St Kilda Road and
Port Phillip Bay (seen from top of the
Shrine of Remembrance) In the 1830s the road leading south out of
Melbourne towards
St Kilda, and on to
Brighton, was known variously as the St Kilda Road, the Brighton Road, and Baxter's Track, after Melbourne's first postmaster, Captain Baxter. The area immediately south of the river was low lying swampy land, which remained mostly vacant crown land for much of the 19th century, with a rise to the east, which the road skirted around, to head south-south east in a straight line towards Brighton. The first sale of Crown lands in the seaside locality of St Kilda, connected to St Kilda Road via Fitzroy Street, took place on 7 December 1842. In 1850, a government-built sandstone bridge,
Princes Bridge, replaced the wooden bridge. The bridge was designed by David Lennox, a Scottish-trained engineer who had arrived in Melbourne from New South Wales in 1844. The opening of the bridge was a major occasion, with Superintendent
Charles La Trobe and
Georgiana McCrae in attendance. The Home existed until 1902 when it was relocated, and the site became part of the
Kings Domain gardens, established in 1854. Between the city and what is now St Kilda Junction, sites were granted to various institutions, or remained government reserves in the 1850s and 60s. In 1854 the Wesleyan
Methodist Church was offered fon the road near the junction, but the foundation stone of
Wesley College was not laid until 4 January 1865, and the school was officially opened on 11 January 1866. Much closer to the city, in 1855 the government granted on St Kilda Road to the
Anglican Church on which
Melbourne Grammar School was built. The foundation stone was laid on 30 July 1856 and the school was officially opened on 7 April 1858. During the early 1850s, St Kilda Road was the scene of one of the most notorious hold-ups by armed bandits and
bushrangers (though this actually
took place on what is now known as Brighton Road further south).
Victoria Barracks were built between 1856 and 1872. By the 1860s, St Kilda had developed as a desirable seaside suburb, dotted with large houses and grand terraces. St Kilda Road was a main arterial connecting it with Melbourne, and was planned as a wide European-style
boulevard to accommodate horse-drawn traffic. The road was properly surfaced for the first time in 1859, and planted with street trees in the 1860s. In 1859 lots along the east side were alienated from government land for building lots, opposition was somewhat mollified by the generous 100 ft frontages and the requirement for substantial homes to be built rather than terraces. Two years later, on the north side of Wesley, the
Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind opened in buildings very similar in style to the Deaf Institute, designed by the same architects.
The Alfred Hospital was established in 1871 on a site fronting Commercial Road, with a boundary to St Kilda Road, later carved off. In 1877, Cooper and Bailey's Great American International Circus set up on the site of the present
Arts Centre. The present
Princes Bridge was built in 1888 to replace the 1850 structure, and
cable trams commenced running from Swanston Street over the bridge along St Kilda Road to
Toorak and St Kilda. At this time, the
elm trees were planted along the road. The Prince Henry's Hospital (originally called the Melbourne Homoeopathic Hospital) was opened in St Kilda Road in 1885, and existed until 1991. Until the end of the 19th century, the Yarra River was subject to regular flooding. A new channel for the Yarra River was dug from 1896 to 1900 to straighten and widen the river. The spoil was used to fill the swampy lagoons and brickmakers pits and raise the height of the river bank where
Alexandra Gardens now stands. The Gardens were opened in 1901. on St Kilda Road. The road passes along the southern edge of the
Shrine of Remembrance then diagonally to the right of the frame In 1901 the Arts Centre site became home to a permanent circus, Olympia, built by the Fitzgerald Brothers' Circus. In 1904, the area of the site not occupied by Fitzgerald's was developed as a fashionable meeting place called Prince's Court. This area featured a Japanese Tea House, open-air theatre, miniature train, water chute and a 15-member military band. In 1907, Wirth Brother's Circus took over the entire site from Fitzgerald's and remained there for the next 50 years. By 1911 they had built a new circus Hippodrome and a roller skating rink, and had leased the original Olympia as a cinema. During
World War I some of the buildings were used as nursing homes for soldiers and nurses. During the 1920s a new Green Mill Dance Hall replaced the Jazz Pavilion and Olympia Dancing Palace. In the late 1960s, the Main Roads Board compulsorily acquired much of the land around
St Kilda Junction and demolished many of the buildings including the landmark Junction Hotel in order to completely rebuild the junction.
Queens Road was connected to
Dandenong Road via an underpass.The west side of High Street (from the junction to Carlisle Street) was also acquired and demolished to increase it to the approximate width of St Kilda Road, and renamed St Kilda Road, effectively extending it to Carlisle Street. Construction of the Arts Centre began in 1973 following some delays. The complex opened in stages, with Hamer Hall opening in 1982, and the Theatres Building opening in 1984. The redevelopment of the
Southbank precinct along the Yarra River commenced in 1990 with the construction of the Southbank Promenade. In the early 1980s, heritage controls protected the few surviving mansions and notable flats, and a 60m height limit was introduced, bringing uniformity to the street during another boom in office construction. On 13 February 2017 St Kilda Rd was included on Australia’s National Heritage List. In June 2017, a small number of the elm trees lining St. Kilda Road were cut down for the Melbourne Metro Rail Tunnel project. ==Today==