James Gray: One wonders why the photographer took these three very mundane photographs and what sale he anticipated getting. However, 50 or more years later, they are of interest as showing the changes that have taken place. Looking up St John’s Road, towards the Church in 1912. Built in the spacious Victorian days, the road cannot be found in any street directories until the 1900s. They were the stables for the mansions of Adelaide Crescent, Palmeira Square and First Avenue. Coachmen and grooms lived over the stables. In one of the buildings on the left, rings to which the horses were tethered can still be seen in the walls, now in 1975.
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2018: St John’s Church still dominates the skyline. The man on the left of the 1911-12 picture seems to be pushing a motor car of the period back into a garage so perhaps the Edwardian photographer was capturing the change of use from stables to garages. The former stables are part of the Brunswick Town Conservation Area and, although they are now a mix of car body repair shops, printworks, an architect’s offices and private dwellings, they still retain many original features such as double stable doors. The pavements are now used for car parking and the road has a painted line to delineate pedestrian access. There is no sign of the rings where horses were tethered which James Gray saw in 1975. The telegraph pole on the right of the original image has gone. (Photographer: Alison Minns)