The Art Nouveau Upper Storey of the Brown and Holmes Building - Murray Street, Colac
Many things have changed along the busy Colac shopping strip that runs the length of Murray Street. Shops have come and gone, and each time the shop front it inhabits is redecorated. Yet if you look above a shop's awning, you will often find the original building's upper floors and parapets, still very much intact.
Brown and Holmes was a publishing business that traded in Colac from the late Nineteenth Century. By the Twentieth Century, Brown and Holmes was successful enough to build this impressive and stylish Art Nouveau building. Built of red brick, the Brown and Holmes building uses the material to great effect in a feature panel between the windows of the upper storey. The remaining facade has been stuccoed. However what is perhaps the most striking feature of this building are its stylish keyhole windows, which are most unusual and striking.
Located approximately 150 kilometres to the south-west of Melbourne, past Geelong is the small Western District city of Colac. The area was originally settled by Europeans in 1837 by pastoralist Hugh Murray. A small community sprung up on the southern shore of a large lake amid the volcanic plains. The community was proclaimed a town, Lake Colac, in 1848, named after the lake upon which it perches. The post office opened in 1848 as Lake Colac and was renamed Colac in 1854 when the city changed its name. The township grew over the years, its wealth generated by the booming grazing industries of the large estates of the Western District and the dairy industry that accompanied it. Colac has a long high street shopping precinct, several churches, botanic gardens, a Masonic hall and a smattering of large properties within its boundaries, showing the conspicuous wealth of the city. Today Colac is still a commercial centre for the agricultural district that surrounds it with a population of around 10,000 people. Although not strictly a tourist town, Colac has many beautiful surviving historical buildings or interest, tree lined streets. Colac is known as “the Gateway to the Otways” (a reference to the Otway Ranges and surrounding forest area that is located just to the south of the town).
The Art Nouveau Upper Storey of the Brown and Holmes Building - Murray Street, Colac
Many things have changed along the busy Colac shopping strip that runs the length of Murray Street. Shops have come and gone, and each time the shop front it inhabits is redecorated. Yet if you look above a shop's awning, you will often find the original building's upper floors and parapets, still very much intact.
Brown and Holmes was a publishing business that traded in Colac from the late Nineteenth Century. By the Twentieth Century, Brown and Holmes was successful enough to build this impressive and stylish Art Nouveau building. Built of red brick, the Brown and Holmes building uses the material to great effect in a feature panel between the windows of the upper storey. The remaining facade has been stuccoed. However what is perhaps the most striking feature of this building are its stylish keyhole windows, which are most unusual and striking.
Located approximately 150 kilometres to the south-west of Melbourne, past Geelong is the small Western District city of Colac. The area was originally settled by Europeans in 1837 by pastoralist Hugh Murray. A small community sprung up on the southern shore of a large lake amid the volcanic plains. The community was proclaimed a town, Lake Colac, in 1848, named after the lake upon which it perches. The post office opened in 1848 as Lake Colac and was renamed Colac in 1854 when the city changed its name. The township grew over the years, its wealth generated by the booming grazing industries of the large estates of the Western District and the dairy industry that accompanied it. Colac has a long high street shopping precinct, several churches, botanic gardens, a Masonic hall and a smattering of large properties within its boundaries, showing the conspicuous wealth of the city. Today Colac is still a commercial centre for the agricultural district that surrounds it with a population of around 10,000 people. Although not strictly a tourist town, Colac has many beautiful surviving historical buildings or interest, tree lined streets. Colac is known as “the Gateway to the Otways” (a reference to the Otway Ranges and surrounding forest area that is located just to the south of the town).