no one in this coffee shop?

 

Weary from my other pursuits, I now arrive in Bayswater, home of no bay and no water. The best thing here was a hand-painted message outside someone's house:

 

Brilliant. NO FRIVOLITY is going to be my motto for 2024. Also, is that the Ukrainian flag?

There are some interesting patterns and designs on shop-front ceramic tiles if you make the effort to look. I found another one but you'll just make crude references to genitalia so I'm not posting it.

 

Remember Rolf Harris? Up until ten years ago he was a Perth icon, one of the few people to emerge from this city that people could, and did, brag about. Then he was convicted of being an old perv, and his career was over. His TV shows will never again be rebroadcast and his albums line the record bins of op shops. His death in May 2023 at the age of 93 went largely unnoticed by the media. But most people in Perth know that the suburb of Bassendean was where he grew up. Perhaps you'd see him on occasion heading to the Bassendean pharmacy with his wobble board or whatever. There are a few dodgy shop fronts there but I'm afraid that's about it.

And this, whatever this is.

Rockingham next. Here's that print shop I posted last time. No extraneous text, just PRINT. If you're ever in Rockingham just stroll in there and say "One PRINT please". Then get ready to book it as they'll probably come after you with a 12-bore. I also like the idea of that blank space on the wall with nothing in it. Because nothing says "Come to my print shop" like a big white circle.

To the far north of the metro area we go, Joondalup to be precise. To be honest, I didn't see any of it other than the Lakeside shopping centre there, which the train takes you directly to. I did walk around the outside a bit, but the only photo worth posting here was of this big orange ball outside the centre. Ain't it lovely.

And finally we come to Claremont. This was a thriving nightlife area until it got a really bad reputation in 1996 when the Claremont serial killer came to light. One of the women who disappeared was seen in an infamous bit of grainy CCTV footage right outside the Claremont Hotel, shown here. Although at that time, the place was called Club Bay View. Another misnomer. My first high school reunion was held there in 2005. The area is well covered by CCTV now, don't you worry about that.

But hunting grounds of serial killers aside, here's the most interesting thing I discovered about Claremont. Take a look at this building. What would you say it is? A church, perhaps?

 

 

Nope – it's a library! To be fair, it was originally a Methodist church, built in 1922. But after the infamous 'Night of the Long Tinnies' which preceded the bloody and brutal Methodist purges of 1978, the building reopened as a library in January 1979. And they vowed never to speak of the purges again. In fact just forget I just mentioned them.

 

The choir loft at the back, or is it the pulpit, or where the organist used to sit? Church nomenclature is not my strong point. Note the stained glass windows with memorials on them. They are all to people with the same surname. One for a boy who died a hundred years ago aged nearly 2, the other for two men who went to fight in the Great War and never came back.

BONUS ROUND

One last surprise for you. Here's a photo of the so-called Shark Rock, in McDougall Park in Manning, where I used to play as a kid, and is still within walking distance of where I live now. See that rock? It kind of looks like a shark's head. Personally I think it looks more like a dog's head. But whatever. You project whatever you want onto it. I'm not gonna tell you one way or the other. But for all the years I went to this park, I never knew about Shark Rock until last Friday. And apparently people have written reviews of it online. So take the family down to see Shark Rock of an evening. Top night out.

All photos are ©2024 by me, in conjunction with the SHERRY MONOCLE Corporation, in association with Dunderheaded Velocipede Seats and the Utterly Inanely Named Crew.

It does what it says and it says what it does

PRINT. A print shop in Rockingham, Western Australia.

The Terrace, Mooroolbark: Frozen in time

Mooroolbark is a north-eastern suburb of Melbourne which apparently experienced its biggest growth in the 1980s and '90s. It's most known (to an interloper like me at least) for having this weird setup where three roundabouts are squished together. Just look at this abomination:

Seriously, how are you even meant to tackle this?

But that's not the purpose of this post. I came to Mooroolbark to see a shopping centre called The Terrace. Locals all know about it, but I hadn't heard of the place until just over a month ago, when I read on Reddit about it. It's a shopping centre that is not exactly disused or abandoned, but fell out of use years ago, yet continues to keep operating.

After I read the comments about it on Reddit I came across this video by Tim Norman of Stormofilms which was made in May 2019, and which gave me some additional information (and let me see what The Terrace was like in pre-COVID times).

The Terrace was built in 1981, right across the road from Mooroolbark Village (a small row of shops along Brice Avenue), and adjacent to Hookey Park. It opened in 1982, and housed 24 stores such as Treasurway, Replace-A-Film, Microbee (a shop that sold 8-bit computers), and Bojangles Music — very '80s name there — later known as CD Haven.

Here's what The Terrace looks like from the outside. It's got a large car park with 900 spaces, to service commuters using Mooroolbark station across the road, but it's pretty much empty. The surroundings at the front look tidy, with no litter or graffiti, and neatly-trimmed hedges.

That's not to say graffiti has never been a problem at The Terrace — the public toilets inside have been the worst hit over the years. One year they spent $26,000 on cleaning up the toilets alone. Now they keep them locked to keep out vandals and druggies.

You'll notice from that large archway sign that there is a Bendigo Bank on the premises, formerly a Westpac. That sign has covered up many smaller signs which can be seen in Tim Norman's video, which listed each business found inside. Coming up the ramp, you find yourself at the sliding doors of the main entrance.

Unlike most suburban shopping centres, The Terrace has not been refurbished or renovated at all since it was built (with the possible exception of the childcare centre, which seemed tacked-on to the side after the fact). As a result, the interior decor is just as it was back in 1982, with the patterned light-brown lino untouched, as well as the ceilings. The fluorescent-tube lights were on, despite no one being around, and a lot of light actually gets in thanks to the large skylight which you can see above. 

Apparently there are a number of poems written by students stuck to the window of the centre kiosk, which are "post-apocalyptically depressing", according to one Reddit user.

On the right in the above photo is Stay Tuned Electronics, which still has CRT television sets and record players on its shelves. Most of these shops are shuttered up and only 12 of them are open — in fact none of them are currently open because Melbourne is under lockdown.

The Terrace was a busy place once. Then-PM Bob Hawke showed up there in 1987 for some event, but apparently its busiest day was when childrens' TV character Humphrey B. Bear appeared live there. (Poor old Bob. Having to settle for being The Terrace's second-biggest guest star to a man in a sweaty costume made of recycled bathmats.) Anyway, in its heyday The Terrace hosted a number of events, footy players giving handballing lessons to kids, and even a food festival in recent years, even with some of the shops empty.

I am not sure when exactly The Terrace began to decline, but it was probably well on its way by 2017 when its supermarket closed. There was also once a garden centre there. The entrance to it was a large roller door, which you can see on the left in the photo below. Mikayla van Loon reported in the Lilydale Star Mail of July 20, 2021 that Chirnside Park shopping centre, which offered more variety, as well as heating and air-conditioning (which The Terrace apparently doesn't have?), is one of the reasons The Terrace fell behind. A larger shopping centre, Eastland, isn't too far away either.

It seems The Terrace's shop owners couldn't compete with the customers heading over to Chirnside Park, so they either relocated there or closed down.

The next photo is the loading bay for the supermarket, which as you can see was once called KFL. There was a bit of graffiti here, but no more than your typical Melbourne bus stop, really. One tag said "Oops!" which I found rather amusing (though infantile).

Next you see here Terry's Meats, the butcher on the corner. It closed in May 2019, not long after Tim Norman filmed his video. The only reason I'm mentioning it is because of the "2 Dollar" sign you see here — another relic of the past. This isn't the only piece of old signage still visible: if you look closely you can still make out where the "Treasurway" used to be on the front brickwork.

With Melbourne's property market being the way it is, why hasn't this unused retail space been taken over by developers? Why has this shopping centre stood largely untouched since the day it was made? I don't know anything about how strata title works, but from what I understand, Coles supermarkets owns a number of shops in the centre (the Lilydale Star Mail says it is "a couple"), and have prevented any redevelopments from taking place. Otherwise their rivals Woolworths would move in to challenge the supremacy of the Coles across the road from The Terrace.

After the supermarket there (which at the time was an IGA) closed down in May 2017 — a significant loss for the ailing Terrace, as its major drawcard was no longer there — Woolworths made an $11 million bid to redevelop the site, which was then stymied by a competitor. I wonder who that could have been? 

This wasn't the only bid Woolworths has made; in fact they have made several since 2016. But it has been difficult to get everyone on board, since each shop is individually owned. And apparently every time Woolies makes such a bid, the price goes up, so they seem to have got fed up with the idea.

So, as long as Coles holds ownership, no redevelopment can ever take place. And so The Terrace still stands there. And stands there.

But who knows? Right at this moment the Mooroolbark train station is being rebuilt as a result of Victoria's level crossing removal project, so when the new station is built, perhaps the topic of redeveloping The Terrace site will be brought up.

Until then, it will remain frozen in time.

Unusual Street Names In England

England has the best street names. Don't believe me? Well, take a look at the photographic evidence of actual street name signs from all over that green and ribald land. I didn't make any of them up. Honest.

All Alone (Bradford, West Yorkshire)
It seems this street was named after a house built there in the 18th century. Dr. Samuel Ellis built a house in 1773 at the end of a narrow country lane on Idle Moor. The solitary house was aptly named All Alone. Now, that house and three others which were added to it over the years are surrounded by new development, and although that house no longer stands in isolation, the name has endured. The road leading to it is still signed as ‘All Alone Road, Leading To All Alone’. 

 

Barefoot Street (Ripon, North Yorkshire)
The name was thought to be related to barefooted monks, but in fact, it is nothing to do with being barefoot at all. ‘Barefoot’ in this case is a corruption of ‘berford’, meaning ‘barley ford’, so the place once had agricultural roots. Similar to how the London district of Catford is a contraction of ‘cattle ford’, and nothing to do with cats. According to Ben Elton, anyway. 

 

Barf Close (Mickleover, Derbyshire)
Out of all the streets in this list, this is the only one I have personally been to! On a trip to England in December 1996, I spotted the street when being driven through Mickleover and set out later on a trek through the snow to find it, just to take a photo of the sign (not the photo shown here). But after all that, I couldn’t find any explanation for the name. ‘Close’ means ‘field’, but ‘Barf’ I suspect is not the slang term for ‘vomit’. I suspect it was some poor schmoe's name.

 

Bell End (Rowley Regis, West Midlands)
The street was apparently named after a local mine, but when the rudeness of the name became apparent, house prices in the street plummeted, kids who lived in the street started getting bullied, and residents started getting prank phone calls. In January 2018 a name change was proposed, but was met with opposition. In a similar case, there is a U-shaped street in Edinburgh called Bellenden Gardens, which basically looks like a giant phallus. Nice one. 

 

 

 

Bow Wow (South Cerney, Gloucestershire)
This country lane in the Cotswolds has no houses along it, so nobody can claim it as a street address, and isn’t even a paved road — it’s just a narrow walking path winding through the countryside. Still, some town planner out there decided it needed a name, and gave it a pretty strange one. Perhaps it was something to do with walking your dog along here, who knows. But quaint street names are common in the village of South Cerney, with Upper Up and The Langet being two other examples. 

 

 

Butthole Lane (Shepshed, Leicestershire)
This brilliant ‘rudely-named’ street is actually quite innocuous. ‘Butt’ is an Old English word for ‘target’, and it is thought medieval archers once practiced shooting at targets in the place where this lane now is. Apparently the residents are quite proud of the name. Good for them! 

 

Butt Hole Road (Conisborough, Doncaster, South Yorkshire)
The same cannot be said for this road, however. The local council has no record of how it got its name, but it is thought to be named for a communal water butt (‘butt’ in this context meaning a large cask). After a photo of the street sign was spread around online, people began coming to Conisborough to have their photo taken with their pants down next to it — and the sign itself was frequently stolen. Buses began arriving with American tourists. People are kinda dumb, aren't they? Unlike the residents of Butthole Lane, the people who lived on Butt Hole Road had enough, and asked the council to change the name. In 2009, the street was renamed Archers Way. 

 

Crotch Crescent (Marston, Oxfordshire)
When I first heard about this street name I assumed ‘crotch’ had another meaning centuries ago. Apparently in the 16th century it was a variant of ‘crutch’. Big deal. But it’s not a rude name at all — the street was named after William Crotch (1775–1847), Professor of Music at Oxford University. 

 

Cup And Saucer (Cropredy, Oxfordshire)
This street is named after a medieval preaching cross near the Cropredy village green. It’s still there, although by now extremely weathered, and locals say it looks like a cup and saucer — hence the street’s name. 

 

Cock-A-Dobby (Sandhurst, Berkshire)
A highly unique name, but I found nothing on this one, including its origin and what it actually means. Too bad. I’m guessing a little kid named it. 

 

Dumb Woman’s Lane (Udimore, Rye, East Sussex)
This highly unusual street name has two likely theories as to how it came about. One is that the lane was used by smugglers from the 14th to 19th centuries, and some woman who ratted on them for hiding contraband in the countryside had her tongue cut out by the smugglers to keep her quiet. Rye was a well-known haven for sailors and smugglers alike. It isn’t anymore – due to the changing coastline, Rye is now about two miles from the sea. The other theory is a bit less grim; it’s that a mute woman who sold herbal remedies lived there. Far from being a seedy sidestreet, Dumb Woman’s Lane is in an area where house prices are high. Spike Milligan lived on the narrow and winding country lane until his death in 2002.

Fanny Hands Lane (Ludford, Lincolnshire)
I’m sure this one has made a few people snigger, but this is another street named after a real person. In the early 19th century, landowner John Hands named the street after his wife, Frances ‘Fanny’ Hands. 

 

Ha-Ha Road (Woolwich, London)
This name comes not from a term for laughter but rather one for a landscape design element. A ha-ha is a feature where a retaining wall preserves the view, and is designed to be invisible, by having a downward slope towards its base. This design feature is of French origin, and there is a town in Quebec called Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! (Yes, that’s how it’s spelled.) Ha-Ha Road in London runs alongside the Royal Artillery Barracks. 

 

Pissing Alley (London)
There were actually several lanes in medieval London with this name, and I don’t think I need to spell out how they got them. One of them was renamed Passing Alley; another survived the Great Fire of London
in 1666, was renamed Little Friday Street in 1848, and five years later it became part of Cannon Street. It was labelled as ‘Pi∫∫ing Lane’ on the Civitas Londinium, the first proper map of London, first produced in 1561 and updated around 1633. 

 

Er, I dunno. Any ideas?

Sluts Hole Lane (Besthorpe, Norfolk)
This somewhat controversial name was thought to be a spelling mistake by census-takers in the late Victorian era — old maps show it as being called Slutch Hole Lane, with ‘slutch’ being an old word meaning ‘slushy’ or ‘muddy’. If it was a spelling mistake, it seems most of the residents weren’t bothered to rectify it; a residents’ petition to change the name in 1999 was opposed. 

An enduring spelling error reminds me of Rednaxela Terrace, a street in the Midlevels district of Hong Kong. It was supposed to be named after a landowner named Mr. Alexander, but since the Chinese characters on the bilingual street signs were written right to left back then, they did the same with the English name — so ‘Alexander’ got spelled backwards. 

 

Snappersnipes (Westbury, Wiltshire)
There seems to be no explanation for the name of this narrow lane, that serves as a cut-through between two residential streets. The Wiltshire Council records that it was previously called Snapperty Snipes Lane (a name right out of an Enid Blyton story), and there could be a connection with marshland, as the word ‘snape’ means marshy ground. There is the source of a brook below Snappersnipes, so it could be a reference to the track that led from marshy ground to drier ground. It slopes uphill, so this is quite plausible. 

 

 

Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate (York, North Yorkshire)
A tiny street with a long and unusual name. Lots of streets have names ending in ‘gate’, which is a corruption of the Norse word ‘gatta’ meaning ‘street’. What about the other part? It’s said to mean ‘Neither one thing nor the other’, but it could be derived from a phrase dating back to 1505, ‘Whitnourwhatnourgate’, meaning ‘What a street’. 

 

 

Titty-Ho (Raunds, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire)
Benny Hill himself couldn’t have done better. Sadly, he didn’t name this street, and it’s unknown who did, and why. The name has no known history. Best I can come up with is it’s something to do with birdwatching. The website needaproperty.com conducted a survey that said properties on streets with rude names were expected to sell less than usual, but the survey was proven irrelevant as some people like risqué-sounding names! Would you want to tell people you live on Titty-Ho?
(Interestingly enough for Benny Hill though, there is a street named after him — Benny Hill Close in Eastleigh, Hampshire, where he spent his teenage years.

 

Turkey Cock Lane (Stanway, Colchester, Essex)
It sounds rude, but a turkey cock is just a male turkey. I wonder if there’s a Turkey Hen Lane nearby to necessitate the gender distinction (no).  

 

Gropec*** Lane (various locations)
The ultimate offensive street name, and the compound word means exactly what you think it
does; those two words didn’t have another early meaning. The name, an obvious allusion to sexual activity, was given because medieval street names reflected their function; prostitution went on in certain streets, and it was regulated rather than censured. In 1393 authorities restricted prostitutes to a single street, Cokkes Lane, now known as Cock Lane.

There were several instances of this name in London alone, but also in Bristol, York, Shrewsbury, Newcastle, Worcester, Hereford and Oxford. Most of them were in the busy part of towns (close to the main market or high street), and at least one (in Banbury, first recorded in 1333) seems to have been an important thoroughfare (but had been renamed Parsons Lane by 1410).

The first appearance of the name was around the year 1230, but they were all eventually bowdlerized (Grape Lane is one example), with the final one (in Shrewsbury) disappearing in 1561. The one in Oxford was renamed Magpie Lane.

Brunswick

Following on from yesterday's post about the Homecooked Comics Mini-Mart, I thought I'd post a selection of photos from the streets (Sydney Rd and Victoria St, to be precise) of Brunswick. I've lived in Melbourne for 12 years now, and this was the first time I had been to Brunswick. So, what did we find?

Well, firstly and quite surprisingly, the suburb of Brunswick has a 'sister city' relationship with the Greek city of Sparta, and one of Brunswick's streets bears its name. The ancient Spartan king Leonidas is commemorated in statue here. I had to slightly move the floral wreath someone had placed, so I could get the plaque in shot.

Two views of a hand-painted signal box on the street corner – a bit of street art done by primary school kids. You can make out the name 'St. Joseph's' and the initials of what I assume are the contributors.

I like photographing old, faded hand-painted signage, and this 'Nestlé's Chocolate' above a shop is a fine example.

Near the Blyth St intersection, a shop called 'Mary Eats Cake'. I'm sure she does. 

A closeup of a shop front's decorative tiles, and what look like two bullet holes. I'm sure they're not though.

Putting stickers on things is much more preferable to graffiti, kids.

This was in a shop window. Interesting.

More of the same tiles further down the road. Perhaps these shop fronts were all tiled at the same time. 'NO POSTERS' warns a handwritten sticker. Better do as it says.

Last of all, a nice lighting display in a shop selling...I forget now. Perhaps Middle Eastern craft items.

One more thing about Brunswick: for some reason it was the suburb whose name was chosen to be the largest on the fabric design that now graces some of Melbourne's train seats. Why? Us mere mortals shall never know.