The Cotton Mill, 60 Curtain Street, North Carlton

The two-storey brick building opposite Curtain Square bears the name "Moton Moss Manufacturing" and the date of 1870. Moton Moss was the original crown land owner, in 1870, of the allotment on the corner of Canning and Freeman (later Curtain) Streets, North Carlton. Moss was a merchant by trade and he had extensive land holdings in Carlton and elsewhere in Victoria. He sold the corner allotment within six months of purchase and he died in 1879, fourteen years before the factory was built. In 1893, the factory and adjoining house at 333 Canning Street were built by Ralph Besant for Charles Edgley, a shoe manufacturer. Edgley lived in the corner house and conducted his shoe business at the factory. Other businesses followed – upholsterer, cabinetmaker, tie & scarf manufacturer and bootmaker. Elite Pleaters, a pleated skirt manufacturer, was the longest running occupant of the building from the 1930s through to the 1970s. The most famous owner/occupier of the converted factory was Greg Ham (1953-2012), musician and member of the pop group Men at Work. The building is named "The Cotton Mill", but the popular notion that it was originally a cotton mill, built in the 1870s, is not supported by evidence.

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